![]() When you’re a novice lifter just starting out, gains in strength are relatively easy to come by. Even if it’s just a pound or so here or there, it’s a shot in the arm for your motivation to see that you’re making progress. You can see the weight on the bar going up on a regular basis. While gains in muscle size are often hard to quantify, strength is a different story. Given the link between strength and muscle mass, your maximum strength in these lifts is often a good indication of how well you’re progressing in your training. Most strength standards center on your one-rep max (1RM), which refers to the maximum amount of weight you can lift for a single rep in the squat, bench press, deadlift and overhead press, all while using proper form. What Are You Training For? Strength Or Hypertrophy? Beyond a certain point, you’re doing well to maintain your strength, let alone increase it. While you can gain strength and build muscle as you age, it does get harder. That is, the “chain of command” transmitting signals from your brain to your muscles doesn’t seem to work quite as well as you get older. There’s also a decline in neuromuscular function with advancing age. This dip in strength isn’t solely down to a loss of muscle. By the age of 50, that number has dropped to around 85%. At the age of 40, Olympic weightlifters are about 95% as strong as they were five years earlier. How strength declines with age in male powerlifters ![]() ![]() The figure below comes from the International Powerlifting Federation, who collected data from a group of 1500 male lifters performing the back squat, bench press, and deadlift.Īs you can see, strength peaks at around 30 years of age, and tends to decline from that point onwards. How does your strength change as you get older? That matters, because someone in their twenties is going to have an easier time gaining strength than someone in their 40s, 50s and beyond. Most strength standards don’t take into account how old you are. However, for the reasons I’m about to explain, they’re not realistic goals for everyone. Hitting them will mean you’re stronger than most people in your gym. someone who isn’t competing in strength sports) these are impressive numbers. Percentage wise and relative to body weight (BW), these numbers translate to 100% for the overhead press, 150% for the bench press, 200% for the back squat, and 250% for the deadlift.įor recreational lifters (i.e. In the book, McRobert suggests that a 190-pound barbell overhead press, 300-pound barbell bench press, 400-pound barbell squat and 500-pound barbell deadlift (all for a one-rep max) are impressive numbers for a drug-free, genetically average male weighing around 190 pounds. The first set of strength standards I came across was in a book called Beyond Brawn, written by Stuart McRobert. Barbell Bench Press, Squat, Deadlift and Overhead Press In this article, I want to go over some of the weaknesses and limitations with generic strength standards, and explain why many people will do just as well to ignore them. Everyone claiming they can bench press this or deadlift that. Many are based on numbers from elite strength athletes, rather than the general population.Īnd being the Internet, there’s a lot of bullshit and nonsense flying around. The problem with most strength standards, for a lot of folks anyway, is that they’re not realistic. Most strength standards are based on your one-rep max (1RM), which refers to the maximum amount of weight you can lift for a single repetition using proper form. How come everyone else is so unbelievably strong, and you’re not? The Big Problem With Strength Standards You have no idea what to aim for or who to believe.Īnd some of the numbers are so far off what you’re currently lifting that you start to wonder if you’re doing the right thing in the gym. One set of strength standards puts you at an intermediate level, while another says you’re a beginner. Problem is, none of the charts you’ve found seem to agree with each other. How much weight should I be lifting in the basic barbell exercises?.You’ve been asking yourself questions like: You’re looking for advice about strength standards, mainly because you want to see how well you stack up against other people who lift weights, or because you want some strength goals to aim for.
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