[Music] hello English Learners welcome back to English pod my name is Marco and my name is Katherine 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 an office you know it doesn't give you much opportunity to go and exercise and really get a lot of work exactly the day that's why we're going to the gym on this occasion we're going to be pumping some iron we're going to be working out so why don't we take a look at vocabulary preview and see what this means vocabulary preview all right so to pump iron what does that mean all right well to Pumping Iron means lifting weights okay so we're Pumping Iron we're lifting weights cuz you know weights are made of iron that's what makes them so heavy all right so we're Pumping Iron good and well we're going to be giving you guys some pointers pointers all right so you might have heard the word point before well pointers is another word for tips all right so we're going going be giving you tips or advice yep so you're going to get some help today from the trainer all right so we're going to jump right into this dialogue and we come back we talking more about what's going [Music] on hey there you look a little lost are you new here yeah how did you know you can always spot the newbies I can give you a few pointers if you want were you trying to use this machine here yeah I just started my training today and I'm not sure where to begin it's okay I know how it is this machine here will work out your upper body mainly your triceps and biceps are you looking to develop strength or muscle tone in definition well I don't want to be ripped like you I just want a good physique with weights and cardio in that case you want to work with less weight you can start off by working 10 to 15 reps in four sets 5 kilo weight should be enough now it's very important that you stretch before Pumping Iron you might pull muscle got it wow is that the weight you're lifting my goodness that's a lot of weight it's not that much just [Music] watch I'm okay 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 definitely so he he we say he had a big ego 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 want to get some help when you're at the gym 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 want to develop strength or muscle tone all right we know it's 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 but you have a a nice body right so tone to tone is to maybe make give some shape to something it's you know sometimes you have big arms and they're not really you can't see the muscles well muscle tone means that you can start to see the shape and they start to get stronger all right so if you think of Madonna maybe 5 years ago she had a lot of muscle tone now she's like big muscles she's strong but muscle tone means that you can see the muscles they start to develop okay and this actually is very related to our next word because you said muscle tone and definition right so definition is another way for us to describe um seeing those muscles because at first you have a 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 of the muscle becomes visible all right so you have defined muscles all right good now the girl was like no no I don't want to be like super strong and huge right she doesn't want to look like Arnold Schwarz and yeah exactly she said I just want a good physique all right this word maybe sounds strange for some of you because it's uh kind of sounds French to more like French than English yeah well it does come from French and physique is a way to talk about the whole body 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 has a nice physique mhm so that means she's probably works out a lot mhm 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 n no your physique physical think of the word physical it's your whole body your whole body all right 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 ow us to count when we're working out so the first one is reps or repetitions that means doing something over and over again so for example if I want to lift a weight I sit down on the bench I do one two three how many times I lift that weight is an a repetition or a rep rep all right and well and what about sets so I could say I lift the weight 10 times 1 2 3 4 all the way to 10 and then I wait and then I do it again so the number of times I do it again is a set so sets of 10 or sets of five okay so if you are lifting this weight 10 times uh and you have five sets you will do a total of 50 pushes or lifts 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 mhm definitely and sometimes your trainer will count with you so that he'll he'll keep a count while you're working out all right 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 going to slow it down just a little bit hey there you look a little lost are you new here yeah how did you know you can always spot the newbies I can give you a few pointers if you want were you trying to use this machine here yeah I just started my training today I'm not really sure where to begin it's okay I know how it is this machine here will work out your upper body mainly your triceps and biceps are you looking to develop strength or muscle tone in definition well I don't want to be ripped like you I just want a good physique with weights and cardio in that case you want to work with less weight you can start off by working 10 to 15 reps in four sets 5 kilo weight should be enough now it's very important that you stretch before pumping iron or you might pull a muscle got it wow is that the weight you're lifting my goodness that's a lot of weight it's not that much just watch I'm okay [Music] all right so you might have heard some other phrases in there that sound interesting or new to you and that's why we're going to go into the fluency Builder part of the lesson where we can talk about sounding more fluent in English fluency Builder all right so um the girl she was a little bit lost right so this guy was trying to help her out 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 mhm so the guy said well um yeah I know how it is how what is exactly how what is it's very strange phrase because it's vague it's not clear mhm 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 I'm so lost I'm new at this school I don't even know anyone yeah I know how it is I I was new here last year so trust me I know how it is okay so Marco and I have similar situations although he has already experienced it 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 and they say oh I don't know where anything is I don't know how this how to do anything at my job you say oh I know how it is I was new here last month mhm mhm 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 want to be ripped like you okay so many of you have probably heard the other meaning of the word to rip or ripped so this is to ripped yeah to tear but in this case it's an adjective it's a way to describe someone's physique their body and we're talking about people who are very very muscular okay so basically bodybuilders Arnold Schwarzenegger is ripped he has ripped huge muscles madana 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 it's someone who works out a lot all right you're ripped and after this we've got one more phrase it'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 what we want to avoid you don't want to pull a muscle all right pull a muscle this is a key phrase here because we have a special combination of verb and noun the thing that we pull is our muscle and what we do to it is we pull it that means uh we hurt it mhm so if you don't stretch and you're lifting weights maybe your muscle start to hurt and you can't lift anymore yeah you you hurt it you pulled your muscle pulled the 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 mhm now I think there's another way of saying it also is to to tear a muscle right tear is more serious more serious MH a tear is like a little rip in your muscle and you should really see a doctor about that okay so 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 phrasee to pull a muscle so let's listen example one muscle strains also called pull muscles are common sports injuries example two if you do not warm up before physical activity you can easily pull a muscle example three anyone can pull a muscle because of overuse muscle fatigue or through a fall all right so now that that's clear I think uh we can listen to our gym dialogue one more time and see what happens to this arrogant body building [Music] absolutely hey there you look a little lost are you new here yeah how did you know you can always spot the newbies I can give you a few pointers if you want were you trying to use this machine here yeah I just started my training today and and I'm not sure where to begin it's okay I know how it is this machine here will work out your upper body mainly your triceps and biceps are you looking to develop strength or muscle tone in definition well I don't want to be ripped like you I just want a good physique with weights and cardio in that case you want to work with less weight you can start off by working 10 to 15 reps in four sets 5 kilo weight should be enough now it's very important that you stretch before Pumping Iron you might pull them mus got it wow is that the weight you're lifting my goodness that's a lot of weight it's not that much just [Music] watch I'm okay all right 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 and I often use the treadmill and uh and I've never really understood the people who don't run on the treadmill people who stand or who walk slowly who walk on the 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 the treadmill I had a long day at work and I had to go out afterwards so I didn't have much time I only had an hour and I really wanted to run but there's a line for the treadmills there are 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 40 minutes oh my God you could go outside and walk I want to run but she was wearing heels at the gym in her heels at the gym wow well I guess you have to look nice when you go to the gym also apparently apparently is a very popular place for people to meet right to start dating 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 all right so um 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 do.com and uh if you have any gym stories we'd also like to hear those so that's going to do it for us until next time everyone bye right by [Music]