Let's Learn English at the Gym! 🏋🏽🏃💪

Let's learn English at the gym.

Well, welcome to this English lesson at the gym.

I want to start this lesson by teaching you two phrases that we use

to describe people who regularly go to the gym.

We would say that they are in shape, or we would say that they are fit.

If you go to the gym regularly, if you exercise

regularly, eventually your body changes.

And we would then describe you

by saying that you are in shape, or saying that you are fit.

So this is what we would call a gym.

You would come to a gym if you want to exercise or if you want to work out.

We can also use the noun form, though,

we can say you come to a gym to do a workout.

Notice it becomes one word then.

A gym has all of the equipment that you need in order to exercise.

It has all the equipment you need in order to work out or to do a workout.

So this is a really nice gym.

This gym actually doesn't require a membership, though, for me,

because it's at my school.

But most gyms will require that you pay a membership

fee, that you get a membership so you can go to that gym.

So a gym is a place where you can go to exercise or to workout.

So there are two things that you can do before you workout.

The first is that you can do a warm up when you do a warm up.

You lift lighter weights or you walk before you run

so that your body is ready for the exercise.

So the first thing you can do is warm up.

The second thing you can do is that you can stretch.

You can do things like this to stretch out the muscles in your body

to get ready to do some harder exercise.

If I'm going to run, I usually walk for about ten

or 15 minutes before I run as a warm up.

And then after I walk, I do some light stretching before I run.

By the way, I also stretch after I run.

At my age, stretching is as important as the exercise.

One type of exercise is called cardio,

which is short for cardiovascular training.

These are exercises you do to improve the fitness of your heart and lungs.

One of the things you can do is you can use a treadmill.

A treadmill is an exercise machine that you can use for walking or running.

You can also just walk or jog outside if you want as well.

Now, I can't show you other

exercise machines for cardio here because we don't have them.

But you could use an exercise bike.

You could use an elliptical machine.

You could use a rowing machine.

All of those are great for raising your heart rate.

One of the things that you measure

when you do cardio is you measure your heart rate.

How many beats per minute is your heart beating?

For me, I know I'm getting a good cardio workout

if my heart rate is above 135 beats per minute.

If it goes above 175 beats per minute, that's a little too high

and I will slow down.

So cardio is one way to improve your cardiovascular fitness.

It's a way to improve the fitness of your heart and your lungs.

Another type of exercise involves using weights to make your body stronger.

And we call this lifting weights or weight lifting or weight training

or strength training or resistance training.

It has a lot of names.

And it's used to describe anything you do with weights like these free weights,

free weights or any weights not attached to a machine.

This particular type of free weight is called a dumbbell.

Down here on the floor I have a barbell.

You can see it's just a little bit longer than a dumbbell.

And over here, I also have what's called a kettlebell.

So a kettlebell is kind of a fun little weight that you can do

other things with that would be impossible with a dumbbell or a barbell.

So those are all called free weights or sometimes we just call them weights.

You might also use what's called a resistance band.

So this is like a giant rubber band, which when you pull it,

has a lot of resistance.

This is also used for strength training, or you might use a machine.

So this machine here is used to work out...

Uh, I was pointing to my legs...

It's used to work out the chest muscles.

I only have it set to 20 pounds, but you can see

how as I push this, the weights go up and down.

So strength training, weight training, weight lifting, lifting weights.

All of those names are used to refer to the type of exercise

you do to get stronger.

We should talk a little bit about reps and sets.

Reps is just a short way of saying repetitions.

If I lift this weight ten times, we count that as ten repetitions.

If I then set the weight down, rest for a bit and do it ten more times

for ten repetitions that would be my second set.

Okay?

So let me explain a little more clearly.

If I lift a weight ten times, I call that ten reps or ten repetitions.

If I do that three times, so I lift the weight

ten times, rest, lift ten more times, rest, lift it ten more times and rest.

That would mean I did three sets.

I did three sets of ten reps or repetitions.

Sometimes you want to work

out on the floor and then you might want to use a yoga mat

or what we sometimes call an exercise mat.

This is just a soft mat that makes the floor a little nicer.

It makes it a little easier to work out on the floor.

If you were going to do push ups, for instance,

you might want to use a yoga mat.

So I'm sitting on an exercise ball,

which is something else you might find at a gym.

You can use an exercise ball to stretch out and to do other exercises.

You also might find

what's called a weighted ball.

So this ball actually weighs three kilograms.

I could use this ball to do different exercises to strengthen my body.

So you will definitely find balls at a gym.

Not the kind that you use to kick around or to play sports,

but the kind you use for stretching and to do some strength training.

So because this is just a small gym, there are no employees.

No one works at this gym.

So I can't hire a personal trainer to help me work out.

A personal trainer is someone

who designs a workout program for you and then helps you do it.

Instead, I have my fitness tracker.

A fitness tracker is a small device that you wear on your wrist

that kind of keeps track of the things you're doing when you're working out.

And because this is a small gym, there are no fitness classes.

Fitness classes are things you can sign up for

where a trainer helps a whole bunch of people do the same exercises.

But I like this gym for a couple of reasons.

Number one, there's hardly ever anyone here.

And number two, it's totally free.

Well, hey, thank you so much for watching this English lesson.

I hope you learned some English words

and phrases that you can use in your next conversation about working out.

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Thanks for watching. Bye.