Training Terminology: One-on-One, Semi-Private, and Group Training

There are a few common structures for training.

One-on-one Training - The typical personal training model is one-on-one training - one client, one trainer. The advantage to this for the client is personal attention. The disadvantage is you lack a support group or driving competitive group like in group or semi-private training. It is also generally more expensive than group or semi-private training. For the trainer, the advantage is having only one client to concentrate on, but financially it's much less lucrative than a larger number of clients at even a steep discount.

Small-Group Training and semi-private training - An increasingly common alternative is small-group training, also known as semi-private training. In this model, there is one trainer but multiple clients. All of the clients may do the same workout (group training), or they may do different workouts (semi-private training). The advantage for the client is that this is cheaper, generally, than private training. You also get a group of people to act as a support group and to drive you to succeed. Even if your workout is entirely solo and unrelated to the others, you can still feed off their successes and push yourself to perform in front of them. The disadvantage is the lack of attention - the trainer will need to rotate through the groups, so the client can't get his or her undivided attention. The advantage for the trainer is a better pay rate for the hour even as client costs are lower. The disadvantage is the need to program for many clients at once.

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Training Terminology: Back-off Sets

Here is a quick piece of training terminology you might here thrown around at the gym.

Back-off Sets - Sets done for less weight and/or less reps after a lower-rep set of the same exercise, often with higher reps.

For example:

1 set of 5 @ 70% of your training max (work set #1)
1 set of 5 @ 80% of your training max (work set #2)
1 set of 5 @ 90% of your training max (work set #3)
1 set of 15-20 reps @ 60% of your training max (back off set)

Or the same as above, but after work set #3 you might repeat work set #1 twice - they would also be back-off sets.

Or:

Work up to a heavy single.
One set to technical failure of 50% of your single.

What is the difference between back-off sets and accessory work?

It's a fuzzy line. If it's the same exercise, I consider it a back-off set. If you switch to a new lift, or a new grip, or take a break and then do a totally different sets/reps/rest scheme, it's more like accessory work.

So if you do three sets of weighted chin-ups and then a set of unweighted chinups, I'd call it a back-off set. If you do those three sets and then do pulldowns or rows for higher reps and a lighter resistance, I wouldn't refer to it as a back-off set.


Hopefully this keeps you talking the same language as the other folks at the gym.

Training Terminology: Deload

You'll sometimes see a workout including a "deload" or "back off." You might hear of one having a "light week."

A deload is a planned reduction in the volume or intensity of your workout. This is in order to allow your body to recovery from heavier training earlier without going so long between training sessions that you begin to de-train and lose some of your gains.

Why do I want to do this? Can’t I just work hard week after week? Taking a deload allows the body to recover without de-training. It helps prevent you from overtraining.
Taking a regular deload, or otherwise cycling the intensity of your workout (see Bill Starr 5 x 5, below) allows you to train steadily for a long time. If you don’t, you will eventually plateau and be unable to progress through harder training. You may get injured from pushing too hard too long, as well. A deload acts as a safe way to let the body get ready for more heavy training without the effects a total layoff can have on your progress. Remember, the goal is steady progress.

How do I do it? There are many ways to deload. So many, in fact, Eric Cressey wrote an e-book on the subject! But generally, you reduce either the volume or the intensity of your workout to about 50-60% for a number of workouts - usually one week, if you are using a weekly rotation of exercises.

If you deload volume, you keep the same weights you'd use but reduce the number of reps. For example, if you do 3 sets of 5 squats at 225 pounds (100% intensity), a 60% deload would be 3 sets of 3 (5 x 0.6) at 225 pounds.

If you deload intensity, you keep the volume but lower the weights you use. Using the same example, 3 x 5 x 225 would become 3 x 5 x 135 pounds (225 x 0.6).

The first approach keeps your muscles working at the same intensity but you get a break; you don't have to do as much hard work. The second approach lets your muscles work less hard, but demands the same amount of work.


Where can I see this in action?

Some training plans that use deloads, and how:

Eric Cressey's "Maximum Strength" book uses 4 x 4 week cycles, each of which includes a deload week for the final week. Some exercises are dropped, the others remain at a high intensity but a very low volume.

Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 workout has a planned 1-week deload every 4th week. Unlike the earlier weeks, in which you push your final set to the limit, you just get the reps in. The volume remains the same, but the weights used as significantly lower than the three preceding weeks.

The Texas Method (detailed in Practical Programming) and Bill Starr's 5 x 5 both use deload days - you have a medium, light, and heavy day each week. You do not need weekly deloads, because you are constantly varying the load. This forces your body to work very hard, and then gets enough of a respite to recover on the light days while still training enough to keep the benefits of the heavier days before and after.

Direction and Purpose of this Blog

When I first started writing this blog, I posted very often - daily, as a matter of fact. It was a very useful tool for me to review what I knew about training and try to explain it to others.

I went through terms I knew and used, and tried to make them accessible to others.

I dealt with questions I ran into every day training clients, and posted the answers.

I hit the FAQs of training, exercises, and fiendishly persistent myths of training.

However, as my work become more time-consuming and topics for explanation ran a little dry, my posting dropped. First a little (weekdays only), then a lot (several times a week), then precipitously (posting when I had a specific thing to say.)

I've been thinking about the direction of this blog as a result.

I think I have two approaches.

Stay the Course

This means keeping on a slow but steady posting schedule, and keeping the topics as-is. Equipment and book reviews, supplement and food reviews, exercises, basic training terminology, myth-busting, finding resources that are out on other blogs, etc. Keep it impersonal and aimed at beginners, as a source for someone just starting out.

Make it Personal

The other option is to make it more personal. The above topics would be in there. But also, I'd post more about my own workouts. What I'm doing in the gym. What I've done with clients (but with the names filed off). What I'm experimenting with for training and diet. My own goals. Not a training log (I keep mine on paper) but sometimes I'd post examples and details of what I do. Details, basically, that I was hesitant to put out when I was regularly competing in MMA and grappling because nothing anyone learns about me was going to help me more than it hindered me. Plus such details bring the focus onto me more than onto my clients and onto your workouts.

I'm leaning towards the latter, but I recognize that this might not be of interest to people.

If you've got an opinion - stay the course, or make it personal - people put in the comments.

Training Terminology: DOMS

More basic training terminology today.

DOMS stands for delayed onset muscle soreness. This is the soreness and pain you feel about 12-72 hours after working out (usually centered on 24-48 hours). If you've worked out hard, especially after a layoff, or tried something new, chances are you've experienced DOMS.

What causes it? The physiological cause of DOMS isn't really clear. In the past, it was believed to be caused by the buildup of lactic acid (seen as a waste product of anaerobic exercise). More recent studies have suggested that lactic acid isn't a waste product, and its buildup isn't tied to muscle soreness. Another theory is that DOMS is primarily causes by micro-tears in the muscle. In other words, your workout causes some damage at the cellular level to your muscles, which is then repaired and strengthened by your body...but you experience pain (DOMS) in the meantime.

That's the physiological angle.

Practically, some aspects of training seem to result in DOMS, or are at least go hand-in-hand with soreness.

- changing exercises. If you do a new variation of an exercise (neutral grip pullups instead of your usual supinated aka chinup grip) or do a new exercise (dips instead of bench press) you are more likely to experience DOMS because you're not adapted yet to the new exercise.
This is partly why people who try a new sport say things like "I ache in muscles I didn't even know I had!" They might not be out of shape, but just experiencing DOMS from a new exercise. If you only ever lift weights and ride your bike and then go do a 5K run, you might get DOMS because running is a new adaptation to you!

- eccentric exercises. Comparatively, exercises with a hard concentric movement give you less DOMS than ones with a hard eccentric movement. If your exercise has a strong eccentric component - lowering the bar to the floor on a deadlift, for example, or slowly lowering yourself from a pullup bar - you are likely to experience more DOMS. If your exercise has almost no eccentric component - box jumps or long jumps, dragging or pushing a sled, deadlifts where you drop the bar - you are likely to experience less DOMS.

- certain muscles. Some muscles, such as the chest, calves, and hamstrings, seem more susceptible to DOMS.

Combinations can be really painful. If you're trying Romanian Deadlifts for the first time - a new exercise (to you), focusing on the hamstrings, with a very strong eccentric component - you can expect a lot of DOMS. If you're doing sled drags for the umpteenth time, not so much.

What can I do about it? Really, not much beyond taking pain relievers works reliably. But there are a few things you can try that seem to have some effect in mitigating soreness.

- contrast showers. These are alternating very hot and very cold showers on and off. You can do it with baths, too. This seems to reduce inflammation and result in less DOMS.

- stretching. Some studies indicate that stretching before or after (or both!) a workout can result in reduced DOMS. More recent studies cast some doubts on this, but you should be warming up properly and stretching at some point, so you might give it a try.

How come I don't get sore? Soreness does vary from person to person. Some people can change their exercises frequently, work muscles associated with extreme soreness (calves, chest), and workout hard after a layoff and experience relatively mild DOMS. Others may get moderate DOMS from even the smallest changes in exercises or weight.

If I'm sore, it means I've worked hard, right? Well, yes and no. It's hard to get DOMS without working hard, but you can work hard without getting DOMS. Don't worry too much about getting or not getting DOMS. If you're always sore, try some of the suggestions for alleviating it. If you're never sore, you might consider if you're working out as hard as you believe. But it's not a primary indicator of hard work or results. If you're rarely sore but your weights keep increasing, you're doing just fine!

I'm sore, should I wait until I'm not sore to workout? Not necessarily. If you've got severe DOMS - you can't walk right, or raise your arms above your shoulders, or something similar, you might want to avoid exercising those areas. If you're only experiencing mild soreness, you can just go ahead and lift. It probably will dissipate the soreness or at least mask it. The short version is, if the soreness makes it difficult or impossible to lift safely, don't. If it doesn't, you can usually go ahead. This is especially true if you're just getting started - it's too easy to fall off a new workout schedule if you're waiting 12-72 hours after each workout before you lift again!

For more information on DOMS, check here.

Training Terminology: Time Under Tension

Training Terminology: Time Under Tension

Time Under Tension (frequently abbreviated to TUT) is simply the amount of time the muscles utilized in the exercise are under tension - moving or supporting the weight. If your set takes 45 seconds to complete, your TUT was 45 seconds.

How do I use this? The implementation of TUT varies wildly, with everything from high reps done for a specific amount of time, to very slow reps, to isometric holds (in other words, straining without movement). TUT concerns have been used to dissuade lifters from locking out their joints during motions, because (despite being anatomically designed to do so) they might suffer injury from supporting weight. TUT is usually held up as the best way to hypertrophy (increase in size) your muscles, but it has both strong arguments for and against it. I don't intend to get into it here, just let you know what it means when people talk about TUT.

Training Terminology: The PR

Some more training terminology.

A PR is the common abbreviation for "personal record." That's a personal-best lift. This is most commonly a weight PR, usually a 1-rep maximum. However, it doesn't need to be. It can be:

- a weight PR. The most weight you've ever lifted, a 1-rep max. For example, 1 x 315 in the deadlift would be a weight PR.

- a rep PR. The most reps you've done for that weight in one set. For example, if your previous personal best was 5 x 225 in the squat and then managed to get 8 x 225, that would be a rep PR. Or if you've done 22 pushups in one set, and then did 23, that's a 1 rep PR.

- a set x reps PR. This is most sets across you've done. For example, if you've done 2 sets of 5 reps at 225 in the squat and then worked up to 3 x 5 x 225 in a subsequent workout, you might consider this a PR, too - it's the same reps and weight, but you've done it for 50% more total reps!

- a time PR. This is either the longest time or the shortest time for an exercise. For speed workouts, such as a 100 meter dash or a marathon or a circuit workout with set rounds, the lowest time you've gotten is your PR. For duration workouts or exercises, such as planks or static holds, the longest time you've gotten is a PR.

- a distance PR. The longest distance you've managed to go. This is a great way to measure farmer's walks!

The are surely others. What ties them all together is they are your personal best for a given criteria. Get them, savor them, and then go beat them. The only thing better than getting a new PR is beating it.

Training Terminology: SPP and GPP

Training terms!

Don't fear the acronyms.

SPP stands for specific physical preparedness. Sometimes you'll see it defined as "sports-specific" instead of just "specific." Basically, physical preparation for specific situations, be they sports or some job-related task. If you're training for a marathon, running long distance is SPP. If you're training to powerlift, a competition bench press is SPP.

GPP stands for general physical preparedness. This is preparation for any and all physical activities. Generally, you use it to build a foundation for task-specific preparedness. Dragging a sled or doing good mornings are GPP for strength athletes, because neither is directly contested, but both build strength that can be trained with SPP for the specific task.

So you do GPP to get generally fit for training, and then do SPP to get good at the skills you need to use in your final task.

Training Terms: Splits

More training terminology: Splits.


A split is how you break up, or split, your workout.

Here are some common splits.

Total Body or Full Body - In this kind of workout, you work your entire body each workout. Your workouts will include leg-centered exercises as well as upper-body centered exercises. Your workout may include or entirely consist of exercises such as Olympic lifts (the Clean and Jerk or Snatch) that work the entire body. Although the workout is full body, the actual exercises that comprise it may change from workout to work. Stronglifts 5 x 5 and the bodyweight circuits of Simplefit are both total-body workouts. Total body workouts do not leave as much time as other splits for concentration on one area of the body or one motion, but they allow you to hit everything in one gym visit. Many beginner routines are full body, but you'll find them in more advanced programs as well, especially if they are used as an accessory to specific sports training.

Upper/Lower - In an upper/lower split, you divide your body in half roughly around the waist, and then train half of it on each day. On an upper day.
An example of a 4-day Upper/Lower split is Westside for Skinny Bastards 3. You do Max Effort Upper Body, then Dynamic Lower Body, then Repetition Upper Body, then Max Effort Lower Body, usually xMTxThFx. The x means "no workout," a rest day, so you are off Sunday, Wednesday, and Saturday. This split allows more concentration on the specific area of the body, but at a cost of more workout days needed to hit everything.

Push/Pull/Legs - This workout split is unusual because it can be either total body, or an upper/upper/lower split. In its total body variation, you do one leg exercise, one pushing exercise, and one pulling exercise. Starting Strength - which features squats, a press, and then a pull from the floor, is a total body push-pull-legs workout. In the upper/upper/lower split, you do one day of several pushing exercises, another day of several pulling exercises, and another day of leg training. Like Upper/Lower, this allows more concentration on each movement, but at the cost of more time between workouts using that motion.

Body Part Splits - In a body part split, you break up the body into separate parts, and train them on different days. For example, you might have back/biceps, chest/triceps, shoulders, and legs. On back/biceps days you'd do exercises that emphasize those muscle groups like rows, pullups, curls, etc. Squats would be legs and go on legs day, overhead presses on shoulders day, etc. This is more of a bodybuilder split - it's most commonly seem on people training purely for size and asthetics. An example of this kind of bodypart split is Dr. Squats's ABC split. The advantage of body part splits is extremely focused concentration on one or two body parts, but at a cost of a lot of different workouts needed to hit everything. Poorly designed, they can overwhelm your arms, which end up involved on workout every day, if only to hold the bar on squats on leg day.

Training Terminology: Training Economy

Here is a training term you won't hear so often around the local gym. You're more likely to encounter it online or when talking to a trainer.

Training Economy: The efficiency at which you train all of the traits that you want, without taking more time, energy, or workouts than is necessary.

Put another way, it's using the most efficient exercises to get the job done.

In other words, if you want to train your grip (hands, forearms), your biceps, and your back, you can do three different exercises - say a plate pinch, some biceps curls, and some rows. Or, you can do thick-handled chinups and get all three at once.

Or another example - you could do your exercises, then your stretches for the areas of your body you don't intend to stretch. Say, squats and chest, arm, and back stretches. Or you could put your stretches in between sets of your squats and let your muscles strength while your body replenishes the reserves in your leg muscles for the next set.

Still another - you could do supersets in order to cut down on overall time of the workout.


Using training economy is about getting the most results with the least waste - critical for folks with more workout to do than they have time to do.


Also see this excellent article from 12 years back from Joe DeFranco on this exact subject.

Training Terminology: High Frequency Training

What is High Frequency Training?

What High Frequency Training (HFT) boils down to is:

- exercise often. Multiple times per day.

- moderate load. Nothing too straining, but not too easy, either.

- frequent rests. Never do so much work at once it overwhelms (or even impacts) your ability to recover.

Basically, do a moderate amount very often, but not too much.

If that sounds a lot like Greasing the Groove, it should. GTG is really a form of High Frequency Training. Do a lot of easy sets to practice the movement. If you push up the reps a bit so it's a little more work, and do a few more reps - but no more than you can easily recover from by the next morning, you can progress.

What do you get out of it?

In a phrase - "manual labor strength." Done right, you can get that go all day, grip like steel strength possessed by people who do steady, not too heavy, but very high frequency and high rep manual work.

This can get you:

- strength-endurance.

- hypertrophy. You can get muscle size out of this.

- strength. You will get stronger - although not necessarily in terms of 1-rep max - with enough load and enough rest.

- skill improvement. Like GTG, you will get better at the movements you do often.

How can I do it?

As a suggestion, I'd suggest picking one or two exercises, such as the 50 pullups/100 pushups workout.
You can even pick one and really master it, like the 100 pushups guy. Or do squats.

It's easiest if you pick something you can do almost anywhere (such as pushups and squats) or where you can engineer a way to do it (pullups, with a doorway pullup bar).

I'd also suggest going by feel. Pick a number that's about 60% of your one-set max and do that 2-3 times a day. Work up until you're doing 3-5 sets a day and they're starting to get easier. Then add more reps or more weight (if using a weight.)

The idea is just to do enough to force adaptation but not enough to cause any real strain on your system so you'd impair your recovery.

Some basic definitions: Intervals

More terminology of training.

First we need a few terms to help with the definitions.

Work is when you are actually exercising. Lifting the weight, sprinting, jumping, etc. - it's all work.

Rest is when you are either not exercising (taking an actual break) or when you are doing a light, non-strenuous exercise to facilitate recovery from work (such as walking around, or jogging instead of sprinting). What counts as rest depends on how high the perceived intensity is - if walking is non-strenuous, it could be considered rest. Generally anaerobic exercises - like pushups, pullups, etc. aren't "rest."

Now that we have those, let's talk about intervals. These generally apply to "cardio" training but not exclusively.

Interval Training (IT) is when you alternate periods of work with periods of rest, usually in a specific time ratio. For example, if you sprint for 30 seconds and then jog for 120 seconds, you're doing sprinting intervals with a work:rest ratio of 1:4. Generally rest intervals range from 1:1 (lots of work!) 1:5 or more (lots of rest!) but they vary considerably. If there is no work:rest ratio - you just continuously do the same speed, this is not IT but rather steady state exercise.

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is a subset of IT. This is usually interval training with a work:rest ratio of 1:1 to 1.2.

Tabata Intervals are a subset of IT or HIIT. They are named after Dr. Izumi Tabata, who showed in a lab test that 8 rounds of 20 seconds of cycle sprints with 10 seconds of slow cycling (a work:rest ratio of 2:1) burned off more body fat than 45 minutes of steady-state cycling...and that was without most of them being able to complete all 8 rounds. Tabata intervals ("Tabatas" for short) can be done with any fast, repetitive cardio exercise or lift. Examples include sprinting alternated with jogging, bodyweight exercises (pushups, pullups, or squats) alternated with rest, kickboxing rounds...you can let your imagination go on these.

Useful links
For more on Intervals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_training

For more on HIIT:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training
http://www.exrx.net/ExInfo/HIIT.html

For more on Tabatas:
http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/tabataintervals.html

Training Terminology: Wave Loading

More training terms. This one I'm guilty of using a few times in reviews without really defining it.

Wave Loading is a set/rep scheme for weight training. The weight is increased set to set, and typically reps are decreased as well. After the "wave" is complete, the exercise is re-set and the "wave" is duplicated, only with slightly higher weights for the given reps.

It is typically done in two "waves" of three sets. For example, a wave could be 6/4/2 x 2. This means:
Wave one:
Set 1: 6 reps
Set 2: 4 reps
Set 3: 2 reps

Wave two:
Set 4: 6 reps
Set 5: 4 reps
Set 6: 2 reps

Each successive wave is done with a higher weight. So if wave one is done with 185 pounds/205 pounds/225 pounds, wave two might be 190/210/230 or 195/215/235. This takes advantage of the body's reaction to the heavier weights in the first wave. Once you've done 2 x 225, 6 x 195 will feel light because your muscles will still be prepared to lift 225. Once you get to the final set, you're in new ground weight-wise, but the reps are lowering and you've allowed your muscles to keep working without straining at the level that 225 required.

Essentially, wave-loading like this allows you to get in an extra volume of work, take advantage of the "supra-warmup" effect of the previous sets, in order to lift heavier weights in the end.

Critical Bench posted an excellent article with a few other examples of wave-loading schemes.

Training Terminology: NEPA

Non-Exercise Physical Activity (NEPA) - This term sometimes used for all non-exercise activity that burns calories, including everything from sleeping to breathing to moving around. For the purposes of this blog, however, we're talking deliberate activity done to burn calories that doesn't rise to the level of strenuous exercise.

What are some examples of NEPA? As long as it doesn't come up to the level of strenuous exercise, but it burns some extra calories, it's probably NEPA. Some easy examples are:

- a brisk walk
- taking the stairs instead of the elevator
- a non-intense jog or bike ride

So, I can just go for a brisk walk and lose some body fat? Not if that's all you are doing. When you're trying to burn fat, diet and strenuous exercise are key. No amount of extra walks here and there are going to replace hard training and eating properly. You can't walk off that cheesecake like it was never consumed and you can't park a few spaces further from the store and call it working your legs. But a lot of little activity can add up. Alwyn Cosgrove puts this down as his bottom ranked item in his Hierarchy of Fat Loss. It's a nice bonus but not the main factor driving fat loss. But still, when you're in fat-burning mode, every little bit helps. Plus, if you're already working hard - hitting the weights, doing intense cardio or interval training, or better yet all three, and you are in a caloric deficit (i.e. you eat less than you burn), this can help. What's more, it's not very stressful on your system, so you can still recovery from your circuits, weights, and intervals while getting a little extra burn in.

Training Terminology

Two more training terms.

Both terms today are ways to make your training more intense.

Supersets are two exercises done back-to-back. They may be opposing exercises (bench presses and bent-over-rows), overlapping exercises (cable rows and pullups), or unrelated exercises (reverse hypers and dumbbell rows). They may be done with full rest or no rest.

For example, here is a superset with full rest:
Set 1 Bench Press
60 seconds rest
Set 1 Bent-over-rows
60 seconds rest
Set 2 Bench Press
and so on until all sets are complete.

With no rest, it would be
Set 1 Bench Press
Set 2 Bent-over-rows
60 seconds rest
Set 2 Bench Press
and so on until all sets are complete.

Supersets allow you to either compress your workout - giving your body less rest but your muscles more rest - or make it more intense - giving your muscles more work, but with different movements. You can see in the full rest example that you really get only 60 seconds between exercises, but 120 seconds between bench presses. Supersets can be done with any rep range. If you superset three exercises together, it's called a triset. Four, and it's a giant set. Beyond that, it's probably a circuit, not any kind of superset.

Cluster Sets are a way to compress more work at a given rep range into a shorter time period. A cluster is a set of multiple groups of low reps of a given weight, with rest period in between. The weight is chosen to be lower than the rep range would normally allow, but more reps are done with less rest, resulting in more work done in a given time. For example, a cluster of Shoulder Presses could be done with your 5RM (5 rep maximum) weight. Instead of 5 reps, you might do (4x2, 10s) - meaning 4 groups of 2 reps, with 10 seconds of rest between groups. Instead of doing your 5 rep maximum weight for 5 reps over the course of about 15 seconds and then resting, you'll get in 8 reps over about 45-55 seconds of time. Each group is easier (2 reps at your 5RM weight) but the cluster forces you to do more reps over a shorter space of time than you normally could.

For more on cluster sets, see this article by Eric Cressey.

Training Terminology - Plates and Weights

There are two types of bars - Olympic and Standard. Therefore there are two types of plates to fit them!

Olympic plates have a 2# hole. They are meant to fit Olympic bars - which come with oversized rotating sleeves to allow the gripped portion of the barbell to stay still while the plates rotate. Useful in explosive lifting. These barbells have a large collar, so the central hole on the Olympic-sized weights is equally large. You'll find these at all Olympic training centers and most "hardcore" gyms.

Standard plates have a 1" hole. These are meant to fit bars lacking the rotating sleeve. These are the kind of weights you'll find most often at sporting goods stores, gyms, and garage sales.

Plates aren't all the same size. Standard sizes depend on your country...my readers are mostly in the USA so I'll use the US standards primarily and put the equivalent plate in metric in parenthesis.

2.5 pounds (1.25 kg) - These are the smallest commonly available plates, although some gyms may carry microplates (sub-2.5 pound plates). You'll usually find only a pair or two of these, because you don't need more than one set before it's easier to go up by 5s.

5 pounds (2.5 kg) - The smallest plate you'll find in bunches on a weight rack.

10 pounds (5 kg) - Another common size, a bit bigger than the 5 pound plates and thicker as well.

25 pounds (10kg) - At 2.5 times the weight of a 10, they're also wider and thicker. Like the 2.5 you generally find one or two pairs of these, since once you've gone past a 25, a 10, and a 5, you can just use a 45 instead.

35 pounds (15 kg) - these are not terribly common. You simply don't need them that often once you are able to lift 45 pound plates, and you can add up 35 pounds with a 25 and a 10, then swap them off for a 45 for the next big jump. Therefore you don't seem many of these.

45 pounds (20 kg) - in gym speak, these are plates. If someone says "I squatted 2 plates for 10" they mean they squatted with two 45 pound plates per side for 10 reps. With an Olympic bar (also 45 pounds) this means a total of 225 pounds. So next time someone asks you to load up "a plate and 25" they mean putting a 45 and a 25 on each side of the bar for a load of 140 pounds.

100 pounds - not common, but you'll sometimes find gyms that have these for high-end lifters. The diameter of these is the same as a 45, so they'll fit on the same plate-loading machines and raise the bar the same height off the floor.

Additionally, you'll sometimes see large rubber-coated plates. These are called bumper plates, and they cushion the impact of the bar on the floor. These are almost exclusively found in Olympic versions, since it is the O-lifts that require you to be able to drop the bar from the top without breaking the floor.


Why not 50 pounds instead of 45? Probably because 20kg is about 44 pounds, so pound-measurement plates are made to closely match the sizes of internationally accepted Olympic standards while fitting to easily addable numbers. It's easier to see 2 x 45 pound plates and think "90" than to have two 20kg plates and figure it's about 88.1 pounds or so...

Training Terminology: Jacked vs. Jacked Up

One term you'll hear pretty often in the training world is "jacked." It has two very different uses. Add or subtract the word "up" and it goes from "jacked" to "jacked up."

Being jacked means being well-built. Strong, large muscles, well defined, and otherwise in shape. For example: "I started squatting and my legs got totally jacked!" This is a positive.

Being jacked up means being injured, hurt, or working through impeded movement. "I got jacked up from squatting with my knees collapsing in." This is a negative.

These aren't one-meaning-per-person either. You will hear the same trainer, trainee, or athlete say, "I got all jacked up playing my sport, but then I rehabbed and started lifting right and got totally jacked!"

Training Terminology: I-go-you-go

Occasionally I train the same exercise at the same time as one or more partners. Instead of timing rest, we simply rotate through the exercise in turn, starting right after the other partner finishes.

Naturally, there is a training term for this: I-go-you-go rest.

What is it? - A rest method where one person does an exercise; as soon as he or she finishes their reps they hand off the equipment to the next person. You alternate (or cycle through, if you have more people), each taking your turn. In kindergarten, we called this "sharing."

How do you do this? The classic example is barbell curls - you lift for as many reps as you can, and then hand it back to me and I do the same, and then hand if off to you again...and again, and again. It can also be done with chinups, rows, deadlifts, whatever. You can also do it with no-equipment lifts, too - you do X pushups, I do X pushups, then you do X+1, I have to do X+1, etc. and you rest while the other is working.

It's an intensification technique - you cram a lot more work into a much shorter period with this kind of lifting. It also encourages you to push your partner hard - the longer they spend lifting, the longer your rest time is!

It can be a fun way to lift, especially if you and your partner are roughly equal in strength. And it can goad you to new heights...many times I've gotten one more rep than my partner, just to say I did - and set a PR in the process.

Training Terminology: Microloading

More training terms.

Microloading is when you increase the weight of a barbell, dumbbell, cable stack, etc. by less than 5 pounds (Imperial measurements) or 2.5 kg (metric measurements). The same concept is also called using fractional plates and fractional loading.

Why microloading? The smallest Olympic plates are either 2.5 pounds or 1.25 kg, depending on which standard they use. Dumbbells typically go up by 5 pound or 2.5kg increments once you hit around 10 pounds, cable stacks typically go up by 5 or 10 pounds per plate, etc. This makes for nice, round numbers when lifting, but it also means that if 75 pounds is easy for 10 reps but 80 pounds is too hard for 10 reps, you're forced to change up more than the weight in order to progress. Unless, of course, you micro-load, and increase the weight from 75 to 76, or 77.5, or some other small jump below the standard 5-pound jump.

The idea behind microloading is that it allows you to more precisely fine-tune the weight improvements. You can increase your weights by a fractional amount, too small to reduce the number of reps you can do, but large enough to result in your body compensating by getting stronger. You can also adjust for situations where the next jump in weight is just too much - a jump from a 20-pound dumbbell to a 25-pound dumbbell is a 25% jump in resistance, which can be prohibitive in a small-muscle assistance exercise.

How do I do it? Microloading can be simple-but-expensive, or tricky-but-cheap.

Simple-but-expensive: Buy some fractional plates online, or some Platemate magnets to attach to your dumbbells or weight stacks. You can bring these with you to a commercial gym; just etch your name into them (a Stuart McRobert tip) and don't forget them after you finish an exercise!
Online makers of fractional plates include Piedmont Design Associates and Iron Woody.

Tricky-but-cheap: Just find something to attach to the bar on each side, or to a dumbbell, that has the weight that you need. Easy sources include extra collars (screw-on or lever-tightened collars are heavy; spring collars are the lightest) and strong and heavy magnets. Spin-lock dumbbells can have extra spin-locks spun on at lighter weights but this breaks down as a system when you get too many plates - you run out of room for the extra collar. Weigh all of your magnets and collars and add them as you need to fractionally increase the barbell or plate-loading dumbbell weight.

Slightly more involved DIY fractional loading can be done as well. One option is loops of heavy chain - get some chain links, lock them into a 2" wide loop (for O-bars) or 1" wide loop (for standard bars) and slip them on the bar. Another is to find large, heavy washers of the appropriate size. Buy a few washers and glue them together into 1/4 lb, 1/2 lbs, and 1 pound "plates" and you're good to go.

I've even tried loops of old fishing weights on a piece of mono fishing line for DIY weights, but they tended to slip around and break. But in a pinch, they did well enough.

Training Terminology: Compound vs. Isolation

Exercises are described as being "compound" or "isolation" exercises. But what's the difference?

It's a matter of joints.

Compound exercises involve movement around more than one joint. For example, a back squat involves movement around the ankle joint, the knees, and the hips.

Isolation exercises involve movement around a single joint. The classic biceps curl only involves flexion of the elbow, thus isolating the single joint.

That's the whole basis of the split - the number of joints involved. You'll occasionally see "isolation" exercises defined as "single-muscle exercises" and "compound" as "multiple muscle exercises" but this isn't a proper definition. Isolation exercises do not truly isolate one muscle, but rather one joint (and thus emphasize a very small number of muscles). Compound exercises are not defined as compound based on the number of muscles involved, just the joints.

If you need to determine if a given exercise is compound or isolation - and it's not immediately obvious - check the directory of exercises at EXRX. The site helpfully labels all exercises as compound or isolation.