Coffee Break Spanish - Spanish gym vocabulary - Words for your workout | A Coffee Break with Pablo

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Join Pablo for a coffee break, in which you'll have the chance to practise and improve your Spanish over just 10 minutes. In this episode, we’re focusing on a workout-themed mini-lesson all about Spanish gym vocabulary! 🏋️‍♀️💪 You’ll learn how to talk about:➡️ el gimnasio➡️ calentamiento➡️ abdominales➡️ plancha➡️ and more!At the end of this episode, you'll feel confident using Spanish to describe your fitness routine! To keep building your Spanish skills, discover more content like this and receive regular free mini-lessons straight to your inbox, click here. 📩 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, what is I'm doing. I'm phenomenal. I'm Pablo and this is Coffee Break Spanish. Today, I have the pleasure of joining you for another short episode in between seasons of our main podcast. Now, if this is your first time joining us,

you can head right back to the Coffee Break Spanish Season 1 and start from the very beginning. To get us started, I want to say that I mean me encaanta the sport. I love sport. Me gustavutal, the tennis, and also going to the gym. I'm going to the gym. So today, I would like to talk to you about gym vocabulary.

Vocabulary related to the gym. Basically, I was... at the gym the other day, and I actually realized how different this vocabulary can be in English in comparison to Spanish. So I think this is a great opportunity to have a look at some gym-related vocabulary. What got me thinking or inspire was that white boar where my gym instructor writes all the exercises that we are going to do before the actual workout starts. I was reading the names of the exercises in English, and I noticed that there was one whose meaning in Spanish I couldn't remember.

So, we're going to be some examples of this vocabulary so interesting. Well, the first of all, before to do exercise, is important calentar. That means to warm up. You may recognize this bear

because it looks similar to the adjective caliente, hot. We also have the noun, El Kalentamiento, the warm up. One exercise that was written on my gym,

whiteboard was pull-ups. It was actually this exercise that I always struggled to remember what it means. So pull-ups in Spanish are called dominadas.

Dominadas. Maybe they are called like that because you need to dominate the bar in order to make your body go up. No lo se. I also always confuse pull-ups with

push-ups or press-ups. So press-ups or push-ups are called flexiones. Flexiones. And the word in Spanish actually shows you what you need to do because you need to flex your arms up and down. On the whiteboard, there was also written this exercise, sit-ups. And in Spanish,

se les yams abdominals because that's actually the muscle that you are exercising when you do this exercise.

There were also squats that are sentadillas and sentadillas look similar to centar or

to sit down because that's more or less what you're doing we're doing. We finished that workout with a one minute plank. And for plank, I really like the word we use, because we use the word planta for plank, plancha. Plancha.

But a plancha is also an iron that you used to iron your clothes. What else did we do? Ah, we also did lunges, which are called. zankadas. So one a zankada is actually a long step. That workout actually was only body weight, so we didn't use any pesas. Exactly, that's weights. Now that we've seen the names of some gym exercises in Spanish,

we can maybe move on and try to make sentences. And there is one verb that is going to be your best friend if you want to describe your gym routines. And that is the verb, to do. So here's a sentence for you to translate combining the verb, aster, and one of the exercises we've just seen.

Oi Hemos Echtoinels Oi Emoe Emoe Echtoin Aftonels

Today we have done sit-ups Some Ginggoers prefer maybe to focus on a particular muscle group

depending on the day of the week and for that you can use the following structure Oi toca plus the muscle group. For example, if I say,

Oi toca pyrna. And notice how we're using the verb to talk, which of course means to touch, but here it means more like today is leg day. Oi toca pirna or today is the term for the leg. Otro example, Oi toca espada.

Today is back day or today it's time to exercise the bag. Other funny expression in this gym vocabulary world is the Spanish equivalent for having a six-pack. Because for that, we actually say, Tener tableta. Tenor tableta. So we really say to have a bar in the sense of a chocolate bar. Because when you have a six-pack, you have the little squares like a chocolate bar.

I've always found this expression very amusing in Spanish. I have to say it. Okay, let's do a little recap. We now know how to say to warm up in Spanish. Calentar. And we also know the noun for a warm-up. Calentamiento. We've also seen some names for gym exercises.

For example, pull-ups, that is, dominadas, push-ups or press-ups, flexiones, sit-ups, abdominals, squats, sentadillas, plant-plancho, which is all. Also the iron machine, lungis, zankadas, and weights, pesas. We now know that to say that we've done any of these exercises, we will use the verb to do, say, today I'm doing squats. And if you want to say today it's leg day, we would say, And finally, I've also told you how to say to have a six-pack in Spanish. Tener tableta.

Well, well, that's all, de moment. I hope that you have enjoyed this gym introduction in Spanish, and most importantly, that I haven't exhausted you with all this vocabulary. And if you're not a fan of the gym, I hope at this. least I have motivated you to work that all-important muscle the brain and to practice some Spanish today. Well, nothing,

that that's going very well the day. I'm Pablo and happy coffee break.