Strength base for women?

[AndersThomsen]

I've seen Rip stating that a reasonable developed strenght base for a man would be a 2xBW DL, a .75xBW press, and a 1.75xBW squat (+ being able to do 12 chins and run 400 m under 75 sec, as usefull test criteria for the military). What would be the equivalent numbers for a woman in her early twenties?

[I_iz_a_fatass]

To run out linear progression is the goal, regardless of what the final totals are, and is a good start.

[Adam Skillin]

Fatass is right, and these charts are worse than useless. I always catch a lot of flak for indulging people by posting the following link, but I'll do it anyway:

The Strength Standards Tables are back up.

Disclaimer: Arbitrary standards are arbitrary. Get stronger. Stop thinking about any standard for your lifts other than "stronger," the only goal that really matters for 99% of us.

[Clay Simczyk]

Any standard is arbitrary for a typical person. All you need to consider is how to be better than you were before.

[Kyle Schuant]

Short answer: 60/40/80kg in 3 months is achieved by younger women without drama or massive dietary changes, and is a good base for health and recreational sports.

Long answer: I think it's fair to at least run out your novice linear progression, that is, add weight to the bar in every single session until you can't. It's not emphasised enough, but this requires microloading, ie jumps of 0.5 or 1kg rather than 2.5 or 5kg, especially for press and bench, and especially for women.

I have found that if you get a healthy person under 50, and if they show up at least 24 times in 3 months (a possible 39 sessions of vanilla SS), then the minimum they'll lift through their novice linear progression is,

Women: squat 60, bench 40, press 25, deadlift 80kg
Men: squat 100, bench 75, press 40, deadlift 120kg
Cleans depend on the person's natural explosiveness and co-ordination so they're all over the place.

For some these will be work weights, for some they'll be singles. Key influences are the person's previous training and whether they're willing to put on weight. I specify "healthy under 50" since obviously illness and injury hold things back, and over-50s are tricky, some are really fit and others are a complete mess; some over-50s are just like a 30yo, others if you get them to squat the empty bar in 3 months you'll be happy.

Some examples of the more or less healthy under-50s, counting one a bit older too:

• A 22yo, 1.70m and 59kg woman had done only cardio and light lifting over a shortened range of motion, decided to eat a lot more, 17 weeks later weighed 65kg and squatted 60x20, benched 42.5x1, pulled 85x1.
• A 21yo 1.58m 58kg woman had squatted up to 40kg on her own, high bar and too deep. She also had a rotator cuff issue which hindered benching, she had to do light close-grip. She ate a lot more, mostly protein. 13 weeks later weighed the same but with more muscle and less fat, squatted 87.5, benched 35 and pulled 90 - singles.
• 52yo 1.60m 59kg woman had squatted 40kg on her own, badly, and did lots of masters athletics. She tends to injure herself at athletics every 4 weeks or so with a minor muscle pull, which has hindered her progress. Her eating she didn't consciously change but found herself carbing up to fuel hill sprints etc. After 13 weeks she was 63kg (and unhappy about it), squatted 52.5 5x3, benched 35 5x3, pulled 80 5x3.
• 38yo 1.77m 90kg woman, previously sedentary, did not change her crappy eating or bodyweight and after 13 weeks squatted 62.5 5x3, benched 37.5 5x3, and pulled 85kg 3x3.
• 29yo 1.78m 57kg woman went up to 59kg, having increased protein but not much else, squatting 67.5 x1, benching 38 x1 and deadlifting 75kg 3x3.

Just a few examples to illustrate things, I have many more. Once the person actually shows up more or less regularly (which is unusual), the big difference is previous training history - squatting a lot, however badly, means the difference between starting with 20-30kg and starting with 40-50kg - and willingness to eat decent food and put weight on.

I think everyone can and should go through their novice linear progression as a minimum. It doesn't take a heap out of you (compared to say, Texas Method) and will probably give you enough strength for everyday life and health, and help you in any recreational sport. It'll improve your posture and self-confidence and therefore overall attractiveness. And if you eat lots of protein and vegies, your body will change to look more of what people think of when they say "athletic" - the chubby ones lean out, the lanky ones fill out, and bits that used to just hang there start to perk up, etc.

After the 3 or so months of novice linear progression the person can decide what to do. For example, the masters athletics woman is taking her strength to her track and field sports, the 87.5kg squat woman is learning the quick lifts, and so on. The 90kg woman found it all too hard and quit; this last is the most common result result regardless of gender, as can be confirmed by looking at the logs here.

[wk105]

My wife is early intermediate, 5'8"/160lb. Squat 200x3x6, deadlift 265x3x6, bench 130x3x6, press 82.5x3x6.

[iamsmuts]

The OP wanted body weight percentage numbers, or at least something scaled to body weight. Absolute numbers are not very helpful. The much maligned strength chart is at least based on body weight.

The old goal of 200/300/400/500 assumes a 200# body weight. So, 1xBW press, 1.5xBW bench, 2xBW squat, and 2.5xBW deadlift. This is ambitious for most people. What's a comparably ambitious ratio for women?

Yes, yes, get as strong as you can on your LP. But for many people it's still nice to have some number to strive toward. Hence the continued interest in the chart. (I have the earlier version printed out next to my stereo in the basement. It makes me feel inadequate every time I work out. The power clean standard is ridiculous. . . .)

[Kyle Schuant]

Bodyweight of active people doesn't vary as much as weightlifting categories suggest. This can be seen by the fact that the lightest and heaviest categories in WL/PL have the fewest competitors, overall. Most active men are 70-90kg. Most active women are 55-75kg. So the "absolute numbers" do actually track with bodyweight. Yes, we can all put up pictures of that little North Korean guy or The Mountain - but I'm talking about most people.

Inactive men and women may be any weight from scrawny to grossly obese.

But even if bodyweight of active people did vary a lot, bodyweight multiples would not be a useful guide, since a 50kg person squatting 100kg is much more common and achievable than a 150kg person squatting 300kg.

[iamsmuts]

Another limitation: I can imagine that the percentage based numbers are probably very frustrating for people well over 20% body fat. Absolute numbers are probably better for them.

[AndersThomsen]

Thanks for the input so far.
I realize that anyone who trains should drive his/her individual LP as far as possible and see where he/she ends up. But having started using barbells at 49, I personally find the SS coaches experiences of what benchmarks most healthy young men can generally achieve in their novice progression to be quite motivating, and eye opening.

Kyle Schuant (thanks for the excellent article about managing compromises, btw) mentioned microloading for women, which got me wondering:

My daughter, 22yo, is at her 2nd attempt on appr. linear progression, the first was interrupted by travel. This time around she has been training for 7 weeks, 3 times a week. She is 162 cm tall, weighs 50 kg (5'2''/110lb) and previously largely inactive. Currently she is squatting 50 kg (110lb) 5 x 3, deadlifting 62.5 kg (137lb) 5 x 1, benching 28 kg (62lb) 5 x 3, and pressing 21.5 kg (47lb) 5 x 3.
She is not interested in power cleaning, and she prefers to lift a given weight twice before progressing (that amounts to only adding weight every second workout).

She has been microloading the presses from the very beginning, and takes 2.5 kg (5.5 lb) jumps in the squat and DL. When her progression begins to stall in these two lifts, PPST recommends doing 5 sets of 3 for women. When that eventually stalls (hopefully she'll get that far!) too, would microloading the squat and DL (f.ex. with 1 or 1.5 kg jumps) be relevant to tease out more LP, the logic being that 2.5 kg jumps is a relatively high percentage of her bw? (I weighed samples of barbells and plates on the 4-digit electronic bathweight in her training facility, and they actually seem to weight what they are supposed to, within a margin of a few grams).