Exercise Jargon: Terms with descriptions and my thoughts

Greetings loyal follower(s),

You have my apologies for not updating this blog over the past few days. I intend to dedicate a particular time to update the blog in the future. To summarize the past week, things are busy but are going well, I'm still training and improving (I'll share the details tomorrow or later in the week), and have been brain storming on what to share.

I've decided to share some words that are thrown around a lot. Though, technically not jargon, many of the words I feel are overused/underused and/or not fully understood. I hope to enlighten and share my thoughts about some commonly used terms.

Aerobic activity/exercise: Activities that primarily use oxygen to fuel the metabolic processes. These are mostly lower intensity activities such walking, standing, jogging, etc. These activities are usually performed for extended amounts of time.

Anaerobic activity/exercise: A short duration but higher intensity activity that does not use oxygen for metabolic activities. These are strength and power related activities such as sprinting,
weight lifting, etc.

Atrophy: The wasting away of body tissue. When applying this to fitness and exercise, it is the lose of strength and/or muscle and bone mass. The old saying, "if you don't use it, you lose it," pretty much sums up the basics, excluding injuries, diseases, etc.

Cardio activity/exercise: Cardio is short for cardiovascular which is the circulatory system of the body. The circulatory system consists of the heart and blood vessels. The heart pumps blood which carries oxygen and nutrients to the tissues of the body and waste products and carbon dioxide from them.

Cardio vs. Aerobic: This is a pet peeve of mine. I've heard so many people say, " Today, I'm doing cardio," or something similar. This bothers me for a couple different reasons, 1) if you're living, you're technically doing cardio. Right? Reason 2) suppose the definition of cardio you want to use is specifically applied to exercise by elevating your heart rate. Well, lift a heavy weight a few times and see if your heart rate is elevated. It will be. This is just a pet peeve of mine. If you contest my reasoning, please leave a comment below.

Conditioning: This varies between who you ask. So, I went to a very knowlegable source that would clearly define conditioning. According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary, www.merriam-webster.com, " 1 : the process of training to become physically fit by a regimen of exercise, diet, and rest; also : the resulting state of physical fitness." Sounds good to me.

Hypertrophy: An increase in the volume of an organ or tissue caused by an increase in the size of the cells of the organ or tissue. In exercise and fitness this generally refers to either muscular hypertrophy or ventricular hypertrophy (both explained below).

Muscular Hypertrophy: This is an increase in the size of the muscle cells in skeletal muscle which results in bigger and/or stronger muscles. There are two types of muscle hypertrophy, sarcoplasmic and myofibral. This will simplify and separate the two different types. 1) Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is an increase in volume of the muscle cell (bigger but not necessarily stronger). When weight training, this is usually in the 12 to 15+ range. 2) Myofibral hypertrophy is an increase of the myofibrals of the muscle cells (stronger and more dense but not necessarily bigger).

Ventricular Hypertrophy: This is an increase in the size of the heart chambers that pump blood. This condition can occur from disease, but let's focus on the positive health and fitness possibilities. If this occurs as a result of physical training your body has adapted to be more efficient and pump more blood to the body with each heart beat.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think that this will be enough for tonight. If you have any questions, comments or want more terms explained, please leave them below. Until next time, be good and always try to improve.

Steven DG