Geschatte leestijd: 4 minutenWhen you have decided to start strength training and step into the gym for the first time, the many strength training concepts, terms, and jargon may overwhelm you. The “fitness slang” may seem somewhat overwhelming for the novice strength trainer, but fortunately, it’s not all that complicated.
To help you get started, we have outlined the most important strength training concepts and terms below. Take your time to read through this article, and you’ll be well-prepared in the gym for your first strength training session.
Strength Training Concepts
If you want to maximize your strength training sessions, it’s handy to take the first steps and familiarize yourself with the sport’s terminology. Below, we cover the following strength training concepts:
- Rep,
- Concentric and eccentric training,
- Sets,
- 1RM (One-Rep-Max),
- Spotting,
- Muscle Failure / till failure / beyond failure,
- Progressive overload,
- Training split,
- Forced reps,
- Compound exercises / compound exercises,
- Isolated exercises,
- Incline/Decline.
In addition, we’ll delve deeper into topics such as progression, upper body and lower body training, and push and pull workouts.
Rep
The rep, short for repetition, refers to a complete execution of an exercise. This means performing the exercise from the starting position, where the muscles are fully contracted, and returning to the starting position. It’s important that the repetition is performed over the full range, and the tempo of the exercise is also crucial. Both aspects lead to maximum stress on the targeted muscle group.
Concentric, Eccentric, and Isometric
The rep can be divided into a concentric phase and an eccentric phase. The concentric phase involves the moment when the muscle shortens. For example, during bench press, the concentric phase is when you push the barbell up, shortening the chest muscles. The eccentric phase, also known as the negative phase, is the downward movement of the barbell towards the chest during bench press, where the chest muscles are stretched under tension. Isometric refers to the portion where there is no movement, and the muscle is held under tension, such as at the end and/or beginning of a repetition.
Negative Training
When emphasis is placed on the eccentric phase, it’s called “negative training” or “eccentric training”.
Sets
A set is a collection of repetitions. If you perform 8 repetitions for bench press, that counts as one set. The number of sets can vary depending on your training goal. Additionally, there are different types of sets that can increase intensity and training stimulus. These types of sets include supersets, giant sets (multiple sets of different exercises performed consecutively), and dropsets (one set is immediately followed by another set with less resistance).
1RM (One-Rep-Max)
The abbreviation 1RM stands for “one rep max,” which essentially means the weight with which you can perform one repetition of an exercise. You determine this by gradually increasing the weight until you can only perform 1 repetition. It’s extremely important when determining your 1RM that your muscles are developed and warmed up. It’s not advisable to determine your 1RM without a warm-up, as this can be very injury-prone if your muscles are not properly warmed up.
Once you know your 1RM, you can determine the training intensity and weight for your sets. Many athletes aiming for strength and muscle growth train at 70 to 80 percent of their 1RM.
Spotting
When going for such a 1RM, just like with other exercises where you go to the extreme, it’s useful to use a spotter. Spotting involves assisting someone in their exercise when necessary.
Muscle Failure
Once you’ve determined the weight and the number of sets for your specific goal, it’s important to train to muscle failure. This means performing the exercise until you can no longer continue in the concentric phase. In the example of bench press: you can still bring the bar back to your chest, but you can’t lift it off your chest, which is muscle failure.
Essentially, every fitness exercise has a muscle failure point. The idea behind this is that you generate overload in this way, and the muscles grow due to the significant training stimulus.
Overload
Strength training is mainly about getting stronger. The only way you can get stronger is when you expose the muscles to weights they haven’t been exposed to before. By doing this, you disrupt the equilibrium (homeostasis) in the body, and the muscles receive the signal that they need to get stronger to handle the same weights more easily next time. Your body does this by creating muscle fibers (hypertrophy) and thereby getting stronger.
Progressive Strength Training
When muscles become stronger due to strength training, fewer muscle fibers are involved in performing the same exercise with the same weight. This is because your body works extremely efficiently, and your muscles are used more efficiently to perform the same exercise. If you want continuous growth, your strength training needs to be progressive. This means you need to constantly seek overload. Overload isn’t just created by increasing weight but can also be achieved by varying the number of sets and the tempo of performing the repetition.
Exercise Order
The order of strength training exercises is important because your energy and effort in the first exercises are greater than the last exercises. Therefore, always start with exercises for the major muscle groups first. The major muscle groups are the chest muscles, back muscles, and leg muscles. However, you can also vary this to increase intensity and stimulate your muscles again. You can alternate between training your upper body first or your lower body first. Finally, you can also vary the type of exercise. There are push exercises and pull exercises.
