Every day, someone out there is on a bench-press bottoming out and having to do the “roll-off,” deadlifting with a loose lumbar, and squatting with their chest dipped.
These people are usually men.
Men, you are the ones who let your egos get the best of you. Women are smart enough to know not to let that happen. Don’t worry; it’s science. In honor of your near-death experiences and public failures, I’m going to address a rant toward you, because everyone loves a good abuse session every once in a while.
1. You are trying to impress someone.
This is a glaring number 1. One of the first reasons you even picked up a weight is for “pride.” It doesn’t matter who you’re interested in, what your sexual preference is, or if you’re in a committed relationship or not; the gym is a great place for you to show off.
You’re so proud of your outward appearance that you put your body through the ringer day-in and day-out to achieve the coveted looks and strength gains you hear from your buddies. “Dude, I deadlifted 405 the other day,” and “Brah… benched three-hundo yesterday,” are pretty common “war-stories” you aspire to. So what do you do? You jump right in and hit the same lifts twice a week until you get there. As admirable as this is, you must begin to realize that,
2. Your trying to impress someone leads to bad form.
Of course you hit a single PR last week. So what do you do this week? Try to hit another PR. You can’t stop reaching for those heavy lifts. You can’t approach the bench and only put 185 on there. You have to put 195 on and grab the nearest spotter. So now you’re the guy who sits on his bench every chest day and scouts the area out for one of the other big guys that you assume knows what they’re doing simply because they’re big. He saunters over, you say, “Can I get a spot?” and BAM, you have some other hands on the bar. Of course you get the lift. He’s not going to tell you you didn’t.
You know what happened during that lift? You didn’t touch your chest, engage your core and glutes, nor drive your feet through the floor. You pushed those flimsy 10 half-reps up with just your chest and triceps. Now your rotator cuff hurts and you’re down for the count for two weeks. We’ve established you have an ego and it allows you to involve unnecessary risk in your routine. Now we see your unnecessary risk leads to bad form. Well,
3. Your trying to impress someone with your bad form leads to injury.
So this is it; you’ve reach the pinnacle. 515 deadlift, 405 squat, and 315 bench. It’s a glorious couple of days. On Monday you blew your rotator cuff out getting that bench. On Wednesday you irritated your hip-flexor squatting that PR. Now finally on Friday you tweak a hammy pulling that deadlift. Now you can tell all your friends you hit those "lifts."
You know what else you can tell your friends? That you used to be that guy who could hit those lifts.
Don’t be that guy that used to be that guy who could hit those lifts.
These people are usually men.
Men, you are the ones who let your egos get the best of you. Women are smart enough to know not to let that happen. Don’t worry; it’s science. In honor of your near-death experiences and public failures, I’m going to address a rant toward you, because everyone loves a good abuse session every once in a while.
1. You are trying to impress someone.
This is a glaring number 1. One of the first reasons you even picked up a weight is for “pride.” It doesn’t matter who you’re interested in, what your sexual preference is, or if you’re in a committed relationship or not; the gym is a great place for you to show off.
You’re so proud of your outward appearance that you put your body through the ringer day-in and day-out to achieve the coveted looks and strength gains you hear from your buddies. “Dude, I deadlifted 405 the other day,” and “Brah… benched three-hundo yesterday,” are pretty common “war-stories” you aspire to. So what do you do? You jump right in and hit the same lifts twice a week until you get there. As admirable as this is, you must begin to realize that,
2. Your trying to impress someone leads to bad form.
Of course you hit a single PR last week. So what do you do this week? Try to hit another PR. You can’t stop reaching for those heavy lifts. You can’t approach the bench and only put 185 on there. You have to put 195 on and grab the nearest spotter. So now you’re the guy who sits on his bench every chest day and scouts the area out for one of the other big guys that you assume knows what they’re doing simply because they’re big. He saunters over, you say, “Can I get a spot?” and BAM, you have some other hands on the bar. Of course you get the lift. He’s not going to tell you you didn’t.
You know what happened during that lift? You didn’t touch your chest, engage your core and glutes, nor drive your feet through the floor. You pushed those flimsy 10 half-reps up with just your chest and triceps. Now your rotator cuff hurts and you’re down for the count for two weeks. We’ve established you have an ego and it allows you to involve unnecessary risk in your routine. Now we see your unnecessary risk leads to bad form. Well,
3. Your trying to impress someone with your bad form leads to injury.
So this is it; you’ve reach the pinnacle. 515 deadlift, 405 squat, and 315 bench. It’s a glorious couple of days. On Monday you blew your rotator cuff out getting that bench. On Wednesday you irritated your hip-flexor squatting that PR. Now finally on Friday you tweak a hammy pulling that deadlift. Now you can tell all your friends you hit those "lifts."
You know what else you can tell your friends? That you used to be that guy who could hit those lifts.
Don’t be that guy that used to be that guy who could hit those lifts.