Dangers of Ego Lifts

It’s a rather common phrase - lift with your ego. This however is quite a dangerous thing, not just in the gym, but in everyday life. Let me explain.

One day I was in a graduate scheme coding thing. There were 4 of us, and we were programming a piece for a project. I was saying at the start of the meeting - “we need to refactor the code, it’s messy, and quite hard to test/debug”. One person’s reply to this was it’s not part of the MVP. About 2 hours into the meeting… the same person said: “we need to refactor this code”

I WENT APESHIT

It wasn’t my proudest moment to be honest. I blanked out for about 20 seconds with rage and almost flipped the table. And yea I was pretty much the guy in that picture.

Two days later I learned a very important lesson from my director - and in case you’re wondering: this wasn’t the P45 talk or me getting told off.

I went to have a chat with my director, who was mentoring us at the time, and said to him I went apeshit and etc… how do you stay calm under pressure like that?

A bit of background: the director Dan Rathers is one of the most patient people I’ve ever met in my life. One time we were hopelessly stuck on trying to figure out a database migration using flyaway. Dan spent the entire day sat there so calm, and ended up finding out the problem. It’s that level of calmness that I genuinely aspire to. That’s why I asked for his help.

I basically told him what happened a few days ago, and was wondering if he could help steer me so that I wouldn’t experience this when I go out to clientside.

Dan had these very important points to instill into me:

• If someone says “you’re (code/style/lift/etc) is shit” - don’t get defensive about it. Just ask “is it?” Either find ways to improve it or find why that person who criticised you said it was shit
• Leave your ego by the door.

That second point stuck with me throughout my entire career, and somewhat in my lifting in the gym. However the latter isn’t always so strict.

I’ve heard that phrase many times before, but to hear it from a guy who was both our director, and one of the most stoic/patient men I’ve ever met, there must really be something to it.

How does this apply to weightlifting:

There’s a sometimes not a huge amount of difference between a 1 rep max/PB/PR/ego lift. In the end, if you are too stubborn to drop the weight, that’s when ego can really get in the way. The reason why I say an ego lift is dangerous is because you can potentially really injure yourself. How does this differ from doing a new Personal best or 1RM?

Well, the difference is that you left your ego by the door when this happens. Meaning that you either admit defeat and just say NO MORE, or you reset and find ways to improve what went wrong.

The other day, I thought I was resetting and doing it right, but I completely let my ego get in the way of that lift. Basically, I was going for a powerclean, but it was a weight that I’m not really used to. At 40kg it’s doable for me because it’s a nice weight. At 60kg on the other hand it’s a very different beast. Bear in mind as well, cleans/powercleans/hang cleans etc should NOT be done with heavy weights. I know the crossfit community are rolling their eyes and incredibly angry at me for this, but for a person who just discovered that their clean/powerclean form is incorrect and trying tirelessly to fix it, this should be practiced as much as possible with a weight that’s comfortable. 60KG was not comfortable at all.

What happened: I set it up about to do it, the clean part was a fail because it crashed onto my chest but I caught it… and then the jerk was so bad that I could have seriously injured my back. To make matters worse, the weight came crashing down and landed on my USN bottle - which exploded.

This was purely ego driven. I should know better than that.

I have to keep practicing and perfecting the form, and the only way to do so is to practice, practice, practice… DO NOT let heavier weights get into the equation. Practice the craft, and park your ego aside. I might be able to squat/deadlift some serious numbers etc, but powercleaning 40kg is going to have to be the now me for a bit until I level up.

Take Home

What my director said to me is in an incredible life lesson. Even though he left the company, he’s still a massive inspiration to me, and I continue to go back to him for more wisdom. When I left the company, I had a virtual meet with him and he devoted so much time to talking to me. He’s always been a very generous guy and will continue to be the guy I strive to become.

As for lifting, make sure you apply this mantra - LEAVE YOUR EGO BY THE DOOR. An important distinction that you should always live by.

I should also take this time to mention this: leaving your ego by the door in the gym means not criticising others for their form or etc. In the end - you joined a gym for a reason, and so did the other people… you joined to improve yourself. Let this be a friendly reminder - we’re all here to improve ourselves, and we should improve both physically and mentally.

This also leads nicely to this short post which is my observation/opinion. Hope you enjoy it.