Regimen

This week on Ask a Teacher, we answer a question from Marco in Italy. Here is Marco’s question:

Dear Teacher,

I want to understand more when to use the word “regimen” for exercise or other actions.

Thank you.

I’m happy to answer this question, Marco.

A regimen is usual and repeated action, especially in training. In health care, it is a systematic plan to improve a person’s health.

A training regimen, for example, can include exercises people can do to help them get the results they want. For example, a long-distance runner’s regimen might include runs of 10 or 20 kilometers every week.

Note that we often put another noun before the word “regimen” to help identify it more clearly. These are called attributive nouns. They act similarly to adjectives, as in the following examples:

a weightlifting regimen, a workout regimen, a running regimen, a walking regimen, a stretching regimen

In fact, you can more clearly identify any kind of regimen by placing an attributive noun before it. For example, musicians can have a “practice regimen,” and students can have a “study regimen.”

To express what actions or steps are in a regimen, we can use the verb and preposition “consist of,” as the following example shows:

My exercise regimen consists of strength training two days a week and running or walking most other days.

Note that native speakers might substitute the word “routine” for “regimen” in some situations. Here are some examples:

What practice routine do you follow?

You can use this daily routine to improve your fitness.

A medical regimen is a series of repeated treatments. For example, a doctor might tell a patient to take a certain medicine two times a day for two weeks.

We often put adjectives, like medical, before the word “regimen,” also. “Daily,” and “effective” are commonly used, as in:

Try to include long walks in your daily regimen.

You need an effective regimen for losing weight.

And it is not unusual to use both an adjective and an attributive noun, like in this example:

She swims two kilometers a day as part of a strict training regimen.

For our readers and listeners, what are your questions about American English? Do you have a special study regimen? We want to hear from you! Send us an email at learningenglish@voanews.com. And please let us know where you are from, too.

And that’s Ask a Teacher.

I’m Andrew Smith.

Andrew Smith wrote this lesson for VOA Learning English.

consist of -verb phrase. To be formed or made of

fitness -n. the state of being in strong physical condition

certain -adj. specific, exact

strict -adj. exact and precise, with little variation

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