Bulgarian Split Squat or Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat?

In a high performance coaching environment you want to make sure athletes have clarity about what they are doing at all times.

For me, that means exercises should have descriptive, explanatory names. This helps coaches and athletes navigate their training, understand the set up, comprehend the focus and maybe even the intention for a movement. Not take them on a tour of Europe, or the history of strength and conditioning.⁣

As of 2019 I feel like this is improving, where most exercises have an equivalent descriptive name.

This exercise is called the Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat, or to its friends the RFESS.⁣

That is a great descriptive name. It tells me it is a split squat and the rear foot is elevated.⁣ Everything seems to be in order.

Yet for some reason it is commonly known as a Bulgarian Split Squat.⁣ That doesn't tell me anything about how to do the movement. Was it even invented in Bulgaria? ⁣How do I set it up?

As coaches we probably love the gym and lifting. I'd bet many of us spent our teenage years in bodybuilding gyms and read blogs on sites like T-Nation! So we probably grew up comfortable with these more esoteric exercise names. But its important to remember that most athletes love their sport, and they only lift weights in order to win at their sport.

These odd names can be a source of great confusion for anyone new to the gym setting.

Now we just need to find a snappy name for the Romanian Deadlift or RDL. Can we please find a new slick descriptive name for this brilliant lower body exercise?