Photo by Rick Audet

My younger brother lifts and has lifted for about 4 years now. He usually doesn’t want to talk to me about what he does in the gym, but he was feeling talkative this weekend so I asked him about his workout. He’s usually at the gym for a few hours, several days a week. What does he do there?

He does a body-building type split. For legs, he said, he does calf raises, leg presses, leg extensions, and lunges. I asked him about squats and deadlifts. “No,” he said, “they hurt my back.” He does know they’re good, so props for that, but he says he injured his back about a year ago doing 250-lb Bent-Over Rows and now does nothing that might involve the possibility that his back would bend. (In other words, whatever he did hurt a lot and he doesn’t want to repeat it.)

I asked about dropping the weight down and retraining his back to stay out of the lift, which is what I had to do with my squats and DLs. “No,” he said, “I won’t do anything that means I have to drop the weights.” Not even if it’s a better exercise than the ones you’re doing?

“No, I lift for ego. I want people to look over and see the amount of weight I’m using and be impressed. I don’t really care what exercises I have to do, but I will only do exercises where I can use several hundred pounds.”

And, yes, my brother has little stick legs despite his “several hundred pounds” on those leg machines. And, yes, he does want to be bigger.

I wonder how many other guys lift like this. (I’m guessing a lot.) Only do exercises that let them use massive weights, even if the actual strength and size gains are minimal. Pump out a grunting flat bench-press but never do pushups. Do lunges until their forearms are screaming but never try a raised lunge, reverse lunge, Bulgarian Split Squat, or step up. Refuse to try a new exercise because they can’t use the same weight as an exercise they think is similar.

Lifting for your ego? Around other guys sweating it out in the gym? You want to train just like them and look just like them (and they’re not all that impressive)? And yet you think this will somehow make them all want to talk to you and ask you your “secret” (but you train the same way they do)…

What about being “that guy” who does all the crazy lifts in the corner, getting stronger and bigger by the week, that guy who everyone copies as soon as he leaves (and then they realize that silly-looking lift is hard but works everything hard)…

My brother said I wouldn’t understand because I’m a girl and so it’s okay for me to use lighter weights. Trust me, kid, girls have egos, too, when it comes to weights. I hated having to admit to dropping my squat and DL weights because my form stunk–and I train alone in my basement! But when I’m up to squatting and DL’ing my body weight and more, then I’ll have some ego in my lifting…