# Training and nutrition jargon explained

_Training · 23 September 2026 · 5 min read · By The Map Your Gym Team_

> Progressive overload, AMRAP, tempo, macros, bulking, TDEE — the gym terms you start hearing once the basics click, explained in plain English.

Once reps and sets have stopped sounding like a foreign language, a second wave of jargon tends to arrive — on programmes, in podcasts, and in conversations you overhear between sets. This picks up where our [beginner's glossary](/blog/gym-jargon-glossary-for-beginners) leaves off, so if reps, sets, supersets and DOMS are still new, start there first

Nothing below is as technical as it sounds. Most of it is a short name for something you are probably already doing.

## How people talk about getting stronger

- Progressive overload — the whole principle behind getting stronger. You gradually ask your body for a little more than last time: another kilo, another rep, a shorter rest. Without it, training stops producing changes.
- Working set — a set at the weight you actually mean to lift, as opposed to the lighter sets you use to warm up. When a programme says three sets of eight, it means three working sets.
- Failure — the point where you genuinely cannot complete another rep without your technique falling apart. Training to failure is a tool, not a target; most sessions are better stopped a rep or two short.
- Deload — a deliberately easier week, usually every month or two. It feels like going backwards and generally isn't: it lets accumulated fatigue clear so the next block of training lands.
- Spotter — someone standing by while you lift, ready to help if a rep stalls. Worth asking for on anything heavy over your chest or across your back. Most people are happy to be asked.

## Ways a set can be shaped

- Rest-pause — taking a few breaths mid-set, then squeezing out a few more reps. A way of getting extra work from a weight you have already exhausted.
- Pyramid set — climbing the weight up across sets while the reps come down, or the reverse. Heavier sets get fewer reps, lighter sets get more.
- Circuit training — moving through several exercises in turn with little or no rest, then repeating the loop. Keeps the heart rate high and suits a busy gym floor, since you are never camped on one machine.
- AMRAP — as many reps as possible. A set with no fixed number: you keep going until you cannot maintain good form.
- HIIT — high-intensity interval training. Short, hard efforts separated by recovery, rather than one steady pace throughout.

## Words you will see written on a programme

- Concentric — the part of a rep where the muscle shortens and the weight moves against gravity: standing up out of a squat, or curling a dumbbell towards you.
- Eccentric — the lowering half, where the muscle lengthens under load. It is the phase most people rush, and the one most associated with next-day soreness.
- Tempo — how long each phase of a rep should take, often written as four digits such as 3-1-1-0: three seconds lowering, one second paused, one second lifting, no pause at the top.
- Time under tension — how long the muscle is actually working across a set, rather than simply how many reps you counted. Ten fast reps and ten slow ones are not the same amount of work.
- 1RM — your one-rep max: the heaviest you can lift once. Often used as a reference point, so a programme might ask for sets at 70% of it rather than naming a weight.

## Eating for a goal

- Maintenance calories — roughly what you need each day to stay the same weight. Everything below is described relative to this number.
- Calorie deficit — eating less than you use over time, which is how fat loss happens.
- Calorie surplus — eating more than you use, which gives the body material to build with.
- Cutting — a stretch of eating in a deficit with the aim of losing fat while keeping as much muscle as possible.
- Bulking — the opposite stretch, eating in a surplus to support building muscle. Some of the gain is usually fat, which is why the two phases tend to alternate.
- Macros — short for macronutrients: protein, carbohydrate and fat. Tracking macros means counting grams of each rather than calories alone.
- IIFYM — if it fits your macros. An approach that judges food by whether it fits the day's totals rather than by whether it is on an approved list.
- Refeed — a planned higher-calorie day during a longer diet, usually to make the next stretch more sustainable.

## The numbers people quote

- BMR — basal metabolic rate: the energy your body uses simply existing, before you move at all.
- TDEE — total daily energy expenditure: your BMR plus everything you do on top, from training to walking to the kettle. This is the number maintenance calories are estimated from.
- BMI — body mass index, a height-to-weight ratio. Useful across a population, clumsy for an individual: it cannot tell muscle from fat, so it routinely misclassifies people who lift.

Treat all three as estimates rather than measurements. They are starting points for a plan, not verdicts on how you are doing.

## Supplements you will hear about

- Whey — a protein powder made from a by-product of cheesemaking. It is convenient rather than magic: a way of hitting a protein target when cooking isn't practical.
- Creatine — among the most heavily studied supplements there is, taken to support strength and repeated high-effort work.
- Pre-workout — a mix taken before training, usually built around caffeine. Worth knowing the dose, particularly if you train in the evening.

None of this is required to make progress, and no supplement substitutes for consistent training and eating enough. If you have a health condition or take medication, check with a pharmacist or GP first.

## And one to be wary of

- Bro science — training or nutrition advice that circulates in gyms on confidence alone, with nothing behind it. Some of it turns out to be right; the tell is that nobody can say why.

As before, there is no need to learn this list. It arrives gradually, and asking what a word means is quicker than working it out — the person using it was told at some point too.

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Read online: https://www.mapyourgym.co.uk/blog/gym-jargon-training-and-nutrition-terms