The Strength Standards Tables are back up.

[Corrie]

My squat and deadlift are level 3. My press and benchpress are level 2. My powerclean, however, is only just above level 1.

Do you think it might be beneficial to start powercleaning twice a week and only deadlift once a week for a month or two to try and bring the clean up to par?

[AronS]

I feel like noting that Cat IV is closest to the Golden Total for a 200 lb male without going over. Seems useful for scaling to different sized men and women.

[short]

No, but you and your handy calculator are free to do so, with appropriate attribution.

Strength standards converted to kg for those interested. The pdf was apparently too big to upload here so I put it on google docs instead.

As I punched in the numbers I noticed a small typo in the table for women, unless the press number is supposed to be equal for 181 and 198lbs Cat. III women.

[quagmire]

What is the expected timeframe to move up in the categories?

[AdamW]

Hey Rip what's the rationale behind how the gaps are set up? I noticed that it's not a big jump from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3, then 3 to 4 has the biggest jump, then 4 to 5 has a slightly smaller jump. I would have expected that the jumps started big and got smaller with each category, given that strength gains slow down as a trainee advances.

[stef]

I would have expected that the jumps started big and got smaller with each category, given that strength gains slow down as a trainee advances.

What is the expected timeframe to move up in the categories?

The performance standards are not related to time or training advancement (see Practical Programming). Persistent confusion that training advancement = weight on the bar = time spent training is why we pulled these and then modified them. Stop trying to add labels and modifications that do not apply.

[Mark Rippetoe]

What is the expected timeframe to move up in the categories?

Each category takes precisely 4.665 months to acquire. This is true for all bodyweights, ages, heights, and sexes, and shows no variability whatsoever.

Hey Rip what's the rationale behind how the gaps are set up? I noticed that it's not a big jump from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3, then 3 to 4 has the biggest jump, then 4 to 5 has a slightly smaller jump. I would have expected that the jumps started big and got smaller with each category, given that strength gains slow down as a trainee advances.

Each jump has been precisely calculated from data meticulously harvested from my experience, our best guesses, and human cadavers. You'll notice that there is no variability across weight classes. None at all.

And this is why we took the goddamn things down 3 years ago. Use them as a general guideline, and quit trying to make them into masterpieces of quantification -- they are not.

[AdamW]

The performance standards are not related to time or training advancement (see Practical Programming). Persistent confusion that training advancement = weight on the bar = time spent training is why we pulled these and then modified them. Stop trying to add labels and modifications that do not apply.

Ok but the numbers were obviously chosen for some reason, I'm just curious as to why gaps are neither even nor decreasing. Because the gaps are so irregular it tells me that they were done that way for a specific reason, so I'm just curious as to what that reason is. If the numbers are purely arbitrary and chosen for no specific reason at all, I'm willing to accept that as well.

[tertius]

It's just a table. To give you some context about where your strength falls on the range of "Limp Dick" to "Olympian". That's all.

I hereby suggest you give the categories smart ass names, Rip, so that people stop taking them so seriously.

[Daniel Wood]

Each category takes precisely 4.665 months to acquire. This is true for all bodyweights, ages, heights, and sexes, and shows no variability whatsoever.

I'll be world champion status in no time!