Going To The Gym

Hello English learners! Welcome back to EnglishPod! My name isMarco.

And my name is Catherine and today I think we’re hitting the gym, Marco.

We need to be healthy. We’ve gained weight over the winter I think.

I think so and being in office, you know, it doesn’t give you much opportunity to go and exercise and really get a lot of work…

Exactly, so…

Done throughout the day.

That’s why we’re going to the gym on this occasion.

Uhu.

We’re gonna be pumping some iron; we’re gonna be working out, so why don’t we take a look at “vocabulary preview” and see what this means? Voice: Vocabulary preview.

Alright, so, to pump iron, what does that mean?

Alright, well, to pumping iron means lifting weights.

Okay, so we’re pumping iron – we’re lifting weights.

Cause, you know, weights are made of iron.

Right.

So it makes them so heavy.

Hehe. Alright, so we’re pumping iron, good. And, well, we’re gonna be giving you guys some pointers.

Pointers.

Right.

Alright, so you might have heard the word point before. Well,pointers is another word for tips.

Alright, so we’re gonna be giving you some tips or advice.

Yep, so you’re gonna get some help today from the trainer. Alright, so we’re gonna jump right into this dialogue and when we come back, we’re talking more about what’s going on.

So this guy was a little bit arrogant. I think he was very, you know, very muscular, but I think he embarrassed himself in front of the lady.

The trainer you mean?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, definitely, so he… he… we say he had a big ego.

Yeah.

He thought a lot about himself, so… let’s check out some of these phrases and words they were using, because they’re… they’re all related to going to the gym and they can help you if you ever wanna get some help when you’re at the gym. [Voice: Language takeaway.]

So this girl, she was new in the gym; she didn’t really know what she was doing and, well, the guy said, well, “Do you wanna developstrength or muscle tone?”

Alright, we know what strength is, but what is muscle tone?

Okay, so if you want to develop muscle tone or to have muscle tone, it means that you have healthy muscles. Not like huge big muscles, right?

Uhu.

But you have, uh, a nice body.

Right, so tone, to tone is to maybe make… give some shape to something.

Uhu.

It’s, you know, sometimes you have big arms and they’re not really… you can’t see the muscles…

Uhu.

While muscle tome means that you can start to see the shape and they start to get stronger, alright?

Uuh.

So if you think of Madonna maybe five years ago, she had a lot of muscle tone. Now she’s like r-r-r.

Yeah, I know…

Big muscles.

Now she’s strong.

But muscle tone means that you can see the muscles; they start to develop, uhu.

Okay, and this actually is very related to our next word, because he said muscle tone and definition.

Right, so definition is another way for us to describe, um, seeing those muscles. Because at first you have big tummy or you have big arms. And when you start to work out, every time you go, you can see more and more definition. That means more and more the muscle becomes visible.

Alright, so you have defined muscles. Alright, good! Now the girlwas like “No, no, I don’t want to be like super strong and huge”, right?

She doesn’t wanna look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yeah, exactly.

Uhu.

She said “I just want a good physique”.

Alright, this word maybe sounds strange for some of you, because it’s, uh…

Kind of sounds French to me.

It’s more like French than English.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, it does come from French and physique is a way to talk about the whole body.

Uhu.

You know, the physique is the… the state of your whole body. It’s your physical appearance.

Okay, so I can say, uh, “She has a nice physique”.

Uhu.

So…

So that means she’s… probably works out a lot.

Uhu, so… but basically it’s like her whole body, right? You can’t just say like “She’s… she has good physique in her arms” or something like that.

No, no, your physique… physical, think of the word physical…

Uhu.

It’s your whole body.

Your whole body, alright.

Uhu.

So good physique. And now the tips that he was giving her or the pointers, uh, he was talking about these two words – reps and sets.

Right, these are great words for the gym, because they, uh, they allow us to count when we’re working out.

Uhu.

So the first one is reps or repetitions.

Uhu.

That means doing something over and over again.

Uhu.

So, for example, if I want to lift a weight, I sit down the bench, I do one, uh, two…

Uhu.

Three – how many times I lift that weight is an… a repetition…

A repetition.

Or a rep.

Alright, and, well… and what about sets?

So I could say I lift the weight ten times. Mm, one, two, three, four…

Uhu.

All the way to ten. And then I wait and then I do it again, so the number of times I do it again is a set.

Okay.

So sets of ten or sets of five.

Okay, so if you are lifting this weight ten times, uh, and you have five sets, you will do a total of…

Fifty pushes or lifts…

Repetitions.

Or, yeah, repetitions.

Okay, so reps and sets are probably the most, uh, important or common words you’ll hear in the gym, especially if you’re lifting weights, right?

Uhu, definitely, and sometimes your trainer will count with you, so that he’ll… he’ll keep a count while you’re working out.

Uh, alright.

Uhu.

Cool, so, um, those are the words that we have for you on language takeaway. I think in order to better understand these words we should listen to our dialogue again, but we’re gonna slow it down just a little bit. DIALOGUE, SECOND TIME (slow)

Alright, so you might have heard some other phrases in there that sound interesting or new to you and now so we’re gonna be going to the “fluency builder” part of lesson we can talk about sounding more fluent in English. Voice: Fluency builder.

Alright, so, um, the girl, she was a little bit lost, right? So this guy was trying to help her out.

Yeah.

I think it was her first time in the gym.

It was and, uh, and she doesn’t really know where to start, which is a common problem for people who go to the gym for the first time.

Uhu, so the guy said, well, um, “Yeah, I know how it is”.

How what is? Hehe.

Exactly, how what is?

It’s a very strange phrase, because it’s vague, it’s not clear.

Uhu, so what is he referring to?

This is something very common that we say in English to mean “I understand your situation”.

I know how you feel.

I know how you feel, so, uh, she says “This is my first time, I don’t know what to do and he says “Hm, I know how it is, I understand your situation”.

Right, because I imagine the first time he went to the gym he felt the same way.

Exactly, or I could say “Huh, I’m so lost, I’m new at this school, I don’t even know anyone”.

Yeah, I know how it is, I was new here last year, so trust me, I know how it is.

Uh, okay, so Marco and I have similar situations, although he has already experienced that.

Right.

So he can help me out.

This is a good phrase. It’s actually, um… I think it’s very common for somebody to kind of sympathize with you, huh?

Absolutely, and it’s a really good phrase if you want to help someone who looks lost or confused, so if someone joins your… your work, a new… if you have a new, uh, colleague…

Uhu.

And they say “Oh, I don’t know where anything is, I don’t know how this… how to do anything of my job”, you say “Oh, I know how it is”.

Right.

I was new here last month”.

Uhu.

Uhu.

Great. And, well, now they were talking about, you know, lifting weights and the physique and she said this interesting word, she says “I don’t wanna be ripped like you”.

Okay, so many of you have probably heard the other meaning of the word to rip.

Right.

Or ripped.

So this is to rip. [Rip sound]

Yeah.

Right?

To tear. But in this case it’s an adjective, it’s a way to describe someone’s physique, their body. [NOTE: or to tear off]

Uhu.

And there we’re talking about people who are very, very muscular.

Okay, so basically bodybuilders.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is ripped, he has…

He’s ripped.

Huge muscles.

Hehe.

Uh, Madonna is ripped, she has huge muscles.

Okay, so it’s a very informal way, but… it’s a very informal way of saying “very muscular”.

Yeah, someone who works out a lot.

Hehe. Alright, you’re ripped.

And after this we’ve got one more phrase that’s actually very important, because when we talk about going to the gym, working out, we have to talk about safety and your health as well. It’s very easy to hurt yourself.

Right, and that’s why we want to avoid… you don’t want to pull a muscle.

Alright, pull a muscle. This is a key phrase here, because we have a special combination of verb and noun.

Uhu.

The thing that we pull is our muscle.

Uhu.

And what we do to it is we pull it. That means we hurt it.

Uhu, so if you don’t stretch and you’re lifting weights, maybe your muscles start to heart and you can’t lift anymore.

Yeah, you… you hurt it, you pulled your muscle.

You pulled a muscle.

Or often runners have this problem. They don’t stretch before they run or they run too much and they have a lot of pain in their muscles, you say “I pulled a muscle”.

Uhu. Now, I think there’s another way of saying it also is to… totear a muscle, right?

Tear is more serious.

More serious.

Uhu. A tear is like a little rip in your muscle and you should really see a doctor about that.

Okay.

Uhu.

So… and we don’t want you to pull a muscle or to tear a muscle, so be sure to stretch. But, uh, we have some more examples with this phrase to pull a muscle, so let’s listen. Voice: Example one.

Muscle strains also called pulled muscles are common sports injuries. Voice: Example two.

If you do not warm up before physical activity you can easily pull a muscle. Voice: Example three.

Anyone can pull a muscle because of overuse, muscle fatigue or through a fall.

Alright, so now that’s clear. I think, uh, we can listen to our gym dialogue one more time and see what happens to this arrogant bodybuilder.

Huh, absolutely.

Alright, Catherine, so we know that you are a very healthy person, you often go to the gym.

This is true. I like to go to the gym.

So, uh, any… any gym stories?

Oh, gosh, I have lots of gym stories. Uh, I like to run.

Uhu.

And I often use the treadmill.

Uhu.

And, uh… and I’ve never really understood the people who don’t run on the treadmill, people who stand or who…

Stand.

Walk slowly.

Oh, who walk on a treadmill.

And I remember… my gym is usually very crowded. I remember one time I was at my gym and I wanted to run on a treadmill. I had a long day at work and I had to go out afterwards, so I didn’t have much time and I had an hour.

Uhu.

And I really wanted to run, but there’s a line for the treadmills, there’re too many people. And this particular day I was waiting and waiting and waiting and finally it was my turn and I stepped and a woman cut in front of me.

No.

She cut in front of me and I was so angry and what did she do? In her heels…

Heels?

Heels, big shoes. She walked for forty minutes.

Oh, my God.

You could go outside and walk! I wanna run!

But she was wearing heels at the gym.

In her heels at the gym.

Wow, well, I guess, uh, you have to look nice when you go to the gym also.

Apparently, apparently.

Well, it is a very popular place for people to meet, right? To start dating.

It is, they say… they say after the office the gym is one of the most, uh, common places for people to meet their boyfriends and girlfriends.

Wow, so there’s another good reason why you should go to the gym.

Absolutely, yeah.

Alright, so, uh, that’s all the time we have for today, but we would like to hear if you have any questions, any doubts or comments, so come to our site englishpod.com.

And, uh, if you have any gym stories, we’d also like to hear those, so let’s gonna do it for us. Until next time everyone… Bye!

Right, bye! ***