Somewhere, at some point in history, a man named Jefferson did a deadlift with the barbell between his legs instead of in front of them. Someone watched him do it, thought “that’s a thing,“ and named it after him.
The Jefferson Deadlift. It sounds like a move from a 1940s wrestling promotion. It is, in fact, a legitimate exercise that loads the spine in an unusual and surprisingly useful way, and it is named after exactly who you think it is.
This is how most exercise names work: someone did something, someone else saw it, one of them had a name, and here we are.
Some names are logical. Most are not. All of them have a story.
The Hack Squat: Already Covered, Worth Revisiting
We talked about George Hackenschmidt in the squat history series. His barbell-behind-the-legs squat became “the Hack“ — a contraction of Hackenschmidt. This is the naming convention that makes the most sense: person does thing, thing gets person’s name.
What’s interesting is that the machine “hack squat“ in commercial gyms has essentially nothing to do with the original movement. The machine loads you from in front with your back against a pad, which is nearly the opposite of the mechanical situation Hackenschmidt was training. Someone saw the word “hack squat,“ assumed it described an angle, built a machine, named it the same thing, and now two completely different exercises share a name.
This happens constantly in fitness. The name stays. The movement mutates.
The Bulgarian Split Squat: Possibly Not Bulgarian
The Bulgarian split squat — rear foot elevated on a bench, front leg doing the work — is attributed to the Bulgarian national weightlifting team’s training methods from the 1970s and 80s.
The Bulgarian weightlifting program under Ivan Abadjiev was genuinely revolutionary and became famous for its high-frequency, high-volume approach to the Olympic lifts. Whether the rear-foot-elevated split squat was actually a central part of that system or whether it was associated with Bulgarian training culture and the name stuck — this is genuinely disputed in the history of strength training.
What is not disputed: the movement is outstanding. Single-leg training that loads the quad and hip flexor through a long range of motion, builds strength that transfers directly to athletic performance, and requires nothing but a bench.
If the Bulgarians did invent it: thank you, Bulgaria.
If they didn’t: someone named a very good exercise after you and that’s not the worst legacy.
The Banana Split Squat: This One Is Fake
There is no canonical “Banana Split Squat.“ I made it up for this title and I’m not sorry because it made you click and now you’re reading about exercise etymology, which is what I wanted.
However: it sounds like it could be real, which is the point. The naming conventions of exercise culture are chaotic enough that “Banana Split Squat“ fits right in with “Bulgarian Split Squat,“ “Cossack Squat,“ “Hack Squat,“ and “Zercher Squat.“
The Zercher Squat, for the record, is a barbell squat where the bar is held in the crooks of your elbows, in front of your body. It is named after Ed Zercher, a St. Louis strongman from the 1930s who reportedly couldn’t afford a squat rack and improvised. His solution was uncomfortable, effective, and immortalized in nomenclature.
Zercher also did deadlifts this way. The Zercher Deadlift. Same principle, pulling from the floor with the bar in the elbow crooks. It is, objectively, one of the most painful-sounding exercises in existence, and people do it deliberately.
The Cossack Squat: Probably Actually Cossack
The Cossack squat — a deep lateral lunge where one leg goes wide and bends deeply while the other stays straight — comes from Eastern European movement culture, and the attribution to Cossack horsemanship and combat training is probably legitimate.
Cossack fighters trained extensively for mobility that allowed them to fight from horseback and on foot with equal effectiveness. Deep lateral hip mobility was functionally necessary. The movement pattern that produces it — wide lateral squat, alternating sides — is preserved in the name.
This one has cultural integrity. The Cossacks really did move like this. The exercise really does train what Cossack movement required.
It also shows up in folk dance across the region — the same movement that looks like athletic training looks like celebration looks like cultural expression. Which is the whole thesis of this series.
Hindu Push-Up vs. Dand: Same Thing, Different Name, Entirely Different Context
The Hindu push-up — a flowing push-up where you dive your chest toward the floor and sweep upward into a cobra-like position — is the same movement as the Indian wrestling exercise called the dand.
“Hindu push-up“ is Western fitness culture’s name for a movement it encountered through contact with South Asian martial arts and wrestling traditions. “Dand“ is what The Great Gama called it when he did 3,000 of them daily.
Same movement. Different names. Different frequencies.
The naming issue here is meaningful: “Hindu push-up“ strips the movement of its origin context. It becomes an exotic variation rather than a foundational practice with thousands of years of cultural weight behind it. The movement is better understood as the dand — a complete training system unto itself, not a “variation“ of a Western exercise pattern.
The Jefferson Curl: Genuinely from Jefferson
The Jefferson Curl — a weighted forward bend where you deliberately round your spine from the head down, loading the posterior chain through full flexion — is named after Thomas Jefferson, who apparently practiced a version of this movement.
This one is hard to source definitively. Jefferson was known for his attention to physical maintenance; whether he developed the specific loaded spinal flexion movement that bears his name or whether someone retrospectively attached his name to it remains unclear.
What is clear: the exercise exists, it’s genuinely useful for posterior chain flexibility and strength through range, and it remains controversial in strength training circles because it involves deliberate spinal flexion under load, which makes a certain category of coach deeply uncomfortable.
The L-Sit: Exactly What It Looks Like
Some exercise names are just descriptions. The L-sit — where you support yourself on your hands with legs extended straight in front of you, forming an L shape — is called an L-sit because it looks like the letter L.
This is refreshing. No confusing etymology. No disputed national origin. Your body is a letter. That’s the exercise.
The V-sit, the straddle L, the hollow hold — all descriptive names. The calisthenics and gymnastics tradition has a long history of naming things for what they look like rather than who invented them, which produces names that are immediately legible and timeless.
“Dead” Hang, “Dead” Lift: The Same Dead
The City Youth’s original question: why is it called a dead hang?
The “dead“ in both dead hang and deadlift refers to starting from a dead stop — no momentum, no bounce, no pre-loaded tension. A dead hang starts from rest. A deadlift starts from a dead weight on the floor.
This is also where “dead weight“ comes from: weight that isn’t moving, that has no momentum to help you, that you are carrying entirely through your own effort from a static start.
The dead hang is a hang from nothing but your grip and your body. No swing. No kip. No momentum. Just the body, hanging. Dead.
It’s also, metaphorically, honest: a dead hang is where everything else begins. You can’t pull if you can’t hang. You can’t hang if you can’t grip. The “dead“ is the baseline. Everything else is built up from there.
Around the World: Same Exercise, Different Name
Movement — US Name — UK/Commonwealth — South Asia — Eastern Europe
Hindu push-up — Hindu push-up — Hindu push-up — Dand — Gironda push-up
Hindu squat — Hindu squat — Hindu squat — Bethak — Squat thrust variation
Back lever — Back lever — Back lever — — — Horizontal hold
Muscle-up — Muscle-up — Muscle-up — — — Vysckok (рывок)
Pistol squat — Pistol squat — Single-leg squat — Ek Pair Baithak — Piston squat
Dead bug — Dead bug — Dead bug — — — Supine core hold
The calisthenics tradition is inherently international. The movements were developed everywhere, traveled everywhere, got renamed everywhere. What you call it matters less than whether you’re doing it.
The One That Got Away: The Cat-Cow Is Actually Yoga
Cat-cow is in every movement warm-up. It’s in calisthenics. It’s in powerlifting. It’s in physical therapy. It’s in your grandmother’s morning stretch routine.
It came from yoga. Marjaryasana (cat) and Bitilasana (cow). Someone at some point brought it into Western fitness culture and called it “cat-cow“ and now it’s everywhere and almost nobody knows it has a Sanskrit name and a 5,000-year tradition behind it.
This is not a problem. This is how movement culture works. The good stuff travels. The names change. The movement remains.
What’s your favorite exercise name that sounds made up? What movement do you know by a different name than what we call it here? Tell us. The movement glossary is always expanding.
See the full OG2 taxonomy — every exercise, properly named → [View the Progression Index →]
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