Many people who work out will want to gauge where their strength and endurance stand relative to other athletes. This question is not an absolute question, but a relative question. They want to know: “how strong am I compared to everyone else?”
While this question may seem vain to some, it really is not. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know where you stand in relation to others of your gender and if being strong is a goal of yours, it is really important to know where you are considered “strong” and where you are considered “weak” so that you can better program your training.
Strength and endurance Data
Strength data was gathered from an online database (here) that has been collecting self-reported data for years now. The number of data points that I have for each lift are as follows:
Bench Press: 13,354,162
Squat: 7,651,637
Deadlift: 7,724,948
Pull Ups: 1,097,769
Push Ups: 564,613
Endurance Standards were taken from Strava’s 2020 year-end review (here):
Running: 1,900,000,000 recorded miles
Cycling: 8,100,000,000 recorded miles
As you can see, I have accessed and organized an incredibly large amount of strength and endurance data. With this large amount of data, I am extremely comfortable passing this information on to you so that you can better your own life and use standards gathered from a massive data set to make educated decisions.
Before jumping in, it is important to note a few things:
1: The strength data is ALL self-reported which means that there is some degree of inaccuracy. Given that, take your personal standards with a little give-and-take. For instance, if you are 15 pounds away from what would be considered intermediate for your age/weight/gender, it is safe to say that you can include yourself in that intermediate category.
2: I only pulled data from ages 24-59. Beyond those limits, data gets a little inaccurate.
3. Push up and pull up standards are pretty much the same across all ages because they are bodyweight exercises.
4. Endurance data is not broken up by age and will therefore be left as global averages at the bottom of the page.
Data Sets
The strength and endurance data sets are broken down into age ranges. Within each age range, you will find tables for each lift listed above relative to body weight and gender. Simply select your age range, find your body weight and you can find where you stand relative to your age/gender population.
Endurance Standards
Strava is the world’s most popular endurance tracking app. Each year, Strava takes all of the data that is entered by it’s users and releases it to the public. The data is incredibly robust and is tracked via GPS making it very reliable. The 2020 year-end results are in and the endurance standards for cycling and running on a global level were as follows:
Men
Running:
Average miles per run: 4.1
Average time: 39:32
Average mile time: 9:39
Cycling:
Average miles per ride: 16.6
Average time: 1:17:23
Women
Running:
Average miles per run: 3.4
Average time: 37:33
Average mile time: 11:03
Cycling:
Average miles per ride: 12.3
Average time: 1:08:11
Final Thoughts
Whether or not you have aspirations to be a world-class lifter, maintaining a physically fit body is very important for your health and longevity. Knowing what is considered average strength and endurance for your age, gender, and weight is a very good way to make sure that you are at least keeping up with the herd. Using this information, you can easily set goals for yourself with targets derived from millions of data points that are relevant to you.
If you would like specific help in any one category, feel free to reach out to me here and tell me about your goals! I would be more than happy to help you achieve a fitter, healthier life!
Jordan Tank, Personal Trainer, Columbus, Ohio
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