The entry trick on boxes and rails: straight across, board flat, weight centred. The boardslide grows out of it later — a 90-degree turn across the feature.
An ace is a serve your opponent never even touches — instant point. A double fault is two missed serves in a row: the point goes to your opponent without them hitting a ball.
Anyone racing outside the elite field, scored within their age category. Age-groupers almost always race under different bike rules than the elites you see on TV.
A thin rod — two old clubs do the same job — laid on the ground to check your target line against your foot line. The fastest cure there is for crooked shots.
The point on your face your drawing hand returns to at every full draw — usually the corner of the mouth. Without an identical anchor, every arrow lands somewhere else.
The base position of stable belly flight: hips forward, chest to earth, head up, arms and legs slightly spread. It stabilises you without you balancing at all.
When your forearms turn rock hard on a descent and your fingers can no longer modulate the brake lever. Not a strength problem but constant tension without recovery.
The standing base stance: pedals level, knees and elbows bent, hips centred over the bottom bracket, eyes far ahead. Arms and legs become your second suspension.
Avalanche transceiver, probe and shovel — the three parts of companion rescue. None works alone, and the transceiver goes under your jacket, never in your pack.
Drawing the bow from your scapula and back rather than your biceps. EMG comparisons are clear: elite archers work through the posterior deltoid and mid trapezius, beginners through the arm flexors.
The line of pennants five metres out from each wall. Swimming backstroke it is your only early-warning system: from the flags on, you count strokes to the wall.
Padel's controlled, flat overhead. You do not play it to win the point but to hold your position at the net when a lob drops too deep for a safe smash.
A built, banked corner. In a berm the pedals stay level and you pump into the wall — only flat corners without banking call for a dropped outside foot.
Score names relative to a hole's par: a birdie is one under par, a bogey one over, an eagle two under. Golf almost never states a score in absolute strokes.
Shooting into a bare butt at close range with no target face. The scoring pressure disappears and only the shot sequence is left — anchor, back tension, follow-through.
Scene slang for fast straight-line riding on the plane: long reaches back and forth, with no tricks and no waves involved. The freeride sweet spot for it sits at 15 to 22 knots.
BMR is your basal metabolic rate at complete rest; TDEE is total daily expenditure including everyday movement and training. Nutrition targets always work off TDEE.
The hard, almost straight plant of your front leg on a run-up throw. It brakes you abruptly and converts the energy of the approach into torso rotation.
Finish braking before you turn in. Measurements show this is what separates novices from skilled riders: short, sharp braking instead of dragging through the corner.
The planned separation of a freefall group before deployment. The accepted minimum is 1,500 ft above the highest planned opening altitude, and 2,000 ft from six jumpers up.
A ride followed immediately by a run, with no real break in between. Without bricks you run 10–15% slower than an open run; with regular bricks, only 1–5%.
Jumping both wheels while rolling, with no ramp and no ledge. Not one simultaneous heave but two beats: front wheel up first, then drag the rear one after it.
A plastic spacer that presses the sail's luff profile firmly onto the mast and holds its shape regardless of wind pressure. Race sails usually run four, at roughly 5 to 9.5 square metres.
How many grams of carbohydrate you take in per hour. Over middle and long distance 60–90 g is the target — from a single sugar source only about 60 g is usable.
Two or three steps one way to take the defender with you, then an explosive change into the other. The counter-movement is what turns standing around into getting free.
When the defending team wins the ball — by rebound, steal or block — it must take it back beyond the two-point arc before it may score. Otherwise the basket does not count.
A sprung metal blade on the riser that the arrow slides out from under as you draw. Hit exactly your draw length and it snaps audibly — that click is your cue to release.
The strip under a ski or splitboard whose hairs grip when you slide back and lie flat when you glide forward. Mohair/nylon blends (often 70:30) are the standard.
The space directly behind an opponent, where the player on the ball simply cannot reach you. It travels with the defender — standing 'free' counts for nothing there.
The penultimate step of the javelin approach: flat and fast forward, torso deliberately leaning back. It carries run-up momentum into the throwing position.
Cross-court means diagonal, down the line means straight along the sideline. The net sits at 91.4 cm in the middle — around 15 cm lower than at the posts — and the diagonal is a good metre longer.
The circling hip action of Latin dance. It doesn't come from swinging the hip, but from alternately bending and straightening the knees – the hip merely follows.
Fixed time limits at checkpoints and at the finish, at which you are taken out of the race. Over long distance they usually sit at roughly 2:20 h for the swim and 17 h overall.
Leaning visibly into the curve instead of staying nearly upright. Edge depth and flow are explicitly rewarded under the placement criterion — this is not a matter of taste.
The base technique of the classic track: push off from the kick zone, then glide on one ski. Arm and leg work diagonally — right leg forward, left arm forward.
Walking the whole jump through on the ground beforehand — exit, formation, break-off — with real sightlines and real grips. Jumps get planned on the ground, not invented in the air.
Stepping off and back on while moving at an obstacle. The movement is identical at any speed — so drill it slowly until it's automatic, and only then add pace.
The final move of a routine and its most delicate moment: landing loads you with 7.1 to 15.8 times body weight, and every step afterwards costs execution points.
The strip of turf your iron lifts out of the fairway on a strike. Replacing it, or filling the scar with sand, is the core piece of course-care etiquette.
You dribble, catch the ball — and start dribbling again. That is illegal: once you catch it you have three steps and three seconds to pass or shoot, or the other team gets a free throw.
Propulsion from both poles at once, with no leg kick. It needs no kick zone and, up to roughly an 8–10% grade, is often at least as fast as the diagonal stride.
Throwing both arms back and up on take-off instead of taking just one along. In young female volleyball players the arm swing raised jump height by roughly 15–19%.
The minimum gap to the rider ahead on the bike leg of a non-drafting race. Under World Triathlon rules it is 12 metres, and an overtake must be completed within 25 seconds.
A deliberately chosen, motionless point where your eyes rest during a pose. Vision is one of your strongest balance sensors – fix it and the wobble settles.
Binding angles with both feet turned outward. The park standard starts at +15°/−15°, which opens the hips evenly and makes riding switch workable at all.
Holding your output steady across the whole course profile instead of pushing on climbs. In Ironman World Championship data, low heart-rate variation was the strongest marker of success.
Look where you want to ride, not at the neck: shoulders, pelvis and weight follow your eyes automatically — your seat corrects itself without you doing a thing.
The 90-degree rotation of the blade around its own axis so it travels flat over the water between strokes instead of edge-on. Order: extract, feather, hands away.
The sprocket is bolted solid to the hub: no freewheel, no brakes. You slow down purely by pushing back against the pedals — on the track that's the rulebook, not a style choice.
Pulling both steering lines evenly just above the ground: the angle of attack rises, sink rate and forward speed drop — the approach turns into a landing.
The group you play a round with. In German golf this one word carries everything: tee time, pace of play, etiquette — and your most reliable practice partner.
Jumping onto an already rolling bike with your shoes waiting in the pedals. Executed cleanly it saves 15–30 seconds — the flying dismount, by contrast, only 2–3.
Substituting without stopping play, as often as you like — but only through your own 4.5-metre-wide substitution zone. Step on too early and you get two minutes.
Today's high jump technique: you cross the bar on your back while your centre of mass can pass underneath it. Dick Fosbury took Olympic gold with it in 1968.
The state of having collected so many personal fouls that your coach benches you as a precaution. Under FIBA rules your fifth personal foul ends your night.
Equalising with the base of your tongue instead of your lungs: you drive the small pocket of air in your mouth towards the middle ear. Reliable to 25–30 metres, and beyond with training.
The big front wing of the foil — it makes the lift. For beginners, around 1,500 cm² on a surf foil and 1,100 to 1,700 cm² on a windfoil: more area forgives more.
The steep-ice footwork: from roughly 45 degrees upwards you kick the two front points in once, precisely, then leave that foot alone. On easier ground, flat-footing saves your calves.
Anchor your eyes on the torso and weapon hand instead of the blade. In one study experts dwelled on the blade only about 1% of the time, beginners over twice as long.
Your throwing shoulder loses internal rotation compared with the other side. The working convention is: keep the side-to-side difference under roughly 20 degrees.
In a grind the trucks — the metal axles — slide along the edge; in a slide it is the underside of the deck. The 50-50, both trucks on the ledge, is the entry point.
How high you grip the pole — the dial that follows your approach speed, never the other way round. About 7.6 cm more grip height feels like a 2.3 kg softer pole.
The three ways your hands connect on the club: overlap (little finger resting on top), interlock (fingers hooked together) and the ten-finger or baseball grip.
Load-dependent wrist pain from repetitive weight-bearing. Point prevalence among adolescent gymnasts sits at 88 percent — this is not a fringe problem.
The two vertical corridors between wing and centre. Coaches split the pitch into five such lanes — the half-space is the one nobody feels responsible for.
The Hawaiian way of calling wave size: the number describes the back of the wave, roughly half the real face. Multiply the Hawaiian number by two to get an approximate face height.
How much mass sits in the racket head, measured as moment of inertia (MOI). Add 5 kg·cm² and the head runs about 0.7 m/s slower — yet shuttle speed comes out the same.
Leaning far out over the side with your feet locked under the hiking straps, countering the heel with your own weight. A quasi-isometric hold that lives mostly in the quads.
When a broken wave holds you under until it has passed. If the next wave in the set reaches you before you surface, the scene calls it a two- or three-wave hold-down.
The groove ground lengthwise into the underside of the blade, which is what creates the two edges in the first place. Quoted in inches: a smaller radius means a deeper groove and more grip.
An insider word for tap dancers in the rhythm tap tradition: close-to-the-floor footwork, sound over looks, improvisation as the default. Closely tied to Harlem's Hoofers' Club.
The two release angles: for a right-handed backhand the disc tilts left on a hyzer (towards your weak-hand side) and right on an anhyzer. That is how you throw curves instead of straight lines.
One body part moves while the rest deliberately stays still – head to the side without the shoulders coming along. That separation is where sharp hits come from.
A ballistic hinge, not a squat and not an arm raise: the hips push back and snap forward explosively, the arms are only the rope. Beginners usually start with 8–16 kg.
The 180-degree change of direction on the spot while climbing. You need it from around 30 degrees of slope, where a straight track simply gets too steep to walk.
The section under the binding that grips when you kick — via kick wax, scales or a skin. Skating skis have none, so kick wax simply doesn't apply there.
Karate's finishing focus: a split second of full-body tension exactly at impact, with a sharp exhale — and an instant release right after. Without the release it is just stiffness.
The first big swing element on bar and parallel bars: one precisely timed counter-movement takes you from the swing below the bar into support — timing, not arm strength.
The nickname for the 2.13 m zone right at the net. You may not take the ball out of the air there — and your follow-through must not carry you in either.
Playing the ball on with a single touch instead of controlling it. German pitches shout 'Klatsch!' for it; in English it is simply a first-time lay-off.
There is no boat wake at the cable, so you generate the pop yourself: in the final third of the approach pull the handle toward your hip, load the edge hard, then pop off the kicker.
The sail flapping because the sheet is eased too far or you are pointing too high. That small bubble along the leading edge is not a fault — it is a trim marker.
The boat-deck word for the narcotic effect of nitrogen under pressure. It usually sets in from 25 to 30 metres and feels like two or three beers too many.
The zone between the net and the baseline. You are too far back to volley and too far forward for deep balls, so you spend as little time there as you can.
Shirt-number shorthand for central midfield: the six screens in front of the defence, the eight plays ahead of him and joins the attack. It names the role, not the number on the back.
You are offside if, the moment the pass is played, you are in the opponents' half and nearer their goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent. It is only called once you get involved.
A jump powered by your own legs, with no edge or ramp: load the tail, then extend both legs explosively. It's the base for practically every park trick.
The foil climbs too high, the front wing breaks the surface and pulls air instead of water — lift collapses in an instant and the board slams back down.
The beginner grip that holds the racket face flat in front of you like a frying pan. It feels safe, but it locks your wrist and your rotation — leaving you little more than a straight poke.
Deflect and thrust back in one motion. The parry is a small, precise deflection of the opposing blade — not a swat; the riposte follows without a pause.
A step sequence prescribed by an ISU diagram and skated to set music, rhythm and tempo. Because everything is fixed, your technique gets judged rather than your ideas.
The wedge-shaped box anchored in the ground at the end of the runway, where the pole is planted. About three-quarters of severe pole vault injuries are connected to it.
The last, long step of the spike approach: it brakes you and redirects your speed upward. Without it you jump from a standstill instead of from a run-up.
The reinforced ballet shoe, built from a stiffened toe box and a supporting shank. It gets fitted rather than simply bought – and only after you pass the readiness check.
Your heading relative to the wind: close-hauled, beam reach, broad reach, running. No boat sails closer than about 45 degrees to the wind — that sector is the no-go zone, and everything stalls in it.
Lengthen your poles before a descent and plant them actively ahead of you: that cuts peak knee load by 12–25% — the cheapest knee fix in the mountains.
The explosive snap of the tail that triggers every jumping trick. The board only leaves the ground once the front foot slides forward in the same instant. Measured thrust: roughly 2.2 times body weight.
The take-off every freestyle trick starts with — not a jump off your legs but a lever built from hard edge pressure and a sharp pull on the sail. The board's full tail supplies the counter-pressure.
When two boats meet on opposite tacks, the one with the wind on its port side keeps clear. The windward/leeward rule only kicks in once both are on the same tack.
The tight position just before release: disc close to the chest, elbow leading as the lever. This is where the disc gets its speed, not from an extended arm.
Building edge pressure gradually instead of stamping into it: start gently, finish explosively just before take-off. That way the line stays taut the whole way through.
The fast inward turn of shoulder and forearm at contact — the whip behind every overhead. Shoulder internal rotation delivers up to 66% of shuttle speed in the smash.
The umbrella term for block, strap, bolster and blanket. They bring the floor up to you instead of forcing you into a crooked pose – arm extensions, not a weakness.
The underwater phase after the start and every turn: one deep pull to the thighs, one dolphin kick, one breaststroke kick. The fastest stretch of any breaststroke length.
Speed out of the ground instead of your legs: go light on the rise, press into the bike over the crest and down the back. In a race you're off the pedals about 40% of the time.
A rhythmic up-and-down movement of your own body weight that generates fresh lift — with no wave, sail or kite involved. When you lose speed you reduce the load instead of pressing down.
A rhythmic whole-body motion that briefly produces more drive than the wind is actually giving you. Below roughly 18 knots it often decides whether you get planing at all.
The only leash design for whitewater: a quick release on a waist or chest harness, attached to your PFD. The ankle leash you use in the ocean has no place on a river.
The long, still gaze at one single target point — usually the front of the rim — held before the shooting motion begins. Elite shooters hold it for around 900 milliseconds or more.
The board balances on one of its long edges while you stand with your feet on the wheels and the deck edge. Toeside is the easier version — most people learn it first.
The real core skill in table tennis: read which way your opponent's bat brushes the ball to know which spin is coming — then set your own bat angle to match.
The controlled rise and lowering of the body through ankle, knee and ball of the foot. Four of the five standard dances live on it — only the tango deliberately stays flat.
The two scree-descent techniques: the rocking step slides with loose material under control, the braking step lands heel first on an almost straight leg on firmer ground.
One side of your bat must be black, the other clearly distinct from it — classically red. Over 90% of pros run inverted, the smooth, grippy standard rubber, on at least one side.
Gas planning where there is no direct way up: one third in, one third out, one third held in reserve. The turn pressure is fixed before you enter the water.
The flight shape where the disc first banks towards your strong-hand side and then fades back to the weak side — for a right-handed backhand, right first, then left. That sequence is what produces maximum distance.
How far fork and shock already sink under your static weight, before any impact arrives. For downhill roughly 25–30% of travel, set through air pressure.
Club slang for the recovery error where the knees rise before the hands have passed them — hands and knees collide and the stroke loses its straight line.
Coach jargon for the ball right after your serve, the third shot of the point. Roughly 70% of all points are decided inside the first four shots, which is why that ball gets drilled.
The tear-webbing inside a via ferrata set that decelerates a fall into the steel cable. To EN 958:2017 it keeps impact force under 6 kN at 120 kg — and is scrap afterwards.
Tap dance's basic building block: a brush forward plus a brush back in one motion — two audibly separate tones, with no weight on that foot. Brush plus step with full weight would be a flap.
Small metal studs fitted to ledges, benches and handrails that kill any grind on contact. They are the owner's unmistakable no — which means: find another spot.
A block of wax rubbed along a ledge or rail makes the edge slippery. Without it, trucks and deck catch abruptly — the most common cause of falls when grinding.
The gradient you hold when setting the climbing track. 12 to 15 degrees is the efficient corridor; past about 20 degrees even good skins noticeably lose grip.
The third person on board whose only job is keeping eyes on the rider, the rope and the board. In Germany they are legally required in addition to the driver.
The sprung competition and training floor. It offers roughly 22 times the critical fall height of concrete and is cheerleading's single biggest safety factor.
A throw with no run-up at all, driven only by stance and upper body. The fastest route to straight throws, and the stage that has to work before the X-step.
Moving around the ball with chassé steps so you can play your stronger forehand from the backhand corner. At elite level around 58% of all strokes are forehands.
The code on the sole: FG (firm ground) for real grass, AG (artificial ground) for turf, flat rubber for indoors. The surface decides which boot you wear, not the colourway.
Riding backwards — on a board with your normally trailing foot in front, on twin-tip skis tails first. From a normal stance, every odd rotation (180, 540) lands you switch.
A five-second habit before every move: tap the placement once before committing your full weight. A dull thunk means solid, a hollow ring means air behind it — route around those spots.
The little wind threads on the sail — the most honest real-time trim feedback on board. When the windward and leeward thread both stream evenly aft, your trim is right.
The furthest-forward position in the stroke: shins vertical, arms long, torso hinged forward, blade entering. The most powerful and the most vulnerable point of the cycle.
Above 2.0 m/s of tailwind a long jump still counts for the competition but no longer for record lists. Wind is measured 20 m from the board, 1.22 m up.
The serving team's first shot after serve and return: soft and high into the opponents' kitchen instead of hard — it buys you the time to move up to the net.
A combination across three players: the first pass goes into a marked second man, he lays it off first time — and the ball arrives at a third man running from deep.
As an attacker you may stay in the opponents' paint for a maximum of three seconds at a time while your team controls the ball in the frontcourt. Breach it and you lose the ball.
The common attack approach: left-right-left for right-handers, tempo rising into one explosive final step. Jump height is created in the approach, not first at take-off.
The upper line of head, neck and shoulders sitting on top of the frame. Its tension comes from the upper back, never from the hands — it is the channel every lead travels through.
Two kinds of spin: topspin is brushed low to high, flies in a high arc and dives steeply. Slice is undercut — a flat flight path and a low, skidding bounce.
The board settling back onto the water when your speed drops below minimum flying speed and the front wing stops producing lift. A gentle touchdown isn't a crash — it's normal.
The six-step map of horse training: rhythm, suppleness, contact, impulsion, straightness, collection. The whole sequence aims at one thing — throughness.
The switch from climbing mode to riding mode at the summit. With a drilled routine, experienced riders are done in 60 to 90 seconds — unpractised, it costs many times that.
The area where you switch from swim to bike (T1) and from bike to run (T2). Performance analyses count both transitions as race components in their own right.
How your body is angled in the water — the goal is horizontal, with shoulders, hips and knees in one line. Buoyancy controls your depth, trim controls your attitude.
The fine-tuning of sails and rig — mast rake, shroud tension, outhaul, cunningham, vang. Consistent trim wins more over a season than any spectacular single manoeuvre.
A tyre system with no inner tube: sealant closes small holes from the inside. It lets you run less pressure without pinch flats — on a road bike about 0.5 bar below your tubed value.
The clock time at which you turn around — no matter how close the summit looks. Fixed before you set off, so your ego doesn't get a vote up on the ridge.
Instead of pushing the board under the wave, you roll yourself and the board around its long axis and let the wave pass over both of you. The answer for boards with too much volume to duck dive.
Breathing through the nose with the glottis slightly narrowed, so the breath rushes audibly like a soft ocean sound. In a flow it sets your tempo: one breath, one movement.
In padel the ball bounces first, then you strike it below hip height into the diagonal box. In pickleball the rule is: below the waist, paddle head under your wrist.
The umbrella term for clearing a wall under control with your hands on it. The entry-level version is the safety or step vault: one hand down, one foot between, step over.
Two meanings at once: linking one breath to one movement, and the concrete transition plank, chaturanga, upward dog, downward dog that a flow class keeps returning to.
The base jump behind a boat: edge up to the crest of one side of the wake, pop, then land on the slope of the opposite wall. The cable has no equivalent — there you land flat.
The two planning numbers in the mountains: elevation gain drives effort more than distance, and the times on yellow signposts are pure walking time — breaks not included.
A ball that lands in your court first may then rebound off your own wall and stays in play. Only a ball that reaches the wall without touching the ground first is a fault.
Windward is the side the wind comes from, leeward the sheltered side away from it. Your weight belongs to windward — where the wind comes from, not where the boat leans.
Exit weight divided by canopy area, in lbs/ft². Student canopies fly at 0.7–0.9, competition canopies above 3.0 — the same canopy gives a different number for a different body.
The three scoring levels in WKF kumite: yuko (1) a punch, waza-ari (2) a body kick, ippon (3) a head kick or a throw with a follow-up. It only counts with control, distance and timing.