Reference

Home gym glossary

Plain-English definitions of the home gym terms used across our buying guides.

Continuous horsepower (CHP): The power a treadmill motor sustains under load, as opposed to peak horsepower, a brief no-load figure some brands advertise instead. CHP is the honest number for comparing treadmill motors.
User weight capacity: The maximum rated body weight a machine is engineered to carry safely. Running, bouncing, and dynamic lifts load a frame harder than standing still, so honest ratings matter more than marketing round numbers.
Flywheel weight: On bikes and rowers, the mass that stores momentum through the stroke. Heavier flywheels generally pedal and pull more smoothly, though well-designed magnetic systems can feel smooth with lighter wheels.
Magnetic resistance: Resistance created by magnets moving closer to a metal flywheel. It is quiet, contact-free, and does not wear like a friction pad, which is why most home bikes and many rowers use it.
Stride length: The front-to-back distance an elliptical pedal travels. Adults generally need 18 inches or more for a natural running-style stride; short strides feel choppy at speed and suit stepping more than striding.
Steel gauge: A thickness scale for the steel tubing in racks and benches. Lower numbers are thicker: 11-gauge (about 3mm) is the heavy-duty standard for serious home racks, while 14-gauge is lighter and flexes more under load.
Westside hole spacing: 1-inch hole spacing through the bench press zone of a power rack (with 2-inch spacing elsewhere), allowing finer safety-arm and J-cup height adjustment where small changes matter most.
Pulley ratio: On cable machines, the ratio between weight loaded and resistance felt. A 2:1 ratio makes a 100 lb stack feel like 50 lb but doubles cable travel, which suits functional movements; 1:1 feels true to the stack for heavy rows and pulldowns.
Selectorized (pin-loaded): Weight selection by moving a pin in a stack, as opposed to plate-loaded machines where you slide plates onto horns. Pin-loaded is faster between sets; plate-loaded usually costs less and has no stack ceiling.
Footprint: The floor area a machine occupies, length by width, in use rather than folded or stored. We report both where they differ, because a treadmill that folds still needs its full deck space every time it runs.
Progressive resistance (bands): A resistance band pulls harder the further it stretches, so a band rated 50 lb only reaches that force near full extension. This ascending curve is easy on joints at the start of a movement and hardest at lockout.
Amplitude (massage gun): How far a massage gun head travels per stroke, in millimeters. Deeper amplitude (12-16mm) reaches dense muscle with fewer passes; shorter amplitude with high speed suits sensitive areas.
Cold plunge temperature range: The water temperatures a plunge system can reach and hold. Units with a chiller hold 39-55°F (4-13°C) continuously; ice-only tubs depend on how much ice you add and how fast it melts.
SPM (strokes per minute): Rowing pace measured in strokes per minute. Most steady rowing happens at 18-30 SPM; pace and power come from leg drive, not from rushing the stroke rate up.