At some point in time, most weightlifters wonder “How strong am I?”
And while it’s a common question, finding a clear answer can be tricky because strength isn’t always easy to compare.
For instance, how can you tell who’s stronger between a guy who’s 6’2”, weighs 300 pounds, and squats 600 pounds, and a guy who’s 5’8”, weighs 200 pounds, and squats 400 pounds?
This is where the Legion Strength Comparison Calculator can help. It uses a mathematical technique known as “allometric scaling” to estimate your strength compared to people who are heavier, lighter, taller, or shorter than you.
In other words, it helps you understand your relative strength, providing a clearer answer to the question, “How strong am I?”
What’s a “Good” Strength Score?
Instead of using the strength comparison calculator above to measure your progress and set long-term strength goals, it’s best suited to seeing how you stack up against other weightlifters in the present.
If you want to set long-term strength goals, it’s better to use strength standards—benchmarks for different exercises based on your sex, body weight, and training experience.
A good rule of thumb when setting strength goals is to try to move up to the next category on the strength standards chart by getting stronger or maintaining your strength level while reducing your body fat percentage.
How Strong Can I Get Naturally (Without Steroids)?
It’s difficult to accurately predict how strong you can get in your lifetime without taking steroids, as your ability to gain strength is influenced by many different factors, including genetics, muscle structure and size, bone length, training, diet, lifestyle habits, attitude, and more.
That said, you can use the Legion Strength Potential Calculator to get a rough estimate of your natural strength potential.
How Can You Improve Your Strength Score?
Two ways:
- Improve your “total”—the sum of your squat, bench press, and deadlift one-rep maxes.
- Reduce your body fat percentage without losing significant muscle mass.
Number one mostly boils down to following an effective strength training program that has you do the squat, bench press, and deadlift multiple times per week and lifting progressively heavier weights over time.
It’ll also help if your strength training program has you doing a lot of heavy lifting. In other words, you should regularly train with an amount of weight relatively close to your one-repetition maximum (the heaviest weight you can lift for a single repetition through a full range of motion with proper technique, also called your “max 1RM”).
More specifically, to increase your maximum strength, the number of repetitions you should aim for in most sets is between one and six. A good rule of thumb is to do 80-to-90% of your training in the 4-to-6 rep range and the remainder in the 1-to-3 rep range.
Number two requires you to maintain a calorie deficit and eat enough protein, which is best achieved by following a fat-loss meal plan.
FAQ #1: How strong am I?
To understand how strong you are compared to someone else, use the Legion Strength Comparison Calculator above. It provides a measure of your relative strength, giving you a clearer understanding of where you stand.
To learn how strong you are compared to other people of the same sex, body weight, and training experience, use the strength standard in this article:
These Are the Best Strength Standards on the Internet
FAQ #2: How can you make a strength comparison with someone else?
The simplest and most accurate way to compare your strength with someone else is to use the Legion Strength Comparison Calculator above. This calculator considers differences in height, weight, and overall size, using allometric scaling to estimate how your strength measures up against others, regardless of their physical differences.
FAQ #3: What is strength in comparison to body weight?
Strength relative to body weight is how much you can lift compared to your own weight. It’s a way to see how strong you are for your size. This measure is useful because it shows if you’re strong for your body weight, not just in terms of total weight lifted.
