Instant Fitness' Gym Jargon

Do you understand everything you hear at the gym or from your trainer? Are you sure you understand everything you've heard about fitness? Read these definitions and compare them to what you thought previously. Hopefully they will give you more insight during your workouts

Fitness-the body’s ability to meet physical demands, composed of four components; flexibility, strength, muscle endurance, and cardiovascular endurance.

BMI- Body Mass Index- an index of a person’s weight in relation to height that correlates with total body fat content. (A person may have a low percentage of body fat, but a high BMI if he is muscular)

Body fat analysis (percentage)- The percentage of fat in your body. This is difficult to attain, but can be found by hydrostatic weighing, skinfold tests, bioelectrical impedance, dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, and via the BodPod. Desirable measures for body fat percentages are 12-20 for men and 20-30 for women.

Overload-extra physical demand placed on the body. A principle of training is that for a body system to improve, its workload must be increased by increments over time.

Muscle endurance- the ability of a muscle to contract repeatedly within a given time without becoming exhausted.

Cardiovascular endurance- the ability of the cardiovascular system to sustain effort over a period of time

Aerodic- requiring oxygen; an exercise you can perform while still talking

Anaerobic- not requiring oxygen; a more intense workout (almost max level) you can do but cannot talk while doing

Target heart rate- the heartbeat rate that will achieve cardiovascular endurance for a given person; fast enough to push the heart, but not so fast as to strain it.

Reps- repetition; one complete movement as in a hammer curl

Sets- a group of reps.

Super Set-Two different workouts, back to back, with little rest in between. One set on each machine, then repeat.

-Tony Tiamiyu

 Instant Fitness, LLC

 Atlanta's #1 Personal Trainer

 Lindbergh City Center