Phrases to Avoid

Jim Wendler

Like any subculture, weight training has its own language. Those “in the know” recognize this and can easily determine where one’s place is within the culture. As a cheat sheet, here are some terms and phrases to avoid so as to NOT be labeled a tweed.

1. “Ass to Grass” – probably the dumbest term ever. This term is used by people that regularly squat 185 for reps (usually 2). The ironic thing is that they are usually 3 inches high.

They always ask you how much you squat. When you say “1000 pounds”, they ask you “For how many?” So if you and your crew use this term or write Ass2Grass or something similar in your training logs (A2G also qualifies) then you might as well stamp “Newbie” on your forehead.

2. “It’s all you” – I’m not sure why this happens. I never really cared to stroke someone’s ego enough to give him a spot, lift some of the weight myself and then let the son of a take credit for it. If I lifted the weight, I want it to be known. So if your contribution to the workout is simply saying, “It’s all you!!” while performing a 2 Man Bench/Deadlift, stay away from the Monolift.

3. “Getting back into it” – This is one of my favorites as it always comes up when I’m in a bar. For whatever reason, I have a Person Magnet on my person that seems to attract a lot of people in a bar. They start drinking and the attraction of the magnet gets stronger. Usually the conversation starts off with Captain Obvious asking this question,
“So you lift weights?”
This usually gets answered by my personal favorite (I made this one up in a grocery store parking lot 6 years ago in answer to the same question), “No, I just put them down.”

Then these jokers start pounding me with questions, though they are too drunk to remember anything I tell them. But they always do a couple of half-flys (this is the movement that is hard to explain – imagine your arms in front of you, slightly bent elbows and you perform a limited fly motion with a LOT of bounce. This motion is very typical of newbies trying to warm up on the bench press) and claim that they are going to “Get back into it.” Usually they have some good excuse for not being able to train such as work or school. I’ve never heard anything like, “I stopped training because I adopted 7 newborns and work 14 jobs.” No, it’s those pesky things like mid-terms (which apparently last for 6 months) or the Frisbee golf season that stops these fecal nuggets from training. So if you use the phrase, “Get back into it” you were never into it in the first place.