What is a good strength level?

Intermediate is a good, honest target for most people who train regularly. On these standards it means benching about your bodyweight, squatting about 1.5 times it and deadlifting about 1.8 times it if you are a man, or benching 0.65, squatting 1.05 and deadlifting 1.3 times bodyweight if you are a woman. Most people reach it after one to three years of consistent training.

How much should I bench for my weight?

For a 180 lb man the lines are 90 lb (Beginner), 135 lb (Novice), 180 lb (Intermediate), 243 lb (Advanced) and 306 lb (Elite), all as one-rep maxes. For a 140 lb woman they are about 46, 68, 91, 123 and 155 lb. Enter your own bodyweight and the calculator lists all five for you.

How does the calculator estimate my one-rep max from reps?

It uses the Epley formula: weight × (1 + reps ÷ 30). Five reps at 185 lb works out to about 215.8 lb. The estimate is best between 2 and 10 reps done close to failure; beyond 10 reps the error grows, which is why the calculator stops at 10.

Where do these strength standards come from?

They are Mathovia's own tiers, written as simple bodyweight multiples around the milestones coaches have used for decades. They are not built from any website's user database and they are not population percentiles. Treat them as a sensible yardstick for progress rather than a ranking against other lifters.

Are the strength standards different for women?

Yes. Women's lines sit at about 62 to 72 percent of the men's multiples, depending on the lift — the gap is largest on upper-body lifts like the bench and overhead press, and smallest on the deadlift, which matches the strength differences seen in training studies.

Why do heavier lifters get a lower score for the same effort?

Because strength doesn't grow in proportion to bodyweight. Doubling body mass raises strength by much less than double, so a flat bodyweight multiple is harder to hit at 250 lb than at 150 lb. For comparing lifters of very different sizes, allometric formulas such as DOTS or Wilks are fairer.

Can I use kilograms instead of pounds?

Yes. The score, the level and the bodyweight multiple have no units, so enter both bodyweight and the lift in kilograms and they come out exactly the same. The one-rep max and the target weights will then be in kilograms too, even though the labels say lb.

Strength Level Calculator: Bench, Squat, Deadlift

“Am I strong?” is a hard question to answer with a single number, because a 300-pound squat means something very different at 150 pounds of bodyweight than at 250. This calculator answers it the way coaches usually do: turn your set into an estimated one-rep max, divide by your bodyweight, and compare that multiple with the line for your lift and sex.

Epley one-rep max formula and the strength score formula — Estimated one-rep max and the strength score

How your strength level is worked out

There are three steps, and you can do all of them on a phone calculator.

1. Estimate your one-rep max. Nobody should test a true max just to use a calculator. The Epley formula turns any set of up to about ten reps into an estimate:

where is the weight on the bar and the reps you completed. A single is simply its own weight.

2. Divide by bodyweight. This gives the lift as a multiple of your bodyweight, so a lighter and a heavier lifter can be put on the same scale.

3. Compare with the Intermediate line. Each lift has an Intermediate multiple — for men 1.5 on the squat, 1.0 on the bench, 1.8 on the deadlift and 0.65 on the overhead press. Dividing by it gives a score where 100 means Intermediate on any lift:

The levels start at 50 (Beginner), 75 (Novice), 100 (Intermediate), 135 (Advanced) and 170 (Elite). Below 50 is Untrained.

Worked example: bench press, 185 × 5 at 180 lb

A man who weighs 180 lb benches 185 lb for 5 reps — the calculator’s default values.

Step 1 — one-rep max.

Step 2 — bodyweight multiple.

Step 3 — score. The Intermediate bench line for men is 1.0 × bodyweight:

That sits between 100 and 135, so this lifter is Intermediate on the bench.

Step 4 — the next level. Advanced starts at 1.35 × bodyweight:

so the estimated max needs to climb by lb. At five reps that’s a working weight of about 208 lb.

A second example: squat, 135 × 3 at 140 lb

A 140 lb woman squats 135 lb for 3 reps. Her one-rep max is lb, which is 1.06 times her bodyweight. The women’s Intermediate squat line is 1.05, so her score is — just over the line into Intermediate. Advanced for her is lb, about 50 lb away.

Strength Level Calculator worked example diagram — A visual read of the worked example above — the same numbers the calculator returns for its default inputs.

Strength standards by lift

Every value is a one-rep max as a multiple of bodyweight. Multiply by your own bodyweight to get pounds or kilograms.

Men

Lift	Beginner	Novice	Intermediate	Advanced	Elite
Squat	0.75	1.13	1.50	2.03	2.55
Bench press	0.50	0.75	1.00	1.35	1.70
Deadlift	0.90	1.35	1.80	2.43	3.06
Overhead press	0.33	0.49	0.65	0.88	1.11

Women

Lift	Beginner	Novice	Intermediate	Advanced	Elite
Squat	0.53	0.79	1.05	1.42	1.79
Bench press	0.33	0.49	0.65	0.88	1.11
Deadlift	0.65	0.98	1.30	1.76	2.21
Overhead press	0.20	0.30	0.40	0.54	0.68

Bar chart of men's strength standards for squat, bench press, deadlift and overhead press as multiples of bodyweight, from Untrained to Elite — Men's standards for the four lifts, with the worked example marked on the bench press

A word on where these come from: they are Mathovia’s own standards, set around milestones coaches have used for decades — a bodyweight bench, a squat of one and a half times bodyweight, a deadlift near double. They are not percentiles, and they are not taken from any app’s user data. Use them to track your own progress, not to rank yourself against strangers.

Roughly, Beginner is a few weeks of training, Novice a few months, Intermediate one to three years of consistent work, Advanced several years of focused training, and Elite the level of competitive lifters.

Reps to one-rep max

The Epley formula implies a fixed percentage of your max for each rep count:

Reps	% of one-rep max	Reps	% of one-rep max
1	100%	6	83%
2	94%	7	81%
3	91%	8	79%
4	88%	9	77%
5	86%	10	75%

These only hold for sets taken close to failure. If you stopped at 5 reps with three more in the tank, your estimate will come out low.

Why bodyweight multiples favour lighter lifters

Muscle strength scales roughly with the cross-section of the muscle, while bodyweight scales with its volume. The result is that doubling your size gives you well under double the strength. A 130 lb lifter benching 1.5 times bodyweight lifts 195 lb; a 260 lb lifter at the same ratio needs 390 lb, which is a far rarer feat.

So if you are heavy, expect this calculator to rate you a little harshly, and if you are light, a little generously. For comparing lifters across weight classes, allometric formulas such as DOTS or Wilks correct for this.

Common mistakes

Using a set that wasn’t hard. The estimate assumes the set was close to failure.
Using sets above 10 reps. Accuracy falls off quickly past ten.
Counting partial reps. A squat above parallel or a bench that doesn’t touch the chest inflates the number.
Mixing units. Bodyweight and lift must both be in pounds or both in kilograms.
Comparing lifts with different standards. A 1.2× bench is a better result than a 1.2× squat; the score, not the multiple, is the fair comparison across lifts.

For a read on how much of your bodyweight is muscle, pair this with the FFMI calculator and the body fat calculator.

Sources and assumptions

This calculator assumes:

One-rep max is estimated with the Epley formula from a set of reps.
The strength levels are Mathovia’s own standards built around common bodyweight multiples, not an official ranking.

Figures last reviewed: 5 October 2026. Educational estimates, not professional advice.

About the formula: One-rep max is estimated with the Epley formula, weight × (1 + reps ÷ 30), and taken as the weight itself for a single. The score divides your one-rep max as a multiple of bodyweight by the Intermediate multiple for that lift and sex, so 100 is Intermediate on every lift. The levels start at 50 (Beginner), 75 (Novice), 100 (Intermediate), 135 (Advanced) and 170 (Elite).

Strength Level Calculator