STRENGTH STANDARDS ARE USELESS ❌

#shorts

[mattvena]

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#shorts

[grimknight]

One of the biggest mistakes i've made was probably taking these charts way too seriously. I was progressing and getting stronger yeah it was small but still good progress for me but then i would compair myself to these charts and would get disappointed with my numbers and it kinda ruined the workouts for me and even had a negative effect on my mental health too ! I'm no advanced lifter or anything but be happy with your progress even if its 1lb

[paoloh]

There's this site called strength level which has standards for basically all lifts, but the standards are BS for some lifts.

According to their standards, 15 pull ups only puts you at low intermediate level while I can assure you that less than 1% of the population can actually do 15 pull ups strict, shoulders to bar, no kipping or momentum.

In fact most of the general population can't even do a pull up at all. Nick symmonds recently made a pull up video and it's shocking how weak the average joe is.

[weyhanng]

Matt, are the size standards for squat plugs?

[tarunpratap]

Its going to be a long one.
I started lifting in February and used strength standards a lot as I was racing to the intermediate level idk why, I can do okayish numbers 90kg squat, 130kg Deadlift and a 60kg bench. My real problem is I hit those numbers in July and haven't progressed a bit in last 3 months, maybe because I'm not very social and train alone and don't want to get injured. Everything lead to me getting depressed and feeling shit about my body all time. I still don't know what to do and I feel like I'm stuck at a point.

[Demonofthedesi]

But how much weight do I need to lift for my dad to love me

[yoeyyoey]

Yeah I like the definition of “novice”, “intermediate” etc being based on the rate of progress rather than some standard someone pulled out of their ass. Anything else is not really helpful aside from simply comparing yourself to other people for trivial purposes. And even then it’s lift-to-lift. You can be advanced or elite at SBD, but if you start training OHP then you are still a novice at that.

[alexandercaffrey]

I always hating looking at those strength standards because it made me feel like I was somehow inferior or doing something wrong in my own training, instead of just focusing on myself more and how far I’ve personally come.

Sometimes I wish my squat was a lot higher than it is and not completely overshadowed by my deadlift, but maybe this is just how my body was designed and my squat will always be at least 150 lbs below my deadlift.

Also I’d be lucky to ever even seen a 315 lb bench.

[Waruto]

Thats why I feel like people who talk about lifting n x bodyweight for certain lift standards don't see the full picture. There is more to just bodyweight. Certain anatomy gives people better leverages in lifts.

[joellebruce]

The call backs to squat plugs fucking kill me everytime 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[alastor]

How do know the choices made for the chart are arbitrary?

[EverLastingTR]

I think bodyweight numbers for beginners arent as important as chart makes it seem. Ive seen a lot of overweight people start with just the bar and bunch of skinny teenager start with more. At the end of the day actual beginner lifters cant really use their heavy weight to their advantage so thinking a 100 kg beginner lifting twice of 50-60kg beginner is kinda stupid imo. Also using polls to find this data is not very reliable because a lot of people lie about their numbers

[tolypolonty]

Matt do you know why my walkout on low bar feels so much more difficult than high bar despite me being much stronger low bar?

[leoshorten]

If you deadlift 5 plates squat 4 and bench 3 all for 3 reps I’d say that makes you stronger than pretty much anyone normal and probably like top 5-20 at your gym depending on how strong the people are and how serious of a gym it is

[BarnJ]

Some people (myself included) enjoy having arbitrary exterior metrics to attain outside of just personal goals. For example, the desire to make $100, 000 is technically an arbitrary number and I could just focus on making more than I did last year, but the objective goal outside of myself and my personal experience is a motivating factor.

These standards aren't scientific, but they aren't useless just because your personality type doesn't have a utility for them.

[Lukefk]

Can you do a video on how to wedge on sumo?

[landlocked_lifts]

Matt looking good with the beard like that

[synysterxdave]

The only strength standard that I've seen as okay is the ol' 1x bodyweight bench, 1.5x bodyweight squat and 2x bodyweight deadlift. For a beginner it's a good goal

[Ryan-khly]

I go by my percentile on openpowerlifting

[anhluong]

i still use usapl classification standards