Comments on: Strength standards for women

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 02:16:44 +0000

Like you, I’ve updated my strength standards in the light of more experience, as you can see here – http://aptphysicaltraining.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/strength-standards.html

The changes were to remove the squat and change “press” to “overhead.”

The squat was removed because of so many dodgy lifts out there, people doing little dips and kidding themselves it’s a squat. The deadlift is a more honest lift, it allows no bullshit, either you pick the bloody thing up or you don’t.

“Press” was changed to “get overhead any way you like,” and the numbers raised, since if a person does a strict press overhead with 1/2, 2/3 or 3/4 their bodyweight, that is pretty respectable and useful – but if they can’t press it but can for example snatch it, that’s good too. The process of learning to properly perform a snatch of 1/2 or more your bodyweight is going to develop in you a certain amount of co-ordination and athleticism that will be as useful in health and sports as the raw strength would be.

By: Women’s lifting – will it ever really take off? - weight training, strength, fitness, weights, losing fat, women's weight training, bodyweight, free weights, powerlifting, dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, bodybuilding, olympic weightlifting

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:51:55 +0000

[...] fact, I had to revise the Strength Standards for Women that I originally put together in 2008, as the standards of the ‘normal’ weight training woman [...]

By: Progressing from Beginner to Intermediate Training: | RippedBody.jp

Progressing from Beginner to Intermediate Training: | RippedBody.jp — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:38:10 +0000

[...] Strength Standards for Women - Gubernatrix.co.uk [...]

By: Pre-natal strength training - weight training, strength, fitness, weights, losing fat, women's weight training, bodyweight, free weights, powerlifting, dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, bodybuilding, olympic weightlifting

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 22:31:58 +0000

[...] Strength standards for women [...]

By: gubernatrix

gubernatrix — Thu, 12 May 2011 23:08:11 +0000

Good points Kyle! And an interesting blog you have there.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Thu, 12 May 2011 08:16:09 +0000

You’re right, of course. This is why my standards top out at a level which if achieved, the person – man, woman, young, old – would have a good start in competitive lifting of whatever kind (around your “very good” level). Once you’re ready for competitive strength sports, really you have left an mainstream commercial or community gym behind.

Put another way, I’m a PT, and as someone aptly described it recently, “top coaching is about getting the last 5% out of a person’s performance, personal training is about getting the first 50%.” So the standards I suggest are for the first 50% After that some coach will take over!

By: gubernatrix

gubernatrix — Wed, 11 May 2011 13:39:06 +0000

Yes Kyle, I can completely believe that in a particular gym environment it is individual differences that stand out. In the last gym I worked in, I could outperform quite a few of the men on various exercises.

But when all that is equalised, you do see the gender and age differences quite clearly – for example, when you go to a competition. You can assume (broadly) that at a regional competition most people are doing similar training with similar levels of commitment over a similar period of time. Therefore the differences in performance are due to other factors, such as talent, sex and age. These aren’t professional athletes, just enthusiastic amateurs who love their training (like me!) so they are comparable to what a normal person could achieve with the same level of experience and commitment.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Wed, 11 May 2011 11:43:31 +0000

I was just writing an article on strength standards when I thought to look at your site again. Thanks for the revision, it makes sense.

My own experiences are somewhat different, I look at things in terms of what we see in community gyms. I didn’t bother splitting it between men and women, the variation between individuals is far greater than that between the genders.

Of course if I have trained 1,000 people then I might think differently, broader trends would be more apparent. But working in community gyms where of 2-4,000 members only 20-30 are engaged in full-body progressive resistance training, it’s hard to see much gender, age, etc difference, individuals stand out.

By: Daz

Daz — Tue, 10 May 2011 22:38:34 +0000

Just revisited this article, good to see you updating it. Been coaching a girl in weight training for 6 months from scratch for improving general strength for sport, BW 55kg- now squat 80kg, Bench 45kg, Pullup 1, deadlift 80kg, powerclean 40kg. This table provides a useful tool for goal setting.

By: gubernatrix

gubernatrix — Fri, 06 May 2011 14:58:11 +0000

Hey everyone!
Thank you to everyone who has commented so far. Just wanted to let you know that I have revised the table of standards (which is now almost three years old) based on my changing perception of standards and some of the well-made comments I have received here.

I have added a note to the end of the post briefly explaining the changes I have made and why.