We all know the old “seven deadly sins” thing from religion, but you don’t need a Bible lesson to see how this applies to training. In that framework, sins aren’t just bad actions – they’re roots that create a lot of other problems down the line. Training is the same way. Most people don’t stall out because of one bad set or one missed workout; it’s these underlying patterns that keep screwing them over.
So here’s how I’d break down the 7 deadly sins of training.
1. Pride – Ego Lifting
Pride is when the bar ends up being more about your ego than your progress. You won’t pull weight off the bar when your form is trash, you ignore feedback, and you treat warm-ups like they’re beneath you. You’re chasing numbers you haven’t earned yet and pretending that “grinding” is the same thing as training. It’s not. Pride is how people get hurt doing stupid shit that never had to happen.
2. Greed – Too Many Goals, Too Much Stuff
Greed in the gym looks like trying to do everything at once and ending up average at all of it. You’re cutting, bulking, chasing a bigger total, trying to get leaner, and “working on conditioning” all in the same block. You keep buying programs, adding sets, and tacking on extra work because “more has to be better.” At that point it’s not a training plan anymore; it’s a buffet. And recovery is the bill you never pay.
3. Wrath – Training Out of Anger
This is when you walk into the gym ready to make the bar pay for whatever’s going on in your life. You start making jumps based on how pissed off you are, not what’s in the plan. You force reps through pain, ignore every signal your body gives you, and convince yourself you “need this set” no matter what. That emotion might carry you through a few workouts, but long-term it’s a great way to end up broken and burned out. There is a time and place for this...big PRs...meet day, key top sets, but most people drag that mindset into the wrong time, the wrong place, and on the wrong lifts.
This brings up a real question: what even is a PR anymore? You see people “breaking” a dozen PRs a week and I’m sitting here thinking, WTF? I trained and competed for over a decade before I ever heard the term “PR.” The first time I heard it was during one of my early dynamic bench sessions at Westside Barbell. I kept hearing it thrown around until I finally had to ask what it meant.
Keep in mind, I already knew what a personal best was—that was your all-time top number in a meet. Everything else was just training. As I settled into the Westside system and the max effort work, I started to understand the idea of training PRs. But in a way, the term started to feel diluted. So I came up with my own definition: a real PR is defined by how you feel after you hit it. Some “PRs” feel like, yeah, whatever, just another lift. Others? They’re one of the best feelings you’ll ever have in your life.
4. Envy – Training for Someone Else’s Total
Envy shows up when your training becomes about what somebody else lifts, not what you need. You see a top lifter’s program and copy it like a template, forgetting they’ve got 10–20 years, different genetics, and a completely different life setup behind it. Then you get frustrated when your numbers don’t move like theirs. Comparison and inspiration are two different things. When you see people lifting more than you on social media, use it to drive you in the best way to stay consistent, tighten up your execution, and keep showing up...not to beat yourself up, blow up your plan, or rush into weights and progressions you haven’t earned yet.
5. Lust – Chasing the Shiny, Sexy Stuff
This is the constant itch for whatever’s new, cool, or trending. You jump from program to program because something “more advanced” popped up online. You build sessions around flashy exercises, weird methods, or whatever looks best on a reel. The boring basics that actually work get pushed aside. The problem usually isn’t a lack of knowledge; it’s that nothing gets run long enough to matter.
6. Gluttony – More Volume, More Food, More Everything
Gluttony is that “if some is good, more is better” mindset taken way too far. You keep stacking sets on sets until the back end of the workout is all junk reps. You call it a “bulk” but really it’s just eating like crap because you can. You live on pre-workout and caffeine and wonder why sleep and recovery suck. You don’t build capacity this way; you just build fatigue and joint issues.
7. Sloth – Half-Assed Consistency
Sloth isn’t just sitting on the couch; it’s cutting corners on everything that actually supports progress. You skip warm-ups, blow off the rehab or prehab, never track anything, and miss enough days that every few months you’re “starting over.” You train hard sometimes, but you’re never consistent long enough for the work to stack. The weeks, months, and years keep passing, and so do your real strength gains.
You don’t need a brand-new program, another eBook, or some secret system to fix most of this. You need to be honest about which of these you’re guilty of and start correcting them. Clean up the ego, stop trying to get everything at once, quit training out of emotion, and commit to the boring, repeatable work. Do that, and almost any decent training plan you run will suddenly start “working” a hell of a lot better.
