Episode 300: Feats of Strength: A Solocast Assessing Strength Levels and Optimal Fitness Practices

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Dr Mike T Nelson: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things to increase strength, performance, add muscle, do all this without destroying your health in a flexible framework. And today on the podcast, it is just me. I wanted to go over, since I’m recording this, this will be out today, Monday, December 23rd.

It’ll be out pretty close to that. It is Festivus! So as you probably know, I am a huge Seinfeld fan, and it seems odd that when I was teaching more in person, I forgot most students have never even seen the show Seinfeld, which was crazy. Like it, I think, ended before most of them were even born, which is wild.

But as you probably remember from the famous Festivus show, which was December 23rd, [00:01:00] One of the components of Festivus is the feats of strength. So today on the podcast I wanted to talk about what are some feats of strength you should consider and what is some data on basic lifts, how strong, is strong enough for both males and females.

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Especially on days where my fatigue level is a little bit higher. So check them out below. We’ve got a link. And [00:03:00] then also check out LMNT. So if you’re looking for a great electrolyte beverage, I guess you could say. It’s a little stick packet you just add to your water. I typically add one stick packet per one liter of fluid.

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It’s super beneficial for that. So check out the link below for them. And then also, the Flux Diet Cert will open again in early January 2025. I will have the exact date to all of you next week. But it will be early in the month of January. So you want to stay tuned for that. You can get all the more info on the newsletter.

Go to MikeTNelson. com, go to the top, go to Newsletter. And you’ll have all of the great information there. So that will be open again for only one week. In quarter one, which is going to be the first part of January 2025. So you want to get on the newsletter. I’m going to have some fast action bonus items there and some really cool stuff.

So you don’t want to miss that out, miss, miss out on that, whatever. So today talking about the Festivus Feats of Strength. And before I get into kind of what our data on some of the standards, number one, I would say is. [00:05:00] have some sort of performance goal, even if your goal is body composition. Even with the clients I have that can beat in some form of physique, we still have goals that we want to see them hit because performance, even if your goal is all out body comp and hypertrophy, that is what is going to drive how much muscle you can add.

Or if you’re in a cutting phase, how much muscle you can hold on to. So again, performance, overload, volume, density, intensity, all those things are going to matter. And you may not be doing 1RMs, you may do a 5RM, 8RM, it doesn’t matter. But keeping an eye on performance is going to be the fastest way to reach your goals.

Obviously, if you have performance goals, that makes complete sense. But, I think in the land of body composition, people just tend to train. Too much to failure and just kind of wing it. Just go to any commercial gym [00:06:00] and look at how many people even write anything down. I highly doubt all those people tapping away on their phone or entering their stuff into some type of digital database.

I still like old school pen and paper. I can flip back super easy. I’m not getting distracted by my phone. Put on my little Bluetooth headphones and not worry about it. I can just write stuff down on pen and paper. It’s very easy for me to track. You’re taking a rest period anyway, so monitor your training performance.

That would be my number one thing. Number two, you know, whatever you want to work on, your goals are your goals. So pick something that you like doing. If you like doing deadlifts more than squats, yes, you probably should still squat, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong. Especially if your goal is overall body composition, to work more on deadlifts.

Now again, if you’re competing in a sport, or you’re doing the sport of powerlifting, powerlifting, you have to squat, bench, and deadlift. [00:07:00] So, you’re gonna probably have to work more on your weaker lifts if you want a bigger total. But if you’re not doing that, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with prioritizing the lifts that you want to work on.

The caveat I would add is, Lawrence is not causing you pain or hindering performance elsewhere. And the goals you pick are your own goals. So you get to decide what you want to do. I would also throw a plug in for doing grip stuff. Cause I do think that transfers to almost everything else. And like I said, my goal is to pick up the 175 pound inch dumbbell.

But for people who aren’t familiar, it’s a large dumbbell. It’s a solid cast, a single piece of metal, and the handle is about the size of a pop can. It’s two and three eighths inch. It’s not so much the weight that’s the issue with it. You’re just doing a one hand deadlift. It’s 175 pounds for a one hand deadlift on a dumbbell.

You know, for most people who [00:08:00] train, not really that heavy. But with the handle, it just wants to spin out of your hand And it’s crazy to see at different meets and different areas where they have this, how many people are unable to do it. Even people who are very, very strong. I would say it’s incredibly rare that someone would walk into a room, even people at a very high level of strength, who can pick up the inch dumbbell without training.

There are those freaks that do exist, but they are incredibly rare. Even at the gym here, I’ve got a hundred pound version, which is junior. Maybe 50 percent of the people who lift could even, you know, pick that up, which again, it’s not so much the weight, it’s the ability to stop the rotation. So again, if you want to get into weird stuff like that, you know, that’s, that’s cool.

Like do whatever it is you want to do. So I would say as an overall general goal at the highest level, this would [00:09:00] be more for males. I don’t remember where I got this from, but in general the rule of, you know, overhead press one plate, so it’s going to be 135, bench press two plates, which is 225, squat three plates, which is 315, deadlift four plates, which is going to be 405.

I think if you were to pick and throw a dart at a wall, regardless of body weight, just numbers, you’re caught in an elevator. Somebody’s asking what numbers they should hit. I think that’s like pretty, pretty good. It’s a nice even split between most of the lifts. Yes, you will have different anatomical types that, you know, squatting may be easier than deadlifting for them, etc.

But as rough general view, I think that’s pretty solid. Now if we look at actual data on this strengthlevel. com. Now we can have a debate about how valid this data is, but they do have a [00:10:00] lot of lifts that are recorded there. So we’re going to go with it for now. Like you can find some literature that supports this and you know, some that kind of refutes it.

But as a base standard, I think this is a pretty good data set. So we’ve got male bench press standards because it’s Monday. Everybody wants to bench press on Monday. And for that you can look at just total weight or you can also look at body weight ratio. So if we take someone who is 180 pounds, for beginner they say 1RM 120 pounds, novice 166, intermediate 221, advanced 284, and elite 352.

So I would say that’s probably pretty good. Intermediate status is going to put you, you know, right around the 225 mark there. [00:11:00] If you scale up to a larger mammal at 220, your intermediate status there is going to be 269. Elite status is going to be 411. So, I would probably generally agree with that. I think if you go to most gyms and you look around, Not a ton of people bench in 225 with, you know, good form.

Like, they’re definitely there, but I would not say that’s super common. Yeah, and all of this depends upon what your goals are and what you want to do. Now, if you look at that as a body weight ratio, they would say beginner 5, novice 75, intermediate 1. 5, advanced 1. 75, and elite 2 times. So if you were a 200 pound mammal and you wanted to be in elite status, benchpress there is 400 pounds.

Again, this is all raw. This is not using any equipment or anything like that. You could argue some of this may not be the best since it’s [00:12:00] self reported. I personally think if you look at some of this data, the benchpress numbers are probably a little bit inflated. But, pretty good starting point. If we look at females beginner, they say weight 38 pounds, novice weight 70 pounds for bench press, intermediate 110, advanced 164, and elite 223.

Again, if we go by body weight, we say 140 pound athlete, intermediate status is going to be 108 pounds, elite status is going to be 209. So I think that’s probably, you know, pretty fair. Again, if we look at body weight ratio, intermediate should be 0. 75, advanced would be 1. So if you’re a female and you can bench press for 1RM your body weight, that’s considered advanced, which I would agree with, and elite is 1.

5 times that. So I think those are some, you know, rough numbers to look at. Now the caveat [00:13:00] to all this, like I said, this is kind of self report data but yeah, relatively fair. We go ahead and do the squat. Again, based on self report data. If you’ve been to any gyms, who knows how deep these squats are actually going, but nonetheless we go to the male standards here, and we look just generally across the board.

If you are, let’s say 180 pounds, beginner 88 pounds, novice 133, intermediate 190, intermediate 190. Advanced 256, and elite 329 pounds. Now again, I know some people will say, well, by powerlifting standards, these numbers are really low. And I would agree with that. But again, these are not necessarily people who are competing in the sport of powerlifting either.

If we scale up to say a 230 pound mammal, intermediate, you’re looking at 221 and elite [00:14:00] 371. So if anything, maybe these numbers are a little bit on the lower side. I should, I should back up here that those numbers I just said were for females, not male. So that probably explains why they were a little bit lower than what I thought.

So again, if you were 130 pound female, intermediate would be 152 pounds, advanced would be 212, and elite would be 279. So those of you, for female and for squat they put intermediate at 1.25, advanced at 1.5 and Elite at two times. Now if we go over to male squat numbers, these are probably a little bit more what I was thinking.

They should be 180 pound lifter novice 2 21, intermediate 2 92 advanced 3 73, and Elite four 60. So again, are powerlifters, both males and females, doing more than that? Absolutely. But for [00:15:00] most people going to the gym, yeah, and I think these numbers will give you some ballpark. And again, the ratios they’re using here are intermediate, they say is 1.

5, advanced 2. 25, and elite 2. 75. So again, if you’re, you know, squatting twice your body weight, I would argue that’s pretty darn good. Especially if it’s a legit squat. Now again, this could be back squat, safety squat, front squat they’re just talking about back squat, I believe in this case you can substitute whatever numbers and lifts you want for that.

And again, this depends upon what your goals are, but to give you some ballpark where you should be, that would be the numbers for squat. For deadlift, let’s flip back and start with males first. They would say that for weight. Again, if we take 180 pound male, beginner would be 195, novice 261, intermediate 340, advanced [00:16:00] 430, and elite 525.

I would probably generally agree with that. You know, again, I think you are definitely advanced. If you are able to deadlift, you know, 405, 430 at a body weight of 180, that’s, that’s pretty good. We scale that up to 230 pound mammal. Intermediate would put you at around 420, advanced 520, and elite would be 624.

I think that’s pretty fair. Again, if we go to body weight ratio, intermediate is putting you at the two times body weight, advanced 2. 5, and elite is three times. Now again, this is not necessarily going to scale all the way up. If you’re super heavyweight, trying to be elite status at three times body weight.

Good luck with that. But as a general across the board, I think it’s pretty, pretty fair. Like I find for most guys, like the big, the big ones are 315, 365, and 405. And again, depends [00:17:00] upon what your goals are, what you want to achieve. For females, what they have here is if we look at weight. So if we go to 140 pound female.

Beginner 86, Novice 131, Intermediate 189, Advanced 257, and Elite 331. Again, if they’re using body weight ratio, they call it Novice would be deadlift your body weight, Intermediate would be 1. 25, Advanced 1. 75, and Elite 2. 5. So on the elite side, if you take let’s say 160 pound Elite deadlift would be 3. 53.

And so I think those are, you know, relatively fair. Again, self report, all that kind of stuff. And they do list how many lifts this is based on. So you can go to strengthlevel. com. I don’t have any disclosures, relationship with them at all, but kind of a cool place just to look to see, [00:18:00] you know, how you rank for each one.

You can also type in other lifts that they have there. And it’s pretty cool. Now, again, these are just using just power lifts, the squat bench and dead. If you have issues, I would modify this for some, some people, especially if they’re older, I would look at either a neutral bar, a neutral grip, or maybe even Amrap on pushups or dumbbell bench press.

For a squat, my bias is I like a safety squat bar or even a front squat better. Back squat a lot of people I find have not a lot of external rotation movement wise may have some compensations there. And the squatting motion I do think is, is very critical. You can even go with you’ll progressively work up to a heavier goblet squats.

I think are underrated. You can hold the bar out in front and the crooks of your elbows, such as a Zurcher squat, which again, I think is a very [00:19:00] underrated version. And generally I think is better for most people. If you don’t have access to specialty bars. So one thing that my coach Adam was having me do is heavy goblet squats with the a hundred pound inch replica.

And that’s pretty challenging. It’s not as much the lower body stuff. It’s a little bit more a core and trying to get everything in position and hold that heavy of an odd weight in front of you. But yeah, pretty challenging. And on the deadlift, if you feel pretty good with form, yes, I think you can use a straight bar.

I don’t think that’s going to be injury injury less at all. The caveat is because the load is more out in front of you, you want to make sure that your form is appropriate for you. But for most people, I do like the trap bar a little bit better. I think it allows you to have a better position. It’s going to move the center of mass more underneath you.

Does, does put your back at a little bit less of a risk. Again, I don’t think doing a straight bar is inherently super dangerous, [00:20:00] as long as you know what you’re doing. But for most people, I do like the trap bar version better, or even like higher handle farmer’s bars deadlifts, I think is a great version also.

So those are some versions there. That is the Feats of Strength. I want to wish all of you a very happy Festivus. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We got a bunch more guests coming up next year. We’re working to get Caldeets on here at some point to talk about the Triphasic II book, which is out on Amazon right now.

It is 14 brand new methods for elite physical development. The goal here is looking at the whole training process from how you warm up to how you train, to how you transfer to get that performance on the field for athletics. I was a co author on this. It took way longer to get out than what we wanted. I actually started on it like nine years ago, but super stoked that it’s out now.

All the [00:21:00] feedback we’ve gotten so far on it, it’s been awesome. So really appreciate everyone who picked up that book. Thank you so much. If you want to pick that up, you can go to triphasic2. com, which is www. triphasic2. com. So check that out. We’ve got a bunch more other podcasts in the works also coming up.

Again, thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate it. Have a wonderful and very Merry Christmas. Talk to you again very soon.

That was a great number. I don’t care what you say. I thought it was dumb. Maybe you’re right.

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