Discourse Community

Introduction: We’ve spent the last few weeks learning about discourse communities and how we all relate to them. Everyone is a part of a discourse community, if not multiple. They can range from friend groups, music, sports, baking, gaming, and so much more. I’m a part of multiple different discourse communities, but there is one in particular that I love being a part of that this essay is going to highlight, the fitness community.

Common Goals “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals” (Swales, 2011, p. 471). In the fitness community, everyone has essentially the same goals, just branched out. These common goals range from gaining weight, known as bulking, and building muscle, to losing weight, which is known …show more content…
388). When I was new to the gym my cousin was always using terms that seemed foreign at the time but after being at the gym so much and learning every day I can understand it. With that being said, in the gym, we use different terms that other people outside of the gym might not understand. For example, we ask people what split they are. This essentially refers to what they do every day, per week. Upper/lower split refers to focusing on upper body muscle groups on Monday, lower body muscle groups on Tuesday, rest on Wednesday, repeat that for Thursday and Friday, then rest on Saturday and Sunday. Another popular split is push, pull, and legs. Monday you work your muscle groups that push. So triceps, chest, and shoulders, on Tuesday you do your muscle groups pull. So your biceps, and back. Then Wednesday is leg day, so your calves, hamstrings, glutes, and some people also train their abs on leg day. Then repeat this over for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and rest on Sunday. More terms we use are for machines. We say “How many sets do you have left” or “How many reps do you have left”. Reps refer to how many times you use the weight in a given set. So for example, when I’m curling my set is 3x12, which means 3 sets of 12 reps. Sets are groups of

Show More