6 popular fitness terms finally explained for beginners || Dunnebells

There is nothing wrong with being a beginner when it comes to your fitness! Don’t let this hold you back.   While you step into this new journey of fitness, you may discover that you are unaware and unsure about the meanings of multiple fitness terms. You may be encountering these quite often when looking for a work out session or setting up a regime with a virtual personal trainer. Instead of spending hours on Google, you’ve come to the right place to gain a clear understanding of all of these fitness terms. 

What are the most popular fitness terms?

Collected over the years here are a few of the most popular fitness terms listed out for you with a proper explanation. So, if you are a beginner or looking to brush up your understanding of common fitness terms this article is for you!

Knees out (‘Knees in line with toes’)

A lot of trainers will tell you to keep your knees in line with your toes or to never let your knees pass your toes. For some people, this is physically impossible. The majority of the time, trainers are simply trying to help you complete a squat movement correctly. It might sound complicated but try to think of this move beginning at your hips. As you push your body down, keep your chest up and focus on making sure your knees don’t collapse inwards.

Keep your weight in your heels vs. your toes as you lower and don’t worry too much about getting super low if you notice your back is starting to round. It is much better to only go to a comfortable depth and progressively get lower as you keep good form.

Spine in a neutral position

Our body posture plays an important role when we workout during 8-week weight loss training program. So, if we complete an entire workout with a poor posture this can lead to damage/injuries that will set you back as you try to make progress on your fitness journey. To avoid any such mishap, one of the most commonly used fitness terms is ‘have your spine in a neutral position.’ The idea is to keep your back straight and in its natural curvature when performing a lot of your workout moves. When we have an arched back and then add a load (like weights) we can do some serious damage to our spine. To learn more about how to find your neutral spine position, click here.

Soft knees

When this gets used, trainers are talking about evenly distributing your body weight when performing moves that involve jumping. Another way you can think of having “soft knees” is to avoid stomping or loud noises made by your feet when completing any sort of jump. This popular fitness term is an important one so that you don’t end up with a knee injury. The other thing to keep in mind when it comes to soft knees is that we don’t want to hyperextend our knees and lock them out, this can lead to injury too so when we think about “softening” our knees during certain movements we can ensure our form is correct.

DOMS

This is a fitness term that I see being used all the time without explanation. DOMS is an acronym for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. When you’re a beginner or are starting with a new set of exercises, there are going to be some changes happening when it comes to your body. When we fatigue our muscles from a workout, we may not feel the soreness or stiffness right away. When we feel the pain a few days after our workout, this is often a result of DOMS. What has happened is that you have caused tiny tears in your muscle fibre (it isn’t a bad thing don’t worry) and your body responds to these tears by increasing inflammation, which will give you DOMS. You should consider skipping high-intensity workouts but you can still do something light to prevent extra stiffness/soreness.

Spot reduction

This is a fitness term that I woudln’t be upset if it completely disappeared. Spot reduction is used when trainers hand out weight loss exercise programs that claim to burn fat in a certain area of the body. An example of this would be an ab workout that you can do in an effort to lose weight in your midsection. The reasons I woudln’t be upset if this fitness term went away is because it is so confusing and misleading especially for beginners. We CANNOT spot reduce or choose where the fat in our body disappears from during our workouts.

A healthy diet full of nutrient-dense foods and completing calorie-burning activities (like lifting weights) are what you should focus on instead of completing those spot reducing workouts.

MACROS

Macronutrients (shortened to ‘macros’) are the large-scaled required nutrients by our body every day. Macros are carbohydrates, fat and protein.

This style of flexible dieting has become increasingly popular with those trying to lose weight or live a happier healthy life because this diet doesn’t feel overly restrictive. Tracking macros was one of the most helpful things for me during my 65 lb weight loss journey.

However, setting up and tracking your macronutrients can be tricky, so this tutorial guide will help you get everything set up.

Do you feel more comfortable with these confusing fitness terms now? Starting a fitness journey is an excellent step and I highly encourage you not to get too caught up in the confusing terminology!

DUNNEBELLS FITNESS ADVICE

At the end of the day, this is the best advice that I could ever give you. Drink more water, eat more vegetables, lift some heavy sh*t and get some more sleep. Keep going, you can do this!

What are some confusing fitness terms that you’ve encountered? Comment below!

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