Some of us do sprint workouts every week or two as part of sports training. Those are exhausting and require some recovery but you won't get faster unless you put in work.

But your point about misleading terminology is correct. That's why modern methodologies such as Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) have adopted the more neutral term "iterations" which doesn't imply anything about velocity.

https://framework.scaledagile.com/iterations/