Terminology Defined

The world of bodybuilding and even weight lifting seems to have a language of its own.  Quite frankly I enjoy this fact however, for some it can be quite confusing.  Symbolism is also used quite a lot.  First off let me paint a picture for you so you can visualize this.  The ideal body for a bodybuilder using symbolic terms starting from the ground up: Tree trunks for legs, buns of steel, washboard for abs, dinner plates for pecs, wings for lats, boulders for shoulders, and pipes for arms and I’m sure there are many more.  Not that this has any validity in the construction of the ideal body I thought it would be a good visualization to include.   Bringing me to my next point, terminology.  If you are familiar with simple terms in weight lifting you need be informed so you can properly structure your workout routines and meal planning.

First off, lets break down weightlifting into a pyramid.  Starting at the bottom we have a workout, within a workout we have exercises, within exercises we have sets and within sets we have reps.   A is defined as the mental or physical exertion to accomplish a task.  Lets get real people, when you’re in the gym you are there to physically exert yourself and if you aren’t, well you might want to reconsider what you’re doing at the gym.  Next are the exercises.  Exercises are the different movements within a single workout.  So if you were performing push-ups, pull-ups, overhead presses and squats, these would be the different exercises within a full-body workout.  For each individual exercises you would perform a number of sets for each exercises and so many repetitions within each set.  Putting it all together for example would look like this.  You could perform 4 sets of 12 repetitions of push-ups, which is one exercises within your workout of the previously mentioned exercises.

I know this may be basic knowledge for some but is a building block and one of the most fundamental aspects of training.  A physique is built on the very foundation of exercises, sets and reps.  By altering these very components of your workout you can change the workout entirely and challenge your body to adapt to different types of training.  By varying the number of repetitions you can use different muscle fiber types, fast and slow twitch.  By varying the exercises you can utilize and train specific muscles.  These are only a few basic examples of how using the foundations are key in your fitness and weightlifting. 

I’m sure some people may think my blogs to be quite frank and blunt.  However, I like to think they are simply short, sweet and to the point with no BS.  I live in a world of mostly black and white, not much gray.  I think this is very important when it comes to fitness simply because you’re either doing it right or you’re doing it wrong.  And I believe when you are trying to be healthy you would like to know how to do it right, not how to do it kind of right.   Bodybuilding embodies a life style and either you are or you aren’t.  If you eat right but down exercise, well quite frankly you are robbing yourself, and same thing goes with exercising and not eating right, also robbing yourself.  So I would like to think that you would keep this in mind when training and in your day to day life.  Be great and try to excel in all aspects of your life instead of only parts, thus robbing yourself of your full potential.