What Is Ego Lifting? How to Stop This Common Weight Lifting Mistake

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Learn why ego lifting is a bad idea & how to build muscle safely

Co-authored by Elaine Heredia, BA

Last Updated: December 20, 2025 Fact Checked

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• What is ego lifting?
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• Why It's Harmful
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• Signs of Ego Lifting
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• How to Stop
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• Why People Ego Lift
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• Safe & Effective Training Tips
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• Video

|Show more |Show less

Ego lifting is a common mistake people make when they train with weights. While some view it as an effective way to test their limits and build strength, most experts say that it leads to soreness and injuries instead of gains. In this article, we'll explore what ego lifting is and why it's harmful. We'll also share the signs you may be ego lifting, how to stop doing it, and much more, with expert advice from personal trainers.

Ego Lifting Explained

An ego lifter is someone who lifts weights that are too heavy for them. They might do this because they're comparing themselves to a stronger person and think they should be able to lift more. They might also do it to attract attention. Instead of muscle gains, ego lifting usually causes soreness and injuries.

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Section 1 of 6:

What is ego lifting?

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1. 
   Ego lifting is when you overtrain with weights to impress others. Safe weight training is all about steady, consistent progression. But some people try to lift heavier weights than they can handle or increase their reps to the point they're straining to finish their workout. This is called ego lifting, and people might do it to impress others at the gym or to attract attention. Unfortunately, ego lifting can lead to injury and a lack of gains.

   • Some people don't even know they're ego lifting! They may think they're simply increasing their weight according to their strength capacity. Or they may believe that lifting more than they can handle for longer than is safe will increase their gains.
   • Are there any benefits to ego lifting? Some say that "ego lifting" is just working out to get stronger and look better. The problem with this take is that it doesn't account for the higher risk of injury from straining to lift weights that are too heavy, along with the other reasons why it’s harmful.

   Meet the wikiHow Experts

   Brendon Rearick is a personal trainer, strength coach, and co-founder of Certified Functional Strength Coach (CFSC). He has 17 years of experience and specializes in strength and conditioning.

   Danny Gordon is a certified personal trainer with over 20 years of physical training and teaching experience. He owns a fitness studio called the Body Studio for Fitness.

   Melody Sayers, MS, RD, NASM-CPT, is a registered dietician and personal trainer with over 8 years of experience in the public and private health sectors.

   Joshua Grahlman, PT, DPT, FAFS, is a physical therapist and entrepreneur. He specializes in treating acute and chronic pain and injuries, sports performance optimization, and post-operative rehabilitation.
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Section 2 of 6:

Why Ego Lifting Is Harmful

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   It causes soreness and injuries. Lifting too much can cause soreness that you need multiple days to recover from. That's time you could have spent lifting, but which you're now having to use to rest your muscles. Additionally, when you strain to lift weights that are too heavy or lift for too many reps, you're often not using the proper form. Without proper lift form, you can easily strain and injure your muscles. This could mean weeks or even months of recovery in some cases.
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   It reduces gains. If you're too sore or injured to work out, you obviously won't be able to gain muscle very fast—or at all. What may seem like a strategy to jumpstart your muscle growth can actually set you back weeks or months, depending on how badly you injure yourself. Plus, if you're using an improper lift form, you won't target the right muscles. So even if you don't injure yourself, you still won't see the gains you're looking for.
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   It forms bad habits. Lifting too-heavy weights can lead you to form bad habits like poor posture. Later, when you realize your mistakes, it will be harder to correct them and get back on the road to building strength and muscle.
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   It prevents you from progressing or meeting your goals. Considering the muscle soreness, injuries, and bad form that ego lifting causes, it's no wonder you aren't achieving your workout goals. You'll see much better results from slowly and steadily increasing the weight you're lifting, while also practicing proper lift forms and prioritizing recovery between workouts.
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Section 3 of 6:

Signs of Ego Lifting

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   You're not using the proper lift form. Using the proper form when you lift weights is key to building muscle and protecting yourself from getting hurt. But when you ego lift, you strain to lift the heavy weights, which can cause you to break your form. For example, registered dietician and personal trainer Melody Sayers, MS, RD, NASM-CPT, says the biggest mistakes she sees in deadlifting are locking your knees, not keeping your spine neutral, and arching your back while not engaging your core.

   • Some sources say excessive grunting can also be a sign of ego lifting. Grunting with exertion is normal. But doing it a lot or loudly can be interpreted as trying to draw attention to yourself and how much weight you're lifting.
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   Your muscles are extremely sore, tender, or tight. When your weight training workout is too intense, you definitely feel it the next day—and the day after, and maybe even beyond! Physical therapist and entrepreneur Joshua Grahlman, PT, DPT, FAFS, says that "if you start to feel like you're getting tighter when you're exercising, if you feel like that tightness doesn't go away when you're done, and you're not recovering fully," that's a sign you're overusing your muscles.
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   You can't finish your reps. If you're struggling to get through the same number of reps you did before with a lighter weight, you may be ego lifting. Another sign is if you struggle to complete even fewer reps than you did before. If you can't do more than 6 reps, you're also not going to build muscle very fast (or at all).
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   You have only a partial range of motion. If you can't lift the weight all the way or maintain control over it for the entire rep, you're probably ego lifting. In this case, the weights are simply too heavy for you to complete the lift properly.
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   You always notice how much weight other people are lifting. If you walk around the gym calculating how much weight other people are lifting, and you think you need to compete with them, you're definitely ego lifting. A little healthy competition between friends is okay, but it's best to focus on your own workout and not pay attention to what others are doing.

   • Remember that everyone lifts according to their strength and ability. The really buff guy deadlifting 250 lb definitely didn't just start his weight training journey yesterday! If you haven't worked up to his level of strength, you should avoid trying to compete with him.
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Section 4 of 6:

How to Stop or Prevent Ego Lifting

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   Switch to a heavier weight when your current weight is easy to lift. Fitness trainer Laila Ajani uses push-ups as an example, saying, "[If you're] able to complete three sets of 10 push-ups, there's no reason why you shouldn't try 11." A beginner can "move up very easily with almost every single session or every single week," she adds. The key is to increase weight gradually, and only when your body feels ready.
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   Use the proper form for every weight training exercise. Holding your body the right way will help you minimize soreness and injuries. For example, personal trainer Tiffany Stafford, CPT, says the proper way to deadlift is to "open your chest wide," "hinge forward from the hips," and then "squeeze your glutes as hard as you can" to straighten back up again."
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   Aim for between 6 and 12 reps per exercise. If you're weight training to build muscle, personal trainer and strength coach Brendon Rearick recommends doing 6-12 reps per exercise. Raise or lower the number of reps depending on your strength level. If you feel really sore the next day, that's a good sign to decrease either the reps or the weight until you're stronger.
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   Rest for 2-3 days after 2-3 consecutive days of weight training. ACE certified personal trainer Monica Morris recommends taking a recovery period of 2-3 days after working out for at least two days in a row. If you're sore, she recommends giving your body at least 3 days to get rid of your muscle soreness.
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   Avoid comparing yourself to other people who are stronger than you. Everyone who lifts weights starts with a different level of strength and ability. Not every human body is the same, either. You never know how much training and personal struggle someone had to go through to lift heavy weights. So you shouldn't compare yourself to them or judge your strength by theirs.
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Section 5 of 6:

Why People Ego Lift

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   Some ego lift because they think they should be able to handle more weight. People often have this thought when they compare their weight training to someone else's. You might, for example, have seen another person matching your height and weight lifting more than you. This might have led you to conclude that you're not working out hard enough. But in reality, you might simply be at a different strength level than the other person, and that's okay.

   • Just because you ego lift doesn't mean you're egotistical. It's possible to ego lift without realizing that's what you're doing.
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   Some ego lift because they want to attract attention or impress others. Sometimes ego lifting is about a person's ego and the pride they feel when they lift super heavy weights. This person might also think that other people will be impressed by their strength, or even be romantically attracted to them. But the truth is that lifting weights that are too heavy for you isn't impressive at all, especially if you're breaking your form to do it.

   • Remember, most people go to the gym to exercise for themselves, not to show off. Your fellow gym junkies probably aren't paying much attention to how much weight you're lifting.
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Section 6 of 6:

How to Weight Train Safely & Effectively

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1. 1
   Prioritize doing compound exercises and up to 12 reps per exercise. To build muscle safely, Rearick recommends doing compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, and pushups. These are exercises that target whole muscle groups rather than a single muscle. He also recommends lifting with a weight until doing more than 12 reps feels too easy, then slightly increasing the weight.
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   Improve your diet. Eating healthy is just as critical for building muscle as safely lifting weights. Certified personal trainer Danny Gordon recommends eating lean meats and fish, as well as low-fat foods like eggs and soy beans. "Those are all very good choices for promoting more lean muscle in the body," he says.
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