Because I’ll be turning 40 at the beginning of next year, I recently started going to the gym – or palestra in Italian – five days a week. Call it my crisi di mezza età (mid-life crisis), but I feel so much better for it. I have more energia (energy) to chase around my four-year-old, I sleep come un ghiro (like a dormouse), and I can enjoy many of the delicious foods I used to deny myself, all while maintaining a dieta bilanciata (balanced diet), of course!
palestra
gym / gymnasium
The word comes from the Latin palaestra, which in turn comes from the Greek παλαίστρα, a derivative of παλαίω meaning “to wrestle / overcome.”
Palestra is a feminine noun that takes the following definite and indefinite articles:
- la palestra = the gym
- le palestre = the gyms
- una palestra = a gym
- delle palestre = some gyms
Vado in palestra quattro volte alla settimana.
I go to the gym four days a week.
The first time you step into the gym, the array of macchinari da palestra (gym equipment) can be overwhelming, but with time and practice, you’ll become familiar with it all. A good starting point is the free weights (i pesi liberi), dumbbells (i manubri) and barbells (i bilancieri). These weights come in various kilograms that you can progressively increase as you gain strength.
Some popular esercizi (exercises) you can do in the gym include:
- flessione = push-up
- trazione alla sbarra = pull-up
- plank = plank
- squat / piegamento = squat
- alzata laterale = lateral raise
- curl = curl
- affondo = lunge
- addominali = sit-ups
- crunch = crunch
No matter which exercises you do, always make sure to bring una borraccia (water bottle) to quench your thirst, un asciugamano (a towel) to wipe away il sudore (sweat), a good pair of scarpe da ginnastica (gym shoes), and comfortable abbigliamento da ginnastica (gym clothes). You can keep all these things inside una borsa sportiva (gym bag). Also make sure to fare stretching (stretch) before and after your allenamento (workout) – otherwise you may end up with some very sore muscoli (muscles)!
Many palestrati fanatici (gym fanatics) also like to wear un orologio intelligente (smart watch) to keep track of their battito cardiaco (heart rate) and how many calorie (calories) they’ve burned.
Some of my friends are too shy to go to the palestra, so they’ve built themselves a palestra privata in casa (home gym). After the initial expense of setting it up, I’m sure it’s much more economical than a monthly abbonamento alla palestra (gym membership)!
Palestra has a second meaning in Italian, which is exercise, or in scholastic terms, physical education (Phys Ed). Exercise tends to be the most common translation when palestra is used with the verb fare (fare palestra = to work out / to exercise).
Sono anni che non faccio palestra!
I haven’t worked out / exercised in years!
Figuratively speaking, palestra can also mean training ground, as in a place or situation that gives you the experience to take on new challenges.
La scuola è una palestra di vita per i giovani.
School prepares the youth for life.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
