Strength calculator

Strength standards calculator

Enter your best set on the squat, bench press, deadlift or overhead press and see your level — untrained to elite — with the exact kilogram target for every level at your bodyweight. Free, instant, no sign-up.

What are strength standards?

Strength standards answer the question every lifter eventually asks: is this number good? Because absolute load means little on its own — a 100 kg bench is a different achievement at 60 kg bodyweight than at 110 kg — standards are expressed as multiples of bodyweight, split by sex, and banded by training age: untrained, novice, intermediate, advanced, elite. They are milestones for the barbell lifts the way age–sex norm tables are for a 12-minute run.

How this calculator works

Your best set is first reduced to an estimated one-rep max with the Epley formula — weight × (1 + reps ÷ 30) — the same equation behind our 1RM calculator, so the two pages can never disagree. That 1RM is then placed on FitnessGrid's editorial standards table: five bodyweight-ratio thresholds per lift and sex, built from the round-number milestones the strength community has converged on — a bodyweight bench press as the intermediate marker, a double-bodyweight squat as advanced, a triple-bodyweight deadlift as elite — rather than copied from any single published source. Alongside the level you get a DOTS score, the bodyweight-adjusted points formula used across powerlifting, which lets you compare your lift with someone in any weight class.

What the five levels mean

Untrained is what a healthy adult can typically lift on a first serious attempt — it is the table's floor, not an insult. Novice is a few months of consistent training; most lifters pass through it on linear progression. Intermediate is where the majority of dedicated gym-goers settle after a year or two, and the level most worth being honest about. Advanced represents several years of structured training and puts you well into the top few percent of the gym. Elite is competitive-powerlifter territory — deliberately set below world-record ratios, so it is a destination a dedicated drug-free lifter can reach, not a records column.

FitnessGrid strength standards, as ×bodyweight

The full table for the sex selected above. Each cell is the one-rep max, as a multiple of bodyweight, that marks the start of that level. Multiply by your bodyweight for the kilogram target — the calculator above does exactly that and highlights the row you are on.

How accurate is it?

Two honest caveats. Epley's estimate is reliable in the 2–10 rep range and drifts optimistic beyond that, so test with a heavy set of five rather than a set of twenty if you want a trustworthy level. And the levels themselves are editorial: there is no governing body for what counts as intermediate, and every published table draws the lines slightly differently. Ratios also stretch at the extremes of bodyweight — very light lifters find bodyweight multiples easier, very heavy lifters find them harder — which is exactly the bias the DOTS score corrects for. Treat the level as a map reference, and your own trend over months as the measurement that matters.