Strength calculator
Enter your age, bodyweight and any of 7 strength tests to see how strong you are compared with all adults of your age and sex, and with NCAA Division I athletes. An average-size 30-year-old man whose squat, bench press, deadlift and overhead press each sit at the 75th percentile is stronger than about 80% of men his age overall.
Calculate your strength score
Height is only used for grip strength. Enter any of the tests below: a set of reps is converted to an estimated one rep max, and pull-ups count your bodyweight plus any added weight.
| Test | Your result | All men your age | NCAA D1 men |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deadlift | — | — | |
| Back squat | — | — | |
| Bench press | — | — | |
| Overhead press | — | — | |
| Weighted pull-up | — | — | |
| Barbell row (Pendlay) | — | — | |
| Grip strength | — | — |
Enter your sex, age and bodyweight, then any of the tests.
Each test gets two percentiles, and once you have entered 4 of the 7 tests, including one lower-body lift (squat or deadlift) and one upper-body test, you also get a strength score. These are the same numbers the strength section of the full athleticism calculator gives.
How strong am I?
The calculator answers that question twice. First against all adults of your age and sex, trained or not, with each result adjusted for bodyweight so a lighter lifter is not penalised for moving less total weight. Then against NCAA Division I athletes of your sex, as they are, with no age or bodyweight adjustment. A man whose four main lifts all sit at the median for his age gets a strength score of about 50, which is what "average" means here.
An average-size 30-year-old man (179 lb) with a 240 lb back squat, a 185 lb bench press, a 300 lb deadlift and a 120 lb overhead press is at the 75th percentile on each lift and at the 80th percentile overall. An average-size woman (153 lb) with a 135 lb back squat, an 85 lb bench press, a 175 lb deadlift and a 55 lb overhead press is also at the 75thpercentile on each and at the 80th percentile overall.
Strength standards for men and women
What each test takes to reach a given percentile for an average-size 30-year-old (179 lb for men, 153 lb for women). Lifts are one rep maxes. The calculator adjusts for your own age and bodyweight, and the pages linked below give tables by bodyweight and age.
Men
| Test | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deadlift | 195 lb | 240 lb | 300 lb | 365 lb |
| Back squat | 150 lb | 190 lb | 240 lb | 300 lb |
| Bench press | 130 lb | 155 lb | 185 lb | 225 lb |
| Overhead press | 80 lb | 100 lb | 120 lb | 145 lb |
| Pull-ups (bodyweight reps) | None | 2 | 8 | 13 |
| Barbell row (Pendlay) | 115 lb | 140 lb | 170 lb | 205 lb |
| Grip strength | 44 kg | 49 kg | 55 kg | 60 kg |
Women
| Test | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deadlift | 120 lb | 145 lb | 175 lb | 215 lb |
| Back squat | 85 lb | 105 lb | 135 lb | 165 lb |
| Bench press | 60 lb | 70 lb | 85 lb | 100 lb |
| Overhead press | 40 lb | 45 lb | 55 lb | 65 lb |
| Pull-ups (bodyweight reps) | None | None | None | None |
| Barbell row (Pendlay) | 60 lb | 70 lb | 85 lb | 105 lb |
| Grip strength | 28 kg | 31 kg | 35 kg | 38 kg |
"None" means people at that percentile cannot do one strict pull-up: about 57% of men and 7% of women this age can. See how many pull-ups you should be able to do for reps by age.
Modeled — estimated from indirect evidence; treat every number here as an informed estimate, not a measurement. The barbell lifts and the weighted pull-up are modeled; grip strength is measured, from a national US survey, and agrees closely with a separate dataset of nearly 50,000 British adults (Dodds and colleagues, 2014) at ages 25 to 60.
How the strength score is calculated
Each result is ranked on its own first. A set of reps becomes an estimated one rep max (the average of the Epley, Brzycki and Wathen formulas, as in the one rep max calculator), pull-ups count your bodyweight plus any added weight, and the result is adjusted to a reference bodyweight and blended between age bands. Each percentile is then turned into a z-score, the z-scores are averaged, and the average is turned back into a percentile using the spread an average of correlated tests has: the calculator assumes a correlation of 0.55 between strength tests for the general population and 0.65 for D1 athletes. Only one result counts per test.
The score appears once you have 4 of the 7 tests and both a lower-body lift and an upper-body test, so one strong lift cannot stand in for overall strength. That is a display rule, not a statistical threshold. The methodology describes the reference data behind each test.
Strength calculator questions
How strong am I for my age?
Enter your sex, age, bodyweight and at least 4 of the 7 strength tests above, including one lower-body and one upper-body test. The calculator ranks each test against all adults of your age and sex, adjusted for bodyweight, and combines them into one strength percentile. For example, an average-size 30-year-old man (179 lb) with a 240 lb back squat, a 185 lb bench press, a 300 lb deadlift and a 120 lb overhead press is stronger than about 80% of men his age.
What is a strength score?
It is a percentile: the share of people of your age and sex you are stronger than, across all the strength tests you entered. A strength score of 80 means you out-lift about 80% of them overall. A second score compares you with NCAA Division I athletes of your sex, with no age or bodyweight adjustment.
Why is my strength score not the average of my percentiles?
Being above average on several lifts at once is rarer than on one, and the same holds below average. Strength tests are correlated, but not perfectly (the calculator assumes 0.55 between tests for the general population), so an average-size 30-year-old woman at the 75th percentile on the squat, bench press, deadlift and overhead press lands at the 80th percentile overall.
Which strength tests can I use?
Deadlift, back squat, bench press, overhead press, weighted pull-up, barbell row (Pendlay), grip strength. Lifts can be a single or a set of reps, which is converted to an estimated one rep max; sets of 10 reps or fewer give the most accurate estimate. Grip strength is the best-hand reading from a hand dynamometer in kilograms.
What ages does the strength calculator cover?
The general-population comparison covers ages 18 to 69. Outside that range each test still ranks against NCAA Division I athletes, but no population percentile is shown, because the reference data does not cover those ages.
Strength is one of four categories. Get your overall athleticism rank across strength, power, agility and endurance.
Related
- One rep max calculator
- DOTS calculator
- How much should I bench for my bodyweight?
- How much should I squat for my bodyweight?
- How much should I deadlift for my bodyweight?
- Overhead press standards by bodyweight and age
- Average bench press by age
- Average squat by age
- Average deadlift by age
- How many pull-ups should I be able to do?
- Average grip strength by age
- All standards, averages and calculators
Sources
- Vaara JP et al. Associations of maximal strength and muscular endurance test scores with cardiorespiratory fitness and body composition. J Strength Cond Res. 2012;26(8):2078-86.
- Dodds RM et al. Grip strength across the life course: normative data from twelve British studies. PLoS One. 2014;9(12):e113637.