Training glossary
The terms a coach uses every day, defined precisely and without over-explaining.
Each entry defines the term, explains what it is for in practice and names the mistake that actually shows up on the gym floor. They are written for someone who already coaches people.
40 terms
1
- 1RM (one-rep max)
- The 1RM is the heaviest load a person can lift once in a given exercise with correct technique. It can be measured directly with a test or estimated from a submaximal set, using formulas such as Epley or Brzycki that relate the weight lifted to the reps achieved. It is the reference the percentage loads of a program are calculated from.
A
- AMRAP
- AMRAP stands for as many reps (or rounds) as possible: doing as many repetitions or rounds as you can, either within a fixed time or until technical failure on a set. In strength training it is usually a final set to failure; in conditioning, a time block with a repeating circuit.
- Assisted progression
- Assisted progression is load progression where the software writes the weights and reps of upcoming sessions from the sets, reps and RIR the client logged, while the coach keeps the decisions: the routine does not reach the client until they send it, any week they edit drops out of the calculation permanently, and automatic progression switches on and off globally and client by client.
- Autoregulation
- Autoregulation means adjusting a session's load or volume based on how the person responds that day, instead of following a number set weeks earlier. It leans on effort scales such as RIR or RPE: if the prescribed set came out at RIR 4 instead of RIR 1, the weight goes up; if it went to failure, it comes down.
C
- Circuit
- A circuit is a sequence of three or more exercises performed one after another with little or no rest, repeating the full round several times. Unlike a superset, which is two exercises, a circuit chains one station after another and usually mixes different movement patterns.
- Compound exercise
- A compound exercise moves more than one joint and loads several muscles at once — the squat, the deadlift, the bench press, the row. It lets more total load be moved and it trains the pattern as well as the muscle, at the cost that the first thing to fail is not always the muscle you meant to stimulate.
D
- Deload
- A deload is a planned period, almost always a week, in which volume or intensity comes down so the body can finish absorbing the accumulated work. It is not a break: training continues, with fewer sets, less load or both, keeping the movement patterns in place.
- Double progression
- Double progression is the method where reps are increased inside a prescribed range first, and load only after. On a range of 8 to 12, the client works up to 12 across all sets and only then adds weight, dropping back to 8. It is a rule that decides when to go up without the coach having to look at every session.
- Dropset
- A dropset is a set that, on reaching close to failure, immediately continues with a lighter weight and no rest, until approaching failure again. It extends a single set past the point where it would normally end, adding total work without adding rest time.
E
- Effective set
- An effective set is a working set taken close enough to failure to count toward training volume, in practice within the final three or four reps. Ramp-up sets with reduced load and sets that end with many reps to spare do not count, because they never recruit the high-threshold fibres that produce the adaptation.
- EMOM
- EMOM stands for every minute on the minute: at the top of each minute you perform a fixed number of reps, and whatever time is left over is the rest. The faster the work gets done, the longer the rest, so the format regulates density on its own.
H
- Hypertrophy
- Hypertrophy is the increase in muscle fibre size in response to sustained resistance training. It happens when muscle protein synthesis repeatedly outpaces breakdown, which loaded training close to failure stimulates and which rest and eating allow. It is a structural adaptation, distinct from strength gain, which is in large part neural.
I
- Isolation exercise
- An isolation exercise moves a single joint and concentrates the load on one muscle — the biceps curl, the triceps extension, the leg curl. It moves less absolute weight and leaves less systemic fatigue, which makes it useful for adding volume to one muscle without spending the client's recovery capacity.
L
- Lactate threshold
- The lactate threshold is the highest intensity at which the body still clears lactate as fast as it produces it. Above that point lactate accumulates and the effort stops being sustainable within minutes. In practice it corresponds to the pace a trained person can hold for around an hour, and it predicts endurance performance better than VO2 max does.
- Linear progression
- Linear progression is the scheme where load rises by a fixed amount every session or every week, with sets and reps held constant. It works while the client adapts session to session, which is a beginner's situation for some months, and it stops working once adaptation starts taking longer than the gap between sessions.
M
- Macrocycle
- A macrocycle is the long planning horizon, typically six months to a year, grouping every mesocycle that leads to a larger goal. It defines the order of the phases — accumulation, intensification, realization — and where deloads and peaks land within the season.
- Maximum recoverable volume (MRV)
- Maximum recoverable volume is the largest number of weekly sets a client still recovers from before the next session for that muscle. Above that point fatigue carries from one week into the next and performance per set falls, so the extra work subtracts instead of adding. It is not a fixed number: it moves with sleep, stress and where the block is.
- Mechanical tension
- Mechanical tension is the force a muscle fibre bears while contracting against resistance, and it is the primary stimulus for hypertrophy. It is produced either by a heavy load or by taking a moderate-load set close to failure, because on the last reps the nervous system recruits the higher-threshold fibres and those work at low velocity.
- Mesocycle
- A mesocycle is a training block of roughly three to six weeks with one dominant goal, such as accumulating volume or expressing strength. It groups several microcycles and usually ends with a deload week. It is the unit a coach thinks in when deciding what a client will do next month.
- Microcycle
- A microcycle is the smallest planning unit, almost always one week. It defines which sessions happen, in what order and at what relative load, so hard and light work end up distributed instead of stacking two demanding days in a row on the same muscle group.
- Minimum effective volume (MEV)
- Minimum effective volume is the smallest number of weekly sets near failure that still produces adaptation in a muscle. It sits below what is usually prescribed and it is individual: it depends on the client's level, how much they sleep and how much fatigue they carry from elsewhere. Below that threshold the work maintains, but does not build.
- Movement pattern
- A movement pattern is the mechanical family an exercise belongs to: horizontal push, vertical push, horizontal pull, vertical pull, knee-dominant, hip-dominant and core work. It is what makes a plan cover the whole body, and what lets one exercise be swapped for another in the same pattern when the equipment is missing or a joint complains.
- Muscular failure
- Muscular failure is the point in a set where another rep cannot be completed with valid technique. It is distinct from technical failure, which arrives earlier: that is when form breaks down even though the weight still moves. Training to failure maximises fibre recruitment within that set and also the fatigue it leaves for the ones after it.
P
- Periodization
- Periodization is organizing training into blocks with different goals and loads over time, so an athlete arrives at a given moment in the best possible state and stops stalling. It structures how volume and intensity vary week to week and month to month, instead of repeating the same stimulus indefinitely.
- Progressive overload
- Progressive overload is the gradual increase of training demand over time so the body keeps having a reason to adapt. It can be applied by adding weight, adding reps or sets, shortening rest, improving range of motion or increasing weekly frequency. Load is simply the most visible of those variables.
R
- Range of motion
- Range of motion is the joint travel an exercise covers, from the muscle's most lengthened position to its most contracted. A full range loads the muscle in its long position too, which is where the stimulus is largest, and that is why cutting it to lift more weight usually swaps the exercise for an easier one rather than making it harder.
- Relative intensity
- Relative intensity is a set's load expressed as a percentage of the 1RM for that lift, rather than in kilos. Training at 80% means moving 80% of the estimated maximum, whether that is 60 or 160 kilos. It is the unit that lets one programme be written for clients at different levels and executed by each with their own load.
- Rest-pause
- Rest-pause is a technique where a set is taken close to failure, then rested for 10 to 20 seconds without racking the load, then continued for extra reps, repeating the cycle two or three times. It accumulates effective reps in far less time than separate sets, at the price of high local fatigue.
- RIR (reps in reserve)
- RIR is how many repetitions someone could still have completed at the end of a set before reaching technical failure. RIR 2 means two reps were left in the tank. It is an effort scale reported set by set, and it lets a coach prescribe intensity without depending on a fixed percentage of 1RM.
- RPE (rate of perceived exertion)
- RPE is a 1-to-10 scale on which someone rates how hard an effort felt. In strength training the reps-in-reserve version is the one used: RPE 10 is technical failure, RPE 9 leaves one rep, RPE 8 leaves two. It is the same information as RIR, expressed the other way around.
S
- Supercompensation
- Supercompensation is the point where performance rises above its previous level, once the fatigue of a training block dissipates. The model describes three phases: the load lowers performance, recovery returns it, and additional rest carries it past the starting point. It is why a client performs better the week after a deload than during it.
- Superset
- A superset is two exercises performed back to back with no rest between them, resting only after the pair is finished. When the exercises work opposing muscles it is an antagonist superset; when they work the same muscle, fatigue accumulates far faster and the load on the second exercise drops.
T
- Tonnage
- Tonnage is the total weight moved in a session or a week: sets × reps × load. Five sets of 5 at 100 kilos gives 2,500 kilos of tonnage. It measures mechanical work and it is useful for comparing the same session over time, not for comparing sessions with different structures.
- Training density
- Training density is how much work gets done per unit of time. Raising it means doing the same volume in less time — shortening rest, chaining supersets or circuits — instead of adding sets. It is a route to progressive overload that touches neither the load nor the set count.
- Training frequency
- Training frequency is how many times per week a muscle receives direct work. It is counted per muscle, not per client: someone training six days on a body-part split can be at frequency 1 for each. For the same weekly volume, splitting it across more sessions holds the quality of each set better.
- Training split
- A training split is how the week's work is distributed across the available days. The three most used are full body, upper/lower, and push/pull/legs. The choice is decided by how many days the client can train: with two or three days full body wins, and finer splits need four days or more for each muscle to reach its frequency.
- Training tempo
- Tempo is the prescribed speed of each phase of a rep, written as four numbers: eccentric, pause at the bottom, concentric and pause at the top. A 3-1-1-0 tempo means lowering over three seconds, pausing one, lifting in one and chaining straight into the next. It lengthens the set's time under tension and reduces the load usable for the same reps.
- Training volume
- Training volume is the total amount of work done in a period. For hypertrophy it is usually counted as effective sets per muscle group per week; it can also be expressed as tonnage, multiplying sets by reps by load. It is the variable most often manipulated when a program stops producing change.
W
- Warm-up sets
- Warm-up sets are the sets before the real work, with rising load and falling reps, that prepare the pattern and the nervous system for the target load. A typical ramp toward 100 kg runs 40×8, 60×5, 80×3 and 90×1. They do not count toward training volume because they never come close to failure.
Z
- Zone 2 (aerobic base)
- Zone 2 is the aerobic intensity between 60 and 70% of heart-rate reserve, sustainable for a long time and low enough to hold a full conversation. It is where the aerobic base is built, and it is where most of an endurance plan's volume should sit, because it leaves little fatigue relative to the adaptation it produces.
