I havent done much working out for years after my last shoulder injury. 4 months or so ago I started doing mostly upper body workouts. Bench, curls, stuff like that. Mostly on one of those machine things Ive got at home where guessing the weight is half the fun. To be honest I have no idea what I'm doing. Curls I'm up to 115 lbs on a curl bar 20 reps 3X a day twice a week. Ive been pain free and progressing nicely but I didnt think I was doing all that well. I work out twice a week for maybe 20-30 minutes each day. So I'm staying at a resort for a conference the other day and they had a weight room so I went down for some 40 lb hammer curls and they had a real bench. I went over to see what I could press and after a few attempts over the day I got a one rep max of 278 lbs. I thought that was pretty good but nothing to write home about. Then I was looking around at some charts I found on the internet and it seems I am in the 99th percentile for men my age ( 46 ) and weight ( 230 ). What? It just doesnt sound right. Ive literally been working out since June and I have no idea what I'm doing. I dont go to the gym or anything like that and have never had formal training. 278 didnt seem like that much to me. I just assumed most guys or at least guys that work out some could do that much. So thats not the case?

I feel your confusion. I had the same reaction. My max bench ever was 385 for a single rep. Before my car accident I was at a routine flat bench of:

8 x 225 warm up
6 x 295
4 x 305
(3 x 355) x 3

This put me in the top 1% globally for all age groups, and it sort of freaked me out. 1% globally means a "peer" cohort of roughly 38 million, although I think the real number of that cohort is closer to 20 million. In the US that means there were only roughly 1,700,000 guys who could lift as much as me.

I think it isn't so much that those of us that lift are bad asses, but rather that the rest of humanity is small, weak, and unmotivated.

Eat like a pig and lift man. It feels good in a lot of ways.

I don't know if the statistics portion is right or not, but as an avid gym-goer (with almost nothing to show for it) I can say that you don't often see many bench-pressers doing 3 45-plates on each side. That's hardly a scientific sampling, so take it for what it's worth. Or to put it another way - the stats you posted regarding percentiles certainly seems plausible if not spot-on.

Maybe you're a natural, who knows? But you aren't common. I myself am between 80 and 85 percentile for my age. I'll see if I can generate a different number by trying for a max.

ETA - figuring the math in reverse, I estimate I can just eek out a 90th if I'm feeling strong that day, but higher is improbable enough to be impossible. Alternatively, if I age 5 years in my sleep tonight, I can make that 99th.

According to that, I am 99 percentile for someone 15 years younger than me.

Use this:

http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifti ... dards.html

You are intermediate. Same as me.

silencertalk wrote:According to that, I am 99 percentile for someone 15 years younger than me.

Use this:

http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifti ... dards.html

You are intermediate. Same as me.

That sounds much more reasonable.

That's fascinating. I'd never put any thought to any of this but it makes sense. I work in DC and I can tell you that 99% of the guys I pass on the street are lucky if they could get the bar off their chests. We live in a soft society, well at least in this particular swamp. I've heard the particular condition which seems to be common in the East-Coast-Hipster as skinny-fat. That is to say they are not overweight, but they are hardly in shape.

While I'm not rocking the presses you guys are, I'm happy with where I am at for what I do.

Hit 290 today. Woohoo.

YugoRPK wrote:Hit 290 today. Woohoo.

so did i.....

I may be reading that chart wrong... but I'm 160 lbs and if I lift 205 then that's a ratio of 1.28. Does that mean 95% of men in their 30's can lift at a higher ratio? That can't be right...

No. It means that you can lift more than 95% of the male population in your age group. Sounds kind of far fetched doesnt it? I'm in my late 40's and I warm up with more than that.

Actually it doesn't really sound that far fetched. Sometimes I bring a friend with me to the gym as a guest and the guy will outweigh me by 50 pounds but struggles with 135 on flat bench.

If you warm up with 205 then that's 90% of your body weight, which is like 140 for me which is about right. I've come to realize that 205 is pretty much my max since I don't do any "bulking". I'd rather stay at 8% body fat all year than go through bulking/leaning cycles. I've had to lose extra fat before and it sucked, I wouldn't want to do that regularly after a bulk cycle.

I read that President Bush could do 8 reps of 180.

He is a full size guy.

180 doesn't add up that easily in gym math, you probably meant 185 which is the bar and a 45+25 on each side. Seems petty for me to notice that but that's how my brain works. Sorry.

bigbigpig wrote:180 doesn't add up that easily in gym math, you probably meant 185 which is the bar and a 45+25 on each side. Seems petty for me to notice that but that's how my brain works. Sorry.

While I am sure that presidents and ex presidents get the finest of Olympic weights, those of us who are too cheap to go to gyms buy our 1 inch bar weights on Craigslist. 180 lbs is a snap to make up with 25, 10 and 5 lb weights and a saggy 14 lb bar.

I suspect that Bush is using a cable and weight machine. I can easily do 325 on one of those things but free weights I BARELY pushed 290 and I'm not sure I could do it again now. Putin on the other hand...

"Selfies" posted on Silencertalk... me using the term "selfie"... well... just... s--t.

Libertarian_Geek wrote:"Selfies" posted on Silencertalk... me using the term "selfie"... well... just... s--t.

Thats not you in the avatar?

I switched my workout routine a bit. I had been doing 35 lb hammer curls at the last part of my workout. I had worked up to the point where I was doing 100 reps per arm spread out over 3 sets. My recovery speed isnt what it used to be so I'd do that every third day. Last night I switched to 50 lb hammer curls at 60 reps per arm spread over three sets. I can barely hold my arms up right now. It hurts so freakin' bad. Not broken stuff hurt. Just really sore muscle hurt.

Casper wrote:That's fascinating. I'd never put any thought to any of this but it makes sense. I work in DC and I can tell you that 99% of the guys I pass on the street are lucky if they could get the bar off their chests. We live in a soft society, well at least in this particular swamp. I've heard the particular condition which seems to be common in the East-Coast-Hipster as skinny-fat. That is to say they are not overweight, but they are hardly in shape.

I agree. Desk jobs, keeping kids from rough outdoor activity, Xbox Internet, 350 channels on TV w 1600 shows On Demand. We have become a generally soft society. The military has had to lower its Training Standards several times to meet demand for Troops during "Escalated Conflicts." Then they try to stiffen up when the Demand recedes.
Gone are the days of cutting our own firewood, hunting for Dinner, throwing bales of hay. This is modernization. Machines perform work we traditionally did.

YugoRPK wrote:

Libertarian_Geek wrote:"Selfies" posted on Silencertalk... me using the term "selfie"... well... just... s--t.

Thats not you in the avatar?

Thats not you in your avatar?