What are good strength standards for my age and weight?
On this page
A squat equal to your bodyweight for one rep is Good on Gyroscope’s training bands, and one and a half times your bodyweight is Strong. Push-ups and grip strength have real tables by age and sex, measured in ordinary people. The bench press, deadlift and overhead press don’t, so for those, compare your ratio to bodyweight with your own last one.
Search for strength standards and the top tables rate your bench, squat and deadlift from beginner to elite by bodyweight. They look official. Most are built from lifts people typed in themselves on a commercial site, and the people who post tend to be lifters proud of their numbers, so the middle of those tables sits well above the middle of everyone. A 45-year-old who started lifting last month lands near the bottom and wonders why they bother.
What we’d do
Use the tests that have a fair table. Do push-ups, a dead hang and the floor rise at home, put them into How strong am I?, and estimate your squat from any set with the one-rep max calculator. For the bench, deadlift and overhead press, write down your estimated max divided by your bodyweight today, and beat it in eight weeks.
A picture from daily life
Imagine judging your running by the times people post on a running forum. The people who post are the ones who race, so an ordinary jogger looks slow. The finish times of everyone in a big local race would be fairer. Fairest of all is your own time from last spring.
The standards, test by test
| Test | Good | Strong | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Squat, one-rep max | 1 to 1.5 times your bodyweight | 1.5 times and up | Gyroscope’s training bands |
| Push-ups, one set | Good for your age on the table below | Excellent for your age | Canadian table, 2003 |
| Grip, both hands added | Above the middle for your age | The top fifth for your age | US adults, 2011 to 2012 |
| Strict pull-ups | 5 to 9 | 10 to 14 | Gyroscope’s training bands |
| Dead hang | 45 to 60 seconds | Over a minute | Gyroscope’s training bands |
| Plank | 1 to 2 minutes | Over 2 minutes | Gyroscope’s training bands |
| Floor rise | 8.5 to 9.5 out of 10 | 10 | A 2025 study of 4,282 adults aged 46 to 75 |
Gyroscope’s bands come from its benchmark pages, which call them training guides and not medical cutoffs. They’re the same for every age and both sexes, so keep your age in mind with them. Strength falls with age, so the same band means more at 70 than at 25.
Squat standards by bodyweight
Your estimated one-rep max, on Gyroscope’s bands. Under the Fair number is Building.
| Your bodyweight | Fair | Good | Strong |
|---|---|---|---|
| 120 lb | 90 lb | 120 lb | 180 lb |
| 140 lb | 105 lb | 140 lb | 210 lb |
| 160 lb | 120 lb | 160 lb | 240 lb |
| 180 lb | 135 lb | 180 lb | 270 lb |
| 200 lb | 150 lb | 200 lb | 300 lb |
| 220 lb | 165 lb | 220 lb | 330 lb |
You don’t need to test a max. Any set of 1 to 12 reps gives an estimate, and how much should I be able to squat? has the full answer.
Push-up standards by age
One unbroken set to exhaustion, men from the toes and women from the knees, on the Canadian push-up table (CSEP, 2003). These are the counts where Good and Excellent start.
| Age | Men, Good | Men, Excellent | Women, Good | Women, Excellent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 to 29 | 22 | 36 | 15 | 30 |
| 30 to 39 | 17 | 30 | 13 | 27 |
| 40 to 49 | 13 | 25 | 11 | 24 |
| 50 to 59 | 10 | 21 | 7 | 21 |
| 60 to 69 | 8 | 18 | 5 | 17 |
More on the protocol and the famous firefighter study is on how many push-ups should I be able to do?
Grip standards by age
Your best squeeze with each hand on a hand gauge, added together, against US adults measured in 2011 and 2012. Above the middle is Good, and the top fifth is Strong.
| Age | Men, middle | Men, top fifth from | Women, middle | Women, top fifth from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 to 29 | 208 lb | 241 lb | 130 lb | 148 lb |
| 30 to 39 | 216 lb | 245 lb | 136 lb | 154 lb |
| 40 to 49 | 208 lb | 234 lb | 133 lb | 154 lb |
| 50 to 59 | 195 lb | 220 lb | 122 lb | 142 lb |
| 60 to 69 | 185 lb | 206 lb | 117 lb | 131 lb |
| 70 and up | 156 lb | 178 lb | 93 lb | 114 lb |
Grip peaks in your 30s and falls a little each decade after. No gauge? The dead hang uses the same muscles, and how to test grip strength at home explains both.
The bench press, deadlift and overhead press
Nobody has published a fair table of these lifts for ordinary adults, so we don’t give levels for them. Even your own estimate is a range. Across 269 studies and 7,289 people, the number of reps people managed at the same share of their max varied a lot from person to person, so two people with the same set can have different maxes.
The ratio still works as your own yardstick. Estimate your max from a recent set, divide it by your bodyweight, and write the number down. If it’s higher in eight weeks, you’re stronger, whatever any chart says. The one-rep max calculator gives the ratio for any lift.
What to do with your result
Find your lowest band. That’s the test to train for the next eight weeks, two or three times a week, inside the strength protocol. Then test again the same way, at the same time of day. One step up in eight weeks is real progress at any age. How to test your strength at home has the rules for each test.
9 sources
- Gyroscope, Squat strength benchmark, practical bodyweight-ratio bands and protocolgyrosco.pe
- Gyroscope, Pull-ups benchmark, practical bands and protocolgyrosco.pe
- Gyroscope, Grip strength and dead hang benchmark, practical bands and protocolgyrosco.pe
- Gyroscope, Plank benchmark, practical bands and protocolgyrosco.pe
- Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, Canadian Physical Activity, Fitness and Lifestyle Appraisal (CPAFLA), 2003, push-up norms by age and sex
- Perna FM and others, Muscular grip strength estimates of the US population from NHANES 2011 to 2012, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2016pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Araujo CGS and others, sitting-rising test and natural and cardiovascular death in 4,282 adults, European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 2025europepmc.org
- Springer BA and others, Normative values for the unipedal stance test with eyes open and closed, Journal of Geriatric Physical Therapy, 2007geriatrictoolkit.missouri.edu
- Nuzzo JL and others, Maximal number of repetitions at percentages of the one repetition maximum, Sports Medicine, 2024pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
