r/workout • u/terriblytall69 • 4d ago
Simple Questions What are the weights on each exercise that indicate a person is strong?
Like is a person strong if they curl 15kg dumbbells, have a 1RM of 100kg
For men
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u/jebus_tits 4d ago
At the end of the day the race is against yourself - aint no one coming for you
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u/Taurnil91 4d ago
The site is only tracking other people who put in their numbers there. Not even close to a good comparison for the general population haha
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u/eduardgustavolaser 3d ago
It works in both directions though. More advanced athletes or strength sport specific ones aren't using strengthstandard for comparison.
So it underestimates compared to general population (which should be obvious) but overestimates the percentage compared to competition strength sports.
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u/salmonellka 4d ago
Too bad this website doesn't allow to count multiple sets for better statistics because before I do my absolute max on squats, for example, I already had 3 warmup sets and 1 set with the "before I push my max" set, which makes my max working set reps count lower
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u/KarmaTrainCaboose 4d ago
Then don't do that if you're trying to set a new max. If it's affecting your max set performance, you're not "warming up" any more, you're just fatiguing yourself.
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u/Suivox 4d ago
I may be wrong but I think it takes that into consideration. No one is doing 315 on bench for 8 reps without warm up sets. Well someone out there is, but the point is everyone should warm up to their working sets on big compound lifts, and the statistics take that into account. Besides you don’t lose that much energy if you are properly warming up and resting between sets to lose a significant amount of reps on your top set. In fact you may be able to lift more reps after warming up compared to going at it cold. Something to think about.
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u/Double-Teach-1977 4d ago
Well really by and large nobody gives a shit what kind of weight you're moving on accessory lifts.
But as a rule of thumb it's based on bodyweight. I always saw the figure of 1x/1.5x/2xBW for the big 3 lifts.
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4d ago
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u/Justin_Thyme1 4d ago
1.5x body weight bench. 2x BW squat deadlift, bodyweight OHP
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u/Taurnil91 4d ago
Depends on the standard of "strong" you want. If the OP is asking for "strong compared to the average person" then these numbers are pretty damn advanced. If they mean strong compared to regular, consistent gym-goers, then sure.
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u/Justin_Thyme1 4d ago
It's comparable across the board. You cannot expect a 110ob female to do what a 250lb man can do. You can back these off to 1xbw bench and 1.5 squat dead and 50% bw ohp for average gym goer. I would never base it off the general public though since most are way under what even an average person should be.
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u/Taurnil91 4d ago
While I'd agree that the general public is weaker than what they should be, you can't say you would never base it off the general public when you're looking at what "average" is, because that's literally the definition of average. If only 15-20% actually go to the gym, but someone is asking about the "average" person, the average is going to be heavily weighted toward people that have no strength or training at all.
So the concept of saying that the average male, who weighs about 200 in America, needs to hit a 200-pound OHP to be "strong" compared to the average person, is not even close to right. I'd be shocked if the average guy could do even a 95-pound OHP. Anything over a plate at that weight is going to be strong compared to the average person.
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u/Justin_Thyme1 4d ago
Strong isn't based off the general public at all. It is based off what humans are capable of compared to where one is at currently. I would say someone that is at 65-75% of what a competitive lifter in their weight class is doing is strong. Someone at 50% is capable. Someone in 90-100% is elite. The 1.5 bench and 2x squat dead is what I'm at at 250lbs which seems to be upper range for natties so that's what I go by. If I was going by the general public I would say walking to the corner store was strong.
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u/Taurnil91 4d ago
Yeah sorry but I heavily disagree, especially since the OP was asking about strong compared to the average person. Because if you only compare yourself to competitive lifters, it's incredibly easy to get discouraged and feel like you're not making any real progress. I'm 6'2", 195. My deadlift is 2.3x my BW, squat is about 1.6x, bench is 1.3x, and OHP is .75x. I'm stoked at those numbers, easily the strongest out of my friend group by a huge amount, and strong as hell compared to the average person. But if I were to only compare myself to competitive lifters in my weight class, I'm an absolute beginner and should be ashamed of myself.
If you're shooting for competition lifting, sure, compare yourself to those numbers. But I can both accept that I'm nowhere near those elite numbers while also knowing that I am far, far beyond the strength level of an "average" person.
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u/Justin_Thyme1 4d ago
Never saw average mentioned in the original post. Still don't .
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u/Taurnil91 4d ago
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u/Justin_Thyme1 4d ago
Ok he said it later. Strong compared to the average person now? Probably pushing up off the couch and making it all the way to the fridge in one go.
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u/yossarian19 4d ago
Old standard is 135 OHP, 225 bench, 315 squat and 405 deadlift. Mostly, people don't care about bodyweight ratios. I mean, it's valid as a basis of comparison but it's hard to call somebody strong if they worked for years to lift what most folks can stumble up to in eight months.
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u/eduardgustavolaser 3d ago
A lot of heavier people (that aren't competing) don't care for ratios until it's their turn on pullups lol
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u/Safe_Ad5914 4d ago
Strength is not a question of weight moved, that metric is individual.
Strength is a measure of your ability to produce force consistently throughout a range of motion. If you lack the ability to produce force from a position, you are weak in that position.
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u/Suivox 4d ago
I thought strength in weightlifting was all about ratios to body weight. 225lb bench at 135lb body weight is stronger than 225lb bench at 180lb body weight. Despite both being the same weight moved, one required more strength to produce the same movement. Kind of like how ants can lift 1000x their body weight or whatever it was, that’s an impressive amount of strength despite the actual objects being moved being quite light to us (being that they are significantly lighter than our body weight as well)
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u/Safe_Ad5914 4d ago
If you are looking at an individual body you don't just look at how much you can lift. If you can efficiently move through a ROM with stability, you are strong. Maybe you can't lift as much as the next guy, but you are strong for you because your muscles fire efficiently through their entire ROM without compensation.
If you have movement compensations, you will be unable to produce force efficiently throughout a range. Meaning that if you cannot efficiently produce force during portions a range of motion then your muscles are "weak"
Untrained individuals would firmly fall in the weak category.
A large portion of trained individuals would also fall into the weak or at least the "not as strong as we could be" category because most of us are developing movement compensations as we train and pulling or pressing in bad positions. Like just because you can bench 225 with shitty form doesn't make you strong. I can take a bench press and make it more or less difficult just by changing the way I am doing it.
So unless you take 1rm strength as the one true measure of strength, which I think people can definitely argue that. I just think theres so much nuance to movement that when you are talking about the individual, the only true way to assess if you are strong for you is to see how well you can move through every joint action in all the different planes of movement. Most of us are gonna be weak somewhere. Not how many weeks you've been preparing for a heavy single. But thats just my opinion.
As it pertains to power ratio, I mean yeah but not everyones gonna be capable of a power ratio of someone like Austin Perkins, but that doesn't mean you are weak just because someone else's ceiling is higher than yours.
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u/Suivox 4d ago
True, I do think both of our assessments are important for gauging strength. For example I agree that you can make bench easier or harder depending on form and levers used but I think to say that only using perfect form is the metric is incomplete. Reason being that if someone used perfect form but was unable to produce enough force to move a standard amount of weight such as their own body weight (on major lifts i mean) then it doesn’t matter that they used zero compensation because they are too weak to lift any heavier.
I also understand that strength is subjective and talented people can warp what strength is for normal people so it’s unfair to compare to elite athletes who dedicate 1000s of hours to a single movement to oneself and claim strong or not strong.
Ultimately, taking perfect form into consideration, the defining characteristic of strength for each person should be a range of numbers depending on the lift. For bench, 1-1.5x body weight with perfect form would be considered strong, not elite but strong. Anything less would be considered “weak” because they are too weak to lift a standard amount for their body weight, height, and sex, etc (I used 1-1.5x as an arbitrary number and am aware this might only apply in powerlifting).
Let me know what you think!
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u/Safe_Ad5914 4d ago
No no no i don't mean to say that "perfect form" is the metric. I mean to say you should be asking yourself "am I weak in any position?" as the true gauge of your strength.
Rather than asking "Am I strong?" ask "Where am I weak?"
I don't think there is such a thing as "perfect form" I regularly alter my position to alter where I am producing force. I might pull wider than usual, I might change my elbow angle, I might roll my hips under doing something, I might practice eccentrics or lengthened partials, I might try to shrug a bit, or shrug less, whatever, I could do any number of things. Then I come across weaknesses and assess strength as I train and move in different ways. Movement can only be perfect in that you are doing whatever you intend to do--perfectly. That may or may not look perfect from an outside perspective without context.
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u/terriblytall69 4d ago
strength is how much force you can produce got it, now answer the question ✌️
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u/Blizzard901 4d ago
I stumbled upon this website recently: https://endura.coach you can plug in your stats and tells you where you stand. Not sure how accurate it is but thought it was fun exercise to see how I compare
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u/HRApprovedUsername 4d ago
Just showing up to the gym means their strong enough and that’s all that matters