EPOC

Intermediate ⚽ Sports / Fitness

Definition

Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption—the elevated metabolic rate after exercise, popularly called 'afterburn.' It's smaller than most people think (5-15% of workout calories).

Example Usage

EPOC from HIIT is often overstated; the total caloric burn difference versus steady cardio is minimal.

Origin

Physiological measurement term; popularized in fitness marketing to justify HIIT.

Fun Fact

EPOC increases more with higher-intensity training, but the total calories are often exaggerated in infomercials—steady-state cardio still burns more total calories.

Source: Exercise Physiology, energy metabolism research

Related Terms

Beginner

PRs

Personal Records in fitness, the humble brag currency of gym culture where every incremental improvement becomes an Instagram story opportunity. It's how people celebrate lifting five more pounds like they just summited Everest.

⚽ Sports / Fitness
Intermediate

composition

In fitness circles, this refers to the ratio of fat, muscle, bone, and water in your body—basically your body's ingredient list. It's what trainers obsess over instead of just looking at the scale, because apparently weighing 150 pounds of muscle is vastly superior to weighing 150 pounds of anything else. The buzzword that launched a thousand DEXA scans.

⚽ Sports / Fitness
Beginner

Range of Motion (ROM)

The degree of movement through a joint. Full ROM builds strength through the entire movement; half-reps build half-progress.

⚽ Sports / Fitness
Intermediate

deoxygenated

The process of removing oxygen from blood or water, basically turning your red stuff blue (or making your aquarium a fish graveyard). In fitness contexts, it's what happens to your blood after your muscles greedily steal all the oxygen during that last brutal set. Think of it as oxygen's eviction notice from your bloodstream.

⚽ Sports / Fitness
Beginner

Reps

Short for repetitions — the number of times you perform an exercise before collapsing into an existential heap on the gym floor. The correct number of reps is always "one more" according to every training partner who has ever lived.

⚽ Sports / Fitness
Intermediate

workrate

The speed and efficiency at which someone completes tasks, often measured by managers who themselves haven't done actual work in years. A metric that supposedly indicates productivity but really just shows how fast you can move before burning out. In sports, refers to a player's hustle and effort, which sounds way more noble than 'how much we can squeeze out of you.'

⚽ Sports / Fitness

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