This is a question I get all the time. As always, I’m going to answer it in the most digestible, concrete way possible. (If you’re new here: What is Strength Training? What is Strength Training? 2.0)
Regardless of age, height, weight, experience…
Men: 135lb press, 225lb bench press, 315lb squat, 405lb deadlift.
Women: 80lb press, 105lb bench press, 205 squat, 250lb deadlift.
For some people in the world (…almost no one) these lifts won’t seem very heavy or impressive.
But for 99% of people this is very, very strong. And you know what – it shouldn’t be. With proper training and consistency, these lifts are attainable for 99% of people, regardless of starting age/height/weight.
The majority of people don’t reach these lifts for 4 reasons.
- Programming issues.
- Without knowing it, most “functional fitness” programs don’t actually program for strength… at least not very well. If you get on a true strength program, you’d be shocked at how strong you can become!
- Limiting beliefs.
- I’ve seen this a million times – and experienced it myself. (Read my story here). People progress… reach a milestone – say a 200lb squat, and then knowingly or not, think “Well that’s about as strong as I can get… time to find a new goal”, when that is not true and is very self limiting!
- Consistency.
- You are a beginning lifter for 6-18 months, regardless of where you start. Think about that – if you train 3x/week productively (you sleep well, drink water, eat well, etc) for 80 weeks in a row, and you are still probably a beginner. Most people people just don’t train long enough or consistently enough to get anywhere near their potential. (Sometimes 1x/week is best.) (Just showing up is KEY.) Think about this in terms of someone’s career. Say you’re in accounting… and you’ve been working as an accountant for 1 year. Are you an expert or advanced? You might be for someone that has been doing it for 1 year but people that have been doing that has a 35 year accounting career would think you are just starting!
- Nutrition – and other lifestyle factors.
- Nutrition is a significant reason. Everyone is absolutely, positively paranoid about gaining weight. But here’s the thing… muscle… has weight. Bone density… has weight. Most people will never get nearly as strong as they could be because they want to become extremely strong while becoming skinny. It just doesn’t work that way. You have to eat in a caloric surplus to build muscle, and building muscle is a healthy thing to do – even if the scale goes up! You’ll be much healthier right now if you gained 10lbs of muscle. Other lifestyle factors matter as well – sleep, hydration, managing, stress, etc. Whatever you weigh + 30lbs of fat… is unhealthy and should be scary. Whatever you weigh – regardless of what you weigh now – +10, +20 or +30lbs of muscle is freaking awesome – more muscle, more toned, better shape, healthier! (And the beauty of it, if for some reason you sprout giant, huge muscles that everyone wants and no one can get – and you don’t like it, you can just go back!)
If you want to get strong, bust plateaus, build muscle, and reduce your back pain, come work with one of our Spark Fitness personal trainers!
Coach Connor
Find me on instagram @connorgreen3000 and the gym @sparkfitnessla
Find me on YouTube here @connorgreen3000 and the gym here @sparkfitnessla