Strength Level Calculator

Enter your sex, body weight and a lift, as a single or a set of up to 10 reps, to see where it ranks among 414,203 lifters from raw powerlifting meets (OpenPowerlifting data). You get a percentile within your 5 kg body weight group, your lift ÷ body weight and the group's lifts from the 10th to the 90th percentile.

How the percentile is worked out

The calculator takes the 5 kg body weight group that holds your body weight and places your lift among the best lifts of the lifters of your sex in that group. A man weighing 180 lb, for example, is compared in the bench press with the 43,867 men who weighed 170.9–181.9 lb (77.5–82.5 kg) at a meet. The data holds each group's lift at every half percentile from the 1st to the 99th, and between two of those points the percentile is read off a straight line. Below the 1st percentile the result says "less than 1%", above the 99th "more than 99%".

Each answer comes from one group, never from a blend of two. Lifters gather just under weight class limits, so neighbouring groups differ, and blending them missed direct counts by 8 to 17 points. A group needs at least 300 lifters: for men the groups cover 37.5 to 167.5 kg (82.7 to 369.3 lb), for women 37.5 to 137.5 kg (82.7 to 303.1 lb). Outside that range there is no percentile.

With a set of 2 to 10 reps, the calculator first estimates your one-rep max as the average of seven formulas (Epley, Brzycki, Lander, Lombardi, Mayhew et al., O'Connor et al. and Wathen), the same estimate as the one-rep max calculator. The data holds singles lifted in competition, so an estimate from reps is compared with real singles. The result also divides your lift by your body weight; that ratio is plain arithmetic and needs no data.

Under "Age group" you can compare only with lifters who were the same age on the day of their meet: 14–18, 19–23, 24–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60–69, or 70 and over. Tables for every group: bench press, squat and deadlift strength standards.

What your percentile is compared with

• The data comes from people who entered a powerlifting meet, not from gym-goers or the population at large. Nothing here says how meet lifters compare with people who do not compete.
• Each lifter counts once per lift, with their best meet result.
• That result is the best of the first three attempts that counted at the meet: not a training max and not an estimated max.
• Raw lifting only: bare knees or knee sleeves. Results in knee wraps or in supportive suits and shirts are left out.
• Sanctioned full-power meets only, where each lifter did the squat, bench press and deadlift. Bench-only and deadlift-only results are not included.
• Tested and untested federations together, all years. In our check, keeping only tested lifters, or only meets from 2015 on, moved each body weight group's median by −3.8% to +5.3%.
• You are compared with the 5 kg body weight group that holds your body weight: above its lower edge, up to and including its upper edge, so 82.5 kg is in the 77.5–82.5 kg group and 77.5 kg is not. A lifter's body weight is the weigh-in at that meet.
• A percentile of X means that about X% of that group had a lower best result. Shown as a whole number, it is within 1 point of a direct count of the lifters.
• Crossing a group edge can change the percentile, because neighbouring groups really differ: lifters gather just under weight class limits.
• Age groups go by age on the day of the meet, not by the IPF's age classes, which go by birth year.
• There is no result for a body weight or an age group with fewer than 300 lifters.