If you are not familiar with gym terminology then entering a fitness club can be like moving to a new country. Buns of steel and pumping iron is just the beginning, it is not uncommon to hear someone in a fitness club say “I did strip sets on my wheels today…” Get ready for an introduction to common gym jargon.

When you are in a gym you will hear people talking about their routines. Some people may do a whole body routine or a split routine. A whole body routine is when a person does an exercise for each major muscle group each time that they workout. A split routine is when a person splits the muscle groups that they perform each workout into two or more days. This may consist of performing legs, shoulders and abdominals on one day and chest, back, and arms on the other day. Generally split routines are more advanced than whole body programs, some people even do a four day split which means breaking their body parts up into four different workouts.

It is important to understand the difference between sets and reps. Sets refer to how many times you perform an exercise. Repetitions refer to how many times you perform a movement within each set. For instance, you may hear someone say that they are performing 3 sets of 12 repetitions on an exercise.

To take it one step further, a “superset” is when you perform two sets back to back with no rest in between. A superset can isolate the same muscle or opposing muscles. For instance, if you superset your legs by performing leg press and lunges you would really put your legs to the test because the exercises target the same muscles. You could also perform a superset on opposing muscle groups such as your biceps and triceps by performing barbell curls and tricep pushdowns. This way you still do not rest between your sets but you alternate exercises between the two muscle groups. Be careful when starting out with supersets, if you do too much too soon you will be hurtin’ for certain.

A “strip set” is also an intense method of training. With this method you do as many repetitions as you can with a challenging weight and when you fatigue, instead of stopping, you lower the weight and then return to the exercise to do as many more repetitions as you can. This is a very intense method of training and can improve your isolated muscle endurance. When performing strip sets a lot of blood is forced into the working muscles and sometimes they feel as if they will burst. This is referred to as being “pumped up” because the muscles are pumped full of blood.

If you hear someone referring to training their wheels they are usually referring to their leg training. If someone says that they are training their guns or pythons they are usually referring to training their arms. If someone mentions to you that you are looking “ripped” do not get upset, it usually means that you are looking great, so keep it up!

Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer in Vancouver. For further information call his office at 604-420-7800.