Standard strenght tables - different for race?

[confuzzl3don3]

Hey Ripp,

if you deem this worthy of a response, i just wanted your opinion on the standard strength tables that you and Dr Kilgore published in the back of PP. You had two different tables for male and female, but i was wondering if the race of the individual would also make a difference? For example would the average novice for a white caucasian be different to that for an Asian, which would be different again to an African American, etc. I'm not trying to offend any1 here or anything i was just wondering if that would be an influencing factor so that say an intermediate Asian lifter may have lifts not quite as high as a white male of the intermediate level and the same weight.

Thanks, Confuzzl3d

[Mark Rippetoe]

I don't have any data that suggest a measurable difference in racial capacities, and I don't know that anyone does. It's not a bad question, just a question that is not possible to answer.

[confuzzl3don3]

Ahh k thanks. I guess i was just looking for a way to justify my lifts being lower than everyone else on this forum :P i'll probably be better off quiting being a pussy, getting under a bar and squatting while drinking milk in between sets.

[Konstantinos Kavos]

I'd hazard a guess and say that there are just so many people around that the performance of any one or two individuals could not be predicted by statistics on race, even if they could be gathered.

There might be some very broad (and within that context accurate) generalizations that could be made, but I am not sure they would be useful for anything.

[matclone]

Sounds like a troll question if anything.

I've been wondering if those tables represent a 1RM or a 5RM? I initially assumed they were a 1RM but could not find anything in the tables to say one way or another.

[bluecheese]

Ask Jimmy the Greek. But, I've often wondered the same thing. Not so much on strength, but on muscle mass. Every black dude I know looks bo-jacked and never goes to the gym. Its a shame that no one will be able to do a comprehensive examination of this, as this would definity piss off some loud fringe group of weepy hippies.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Sounds like a troll question if anything.

I've been wondering if those tables represent a 1RM or a 5RM? I initially assumed they were a 1RM but could not find anything in the tables to say one way or another.

Now this sounds like a troll question to me, and one of the reasons we left the tables out of the second edition, since I've answered it here about 30 times. The tables in their original form did not specify that the values were 1RM because I never in a billion lifetimes would have guessed that a data set for strength numbers would have been interpreted as anything besides a 1RM. I mean, if they had been for 5s or 3s or 2s or 10s or 20s I'd had to have specified, right? And since I didn't logic would demand that the values were for 1 rep.

[titan]

Ahh k thanks. I guess i was just looking for a way to justify my lifts being lower than everyone else on this forum :P i'll probably be better off quiting being a pussy, getting under a bar and squatting while drinking milk in between sets.

Mark, this guy just doesn't get it, seriously. I have attempted to answer his questions about his lifts being so low on the Training Discussion forum see here and here.

The above suggestions are a bare minimum in terms of caloric intake, try eating like a fucking horse and see whether you still have measley gains and think your lifts are "lower than everyone else on this forum".

Try it, just try it. I dare you.

[MAD9692]

I doubt anyone else thought that the numbers would have been interpreted as anything besides a 1RM.

[butkus]

Race is primarily a social construction that varies from country to country/culture to culture.

An Asian in the US could mean a guy from the Filipino descent and/or someone of Japanese descent, two very different populations.

An African American in the US qualifies anyone who "looks black" so this person can have origins from West Africa or Eastern Africa, which are two areas on the opposite ends of the athletic spectrum in terms of the athletes they are known to produce (fast twitch vs. slow twitch).

Hell, talk to a Brazillian about racial categories and you'll realize that "race" is whatever you want it to be, a fluid category far from empirical.