Check your ego at the door

How many times have you been in the gym and seen someone doing something completely idiotic or over ambitious and thought 'that's not going to end well...' 

At the gym I train in - a YMCA geared more toward educating the young and keeping the elderly active - there's very few people who I'd consider 'serious lifters' - that is, people who train a full body split rather than just their 'friday night muscles', including their legs; who perform exercises with good form; who use the equipment for the purpose that it was intended; and who demonstrate good gym etiquette. 

In my gym, if you're not young, old or one of the few who train smart, chances are you're one of the uneducated, egotistic fools strutting about the place like you're some kind of national champion powerlifter.
 

With no need to warm up, you load up 100kg on the bench and proceed to psyche yourself up loudly so that crowds will gather to watch this amazing feat of strength, power and endurance. As they silently chant your name whilst looking like they don't give a shit, you begin your set up by simply lying back. You make it look so easy. You unrack with a grunt. You lower the bar a stifling 6 inches (didn't you know that's the ideal range of movement for strength training?) and you begin the press. COME ON LADDY YOU CAN DO IT. You scream as your equally pitiful friend and spotter takes most of the weight and re-racks it. You jump up looking pleased with yourself - as well you SHOULD - before heading over to the mirror to do some flexing and check on your guns - I think they've grown, man!

But the madness doesn't stop with the bench. Performing barbell curls with too much weight so that you're having to lean back and swing the weight up. Squatting without even going parallel let alone ass-to-ground. Deadlifiting with a rounded back and dropping the weight rather than lowering it. And these people wonder how the scrawny little man who came in a few months ago is now bigger, stronger and lifting a lot more weight than them.

Ego just makes you look like a dumbass. The girls on the cross-trainer over there aren't interested in how much you're half-repping. You might think you're awesome for lifting more than that stacked guy, but he's using proper form, singling out the correct muscle group, using the full range of movement and getting everything out of the exercise while you're flailing around like a fish out of water using your whole body to do a bicep curl. 

Trying to lift more than you're actually capable of is also down right dangerous and the quickest route to injury. Not only could you fail on it, drop it or staple yourself, you will be overloading the tendons and ligaments, tearing muscles, and giving the CNS (Central Nervous System) a complete battering.

Don't get me wrong, if I see someone who looks like they genuinely want to progress, or in some cases if they're about to injure themselves - I'll talk to them. I'm more than happy to give advice to people starting up, just as people did for me. But all too often people don't want your help. Just the other day I witnessed a guy deadlifting with horrendous form. Fair play to him it was quite a big lift, probably more than I'd be repping out. But he was lifting entirely with his back - a rounded one at that - using sudden jerky movements and dropping the weights half way through the descent. I said to him, with nothing but good intentions, that he needed to straighten his back or he'd hurt himself. To which he replied 'Nah,  I'm alright'. If only they knew what they could achieve if they just dropped the ego, listened to people who know what they're talking about and trained smart. 

If you're reading this and even consider for a moment that you might be one of these guys, now's the time to change. Drop the weight, learn the correct form, use the full range of movement, develop that mind-muscle connection, fully isolate the muscle you're trying to work (unless it's a compound, of course), train your entire body over the course of a week, have rest days and you'll see some serious progress.

Your ego will always hinder you more than it'll help you. Check it at the door.