Your Biggest Obstacle In The Gym: Your Ego

Richard Sullivan @ age 55

People’s main attraction to crossfit and powerlifting is ego—their need to “prove” something to themselves and others. Crossfit and powerlifting are inherently injurious by their very nature and design. By choosing to engage in these disciplines, those people having no concept of proper form are putting themselves in harm’s way and opening the door to injury. Watching their bodies contort cruelly as they struggle to hoist unmanageable amounts of weight is cringe-inducing.

Obviously, fitness should be all about NOT getting injured. About NOT putting ourselves in harm’s way. About NOT taking stupid chances that can have life-long negative consequences.

Specifically, many people in gyms across the world are confusing powerlifting with bodybuilding/strength training/fitness.

Bodybuilding/strength training/fitness are about looking better, building strength, increasing lean muscle mass and bone density, becoming healthier, and above all, remaining active and mobile by carefully avoiding injury. 

How much weight one can lift has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with bodybuilding/strength training/fitness: in fact, using challengingly heavy weight is the very definition of powerlifting. To conflate the two is a big mistake that will prevent you from succeeding in either discipline. You have to choose whether you’re in the gym for bodybuilding/strength training/fitness reasons, or you’re in the gym to challenge yourself to hoist as much weight as you possibly can. When it comes to bodybuilding/strength training/fitness, unwieldy weight is more enemy than friend; when a challenging amount of weight is introduced to the mix, most people’s form goes right out the window.

To achieve your goal in bodybuilding/strength training/fitness, you must maintain proper form no matter how much weight you choose to use. It is counterproductive to hoist more weight than you can PROPERLY handle, as your form will suffer—and therefore your results will suffer.

Rarely do I witness people in the gym utilizing strict, proper form —whether they choose to use light, or heavy, weights. Of all the people I have seen fixated on their cellphones at gyms, never ONCE have I seen anyone watching a video about how to properly perform an exercise.

If you have not seen positive results thirty days into your program while working out three times a week, your form needs work. The majority of people in gyms across the world either have no concept of proper form to begin with, or they ignore it as inconsequential. They are placing the cart before the horse by prioritizing heavy weight over proper form—and their nagging injuries and lack of progress is the result.

Learn about proper form by viewing YouTube videos by Jeff Cavaliere and Mike Thurston.