Cheating Reps vs Ego Lifting: Know the Difference
If you’ve been in the gym long enough, you’ve seen both:
Someone using a bit of body English to squeeze out extra reps.
Someone heaving weight around with zero control, clearly doing more harm than good.
On the surface, both look the same. But there’s a big difference between cheating reps as an intensity technique and plain ego lifting.
Cheating Reps (Done Right)
Cheating reps are a controlled intensity technique. You first take a set close to failure with strict form, then use a little momentum or body movement to push past the sticking point and extend the set.
Examples:
A strict set of barbell curls, then a couple of “cheat curls” with a bit of hip drive to overload the biceps further.
Lateral raises, finishing the set with some controlled swing to get extra tension in the delts.
Why it works:
Allows you to go beyond normal failure.
Increases metabolic stress and mechanical tension.
Can provide a unique hypertrophy stimulus if used sparingly.
Golden rule: The target muscle should still be doing most of the work. Cheating is a tool, not an excuse.
Ego Lifting
Ego lifting is something else entirely. It’s piling weight on the bar beyond your capability, sacrificing form from rep one.
Examples:
Half-repping a bench press just to load more plates.
Swinging the entire stack on a cable machine.
Squatting so shallow the movement barely counts.
Why it’s useless (or worse):
Minimal tension on the target muscle.
Increased injury risk.
No progressive overload — only the illusion of strength.
Ego lifting isn’t intensity — it’s insecurity with a barbell.
Takeaway
Cheating reps, when used at the end of a well-executed set, can be a powerful intensity technique to overload muscles. Ego lifting, on the other hand, is simply bad training.
If your goal is hypertrophy or strength, remember:
Earn your right to cheat.
Form comes first, always.
A cheated rep should look like a struggle — not a circus act.
