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Strength Standards Calculator
Enter your bodyweight and your best lifts to see where each one lands, from beginner to elite, for your bodyweight and sex. A raw number means little on its own; a level tells you how you actually stack up. Works in pounds or kilograms, no signup.
Enter a bodyweight, then the one-rep max for any lift you want graded. Levels are unit-agnostic (a bodyweight multiple), so lb or kg give the same level.
What the levels mean
Every lift is scored as a multiple of your bodyweight, then placed into one of five bands:
- Beginner: new to the movement or to training.
- Novice: a few months in, past the very first jumps.
- Intermediate: a committed recreational lifter with a year or two of consistent work.
- Advanced: strong for the general population, approaching competitive numbers.
- Elite: competitive-lifter territory for your bodyweight.
How these standards are calculated
This tool uses the same model as Ægir Iron's Strength Level page. It is a hybrid on purpose. The lower and middle bands (Beginner to Intermediate) are calibrated to a general gym population using bodyweight-multiple standards, so a committed recreational lifter reads "Intermediate," not "Novice." Basing the whole scale on competition data alone makes almost everyone look like a beginner. The upper bands (Advanced to Elite) reflect competitive lifters, consistent with published standards and competition data.
Sources: ExRx.net strength standards, Lon Kilgore's strength standards, OpenPowerlifting competition data (CC0), plus the DOTS (2019) and IWF Sinclair coefficients used elsewhere in the app. The Male / Female toggle switches which standard you are compared against.
Common questions
What are strength standards? They express a lift as a multiple of bodyweight and sort it from beginner to elite, so you can compare your lifts against typical lifters of your bodyweight and sex instead of judging a raw number alone.
What counts as intermediate or advanced? It depends on the lift, your bodyweight, and your sex. Roughly, for men an intermediate back squat is about 1.5x bodyweight and advanced about 2x; bench press about 1x and 1.5x. Enter your numbers above for the exact level.
How are the levels calculated? Your one-rep max divided by bodyweight is placed against five per-sex thresholds per lift, hybrid-calibrated as described above.
Do they account for age? No, bodyweight and sex only.