Inflated egos.

Something that's been particularly getting to me as of late is the amount of egos which seem to be floating round my gym and the industry in general.

Don't get me wrong, I like to work out and I often feel at my most confident in the gym. This does not however make me any better than those who choose not to train, or those in the gym who may be a bit unsure.

Now I'm going to go out on a bit of a bold statement and say a lot of egos tend to be male. It is something I am seeing a lot lately: guys in groups of two or three, showing off to their friends, wearing stringers and lifting weights too heavy for them with severely poor form.

Of course I like to feel strong, and I'm sure most who go to the gym want to go and lift their personal bests every time. This doesn't however mean if you hit your max rep on your last set, you can automatically lift the weight twice the size of your previous set!

Looking back at previous notes (something of which I will rant about later), I can see my improvements and my slow and steady weights increase from when my training first began. This has been through trial and error and progressively overloading my weights at a steady pace rather than jumping the gun lifting out my depth in order to 'show off'.

Apart from the fact that you look ridiculous in doing so, it's also so dangerous. I often see guys in the gym hurling weights around that are far too heavy and it makes me wince. I can only imagine the pain they must be in after that session from thinking with their biceps instead of their brains.

Another thing I find hard to believe is the amount of people who enter a gym without any form of notes, tracking or plan. Now I may not have the best of memories in general, but you are not telling me even those with brilliant memories can remember everything they did the previous week and be able to recall an improvement or not?!

I complimented one guy in the gym the other day, who out of the 20 or so people in the weights room, he was the only one, aside from myself, that was keeping a training log. He then told me his friends laugh at him and make jokes about him 'doing his homework'.

One thing I have learnt is knowledge is power, and if training notes are homework then I want to be top of the class. I like to see if I've improved, monitor my sessions carefully in order to evaluate and turn them into a clear plan of attack. I'm not their to mess about or hang out with my friends, (there's plenty of coffee shops for that) I'm there to work hard, sweat harder and achieve my goals.

For me arrogance has always  been such an unattractive quality. Of course you should have confidence, and self belief can be a huge game changer in terms of goal hitting, but at the same time if your ego is so inflated that you're failing to notice your failings, then how can you hope to improve?! Stop trying to show off to the guy next to you and start trying to beat the person staring back at you in the mirror instead. Leave your egos at the door, save them for the dance floor instead.