Introduction

I'm writing this because the training world seems to be evenly-split between wusses and meatheads. On the one hand we have the PT having their client do curls and one-legged half squats with a 5kg dumbbell on a swiss ball, and on the other hand we have trainers who call themselves "coaches" because they think it sounds tough and who say, "if you don't squat 405 you're a pussy." As usual, reality is somewhere between those two absurd extremes.

This is a chart of performance as a fraction of the world record. Numbers have improved slightly since I made the chart, but it's close enough for discussion.I wanted a measure of strength, and chose deadlift. The quick lifts of snatch, clean and jerk are of course about strength, but also about explosiveness and require a lot of practice to be proficient. Squats and bench are, as anyone who's been to a powerlifting meet knows, subject to a lot of judgement as to their performance. But deadlifts there's not really any argument about (except for straps) - you either picked the thing up or you didn't.

For the strength records I chose the middleweight lifters' records, as they represent the average sized active person. Lighter people will find lifting harder, heavier people will find lifting easier but running and jumping harder.

For endurance I chose the 5km. Shorter than that is more anaerobic, and longer than that takes more training time than most people are willing to spend; in any case someone who is good at 42.195km will be good at 5km, too.

For power I chose the standing broad jump. Standing vertical jump is the industry standard, but we want tests which require commonly-available or no equipment. This is the least trainable of the three. It only really significantly improves in the two cases. The first is an overweight person who loses weight - the 95kg guy who is 20kg overweight and jumps is in the same position as the 75kg guy who tries jumping holding a 20g weight plate (which raises obvious questions about the safety and efficacy of plyometrics for overweight beginners, but that's another discussion). But his losing weight isn't going to turn a 1m jump into a 2m jump, more like 1m to 1.20.The second circumstance where it improves is where the person was previously untrained, and goes through a novice progressing using barbells for 3-6 months. If your squat goes from (say) the empty 20kg bar to 100kg, you are probably going to jump a bit further. You'll get a similar improvement to losing weight.

As for age, I didn't adjust for that, because as we age our goal ought to be to stay as close to our youthful performance as we can. As well, age doesn't affect the numbers as strongly as you might imagine - you can look it up, but it's not till the 80s that it really drops, and then it hits about 2/3 the open numbers.

I didn't include body composition, because if you have these standards that will take care of itself. The better lifters will be heavier, the better runners and jumpers leaner.

Discussion

As personal trainers, most of us will spend most of our time dealing with people in the first 50%. People heavily involved in strength training will scoff at a woman having "only" a 116kg deadlift, or man "only' a 195kg deadlift. "Pffft I did that in six months using only one leg and I don't even eat protein powder, bro." Likewise, those heavily involved in endurance training won't be impressed at "only" a 20' 5km time. "I ran that when I was a 13 year old girl with asthma!"

But if someone is a previously sedentary 30yo accountant with a mortgage and child, or a 45yo IT guy with two children and a business and a bad back, hitting 50% of the WR in any one of the three will be life-changing, and hitting 50% on two or more - well, you'll have an entirely different person standing before you. And as personal trainers we are charging decent money, which means we will not meet many 20yo talented athletes - because they're all broke. We'll meet people who are previously sedentary, and who are in the gym to support their lives, not as their lives. Dave Tate said that there were really only four levels of performance:

• shit
• suck
• good
• great

Don't take the description to heart. They're relative to a competitive performance. Now, in terms of health you can think of them as,

• sick
• healthy
• good
• great

because someone whose performance is shit is either sick, or is going to be sick in the coming years. Being sedentary, overweight, eating and resting poorly and having a small social circle will create a shit athletic performance, but also lead to having type II diabetes, lower back, knee and hip pain, depression, kidney disease, osteoporosis and so on - being sick.

Simply rising from shit to suck performance will mean getting stronger, fitter and more mobile. The lifestyle and dietary changes required to do this will improve the person's short and long-term health, so that a suck performance can be thought of as healthy. 

I would suggest that as a first level of approximation, each of those levels could be taken as a 25% chunk of the chart above. Most previously sedentary beginners will start as shit in all three areas. If they're under 50 it should take 3-6 months to move up to merely suck, depending on how consistent they are with training, how much they improve their food and rest, and so on. Past suck and into good requires quite a bit of dedication and time in most cases.

You'll get the occasional person who because of their natural build or previous physical activity starts as suck, and in that same 3-6 month period they'll become good. But this person will usually only suck in one of the three areas, and be shit in the other two. For example a 1.85m/120kg former rugby player will probably be able to deadlift 120kg on his first day (above 30% WR), but he might not even be able to complete a 5km movement on foot without a rest along the way, so won't be matching his 30% performance by doing it in under 42'. 

Likewise a skinny young woman who's done a lot of aerobics and elliptical stuff might run 5km in 35' without problems, but she's not going to deadlift 90kg on her first day.

So, most people will begin with an average rating of under 25% across the three areas - they're shit. I think it's fair to use this term since if they remain there, then long-term their health, their longevity and quality of life, are going to be shit. As trainers, our job is to take people from shit to suck. To help people who are or will be sick, healthy. 

A few star clients will hit good in something, and once every few years we'll get someone who is good in two or three. But we are unlikely to get people who are great. 

And really, even if we just raise them from shit to suck in all three, we've totally changed their lives. They will be a healthy bodyweight, won't have recurring back pain, their joints will be healthy, any chronic health condition they have will be reduced in severity, and of course they'll have improved how they look and the process of training will have improved their confidence. If they improve to good then they become the poster girl/boy for our services.

Past 50% isn't really the realm of the personal trainer, but the coach. Because you're only going further than that for its own sake. If you can as a woman deadlift 120kg and run 5km in under 30' and do a standing broad jump of 1.5m, your life has improved as much as it can from physical training. You'll only go further for its own sake, or for some sport requiring that physical quality. It also requires specialising in one of those three areas - nobody's getting 80% WR is all three even with drugs. And squeezing that extra performance out of someone requires more specialist skills. That's why it's the realm of the coach, not the trainer. 

Obviously, some trainers will do both jobs. But most of us will be best at one or the other. I don't know of any cases of Louie Simmons taking someone from benching the empty bar to 250kg - when he got those people, they were already well over 50% WR. Trainers (and coaches) should bear this in mind, and stay in their lane. 

A lot of the discussions in the training world come from confusing the first 50% with the second, or vice versa. In particular, all the arguments about sets and reps and nutrient timing and all that - that stuff might help people who are good or great, but are irrelevant to people who are shit or suck. At ACE, we don't major in the minors, even though talking about it would make us sound more smarterer.

The example I always use to explain who I train and why is Big Matt. He was with us for 18 months, and ended up squatting 230kg, benching 135 and deadlifting 250. But the thing is - he already squatted 165kg when he started. Matt was going to be alright. I'd like to think he went further with us than he would have with another coach (I can call that level "coaching", since he was over 50% and went to competition), and most importantly he did it all without injury - as you'll know, tough to do with improving that much in that time. But we didn't change his life.

But then - I had this elderly guy, around 70yo, he'd had a massive heart attack at 32 (he'd been a four pack a day guy!), and had recently popped some discs. He eventually deadlifted 80kg. Not much compared to Matt. But - a few months in when I asked how things were going, he said, "Great! On weekends when I see my grandchildren, when I picked them up I used to fear I'd burst something in my back or chest. Now I don't feel that fear. And more importantly, I used to see that fear in my son's eyes - now he just says, "pick them up, dad."" So we helped make his family life better. We definitely changed his life.

At ACE, our goal is to change your life for the better. That's the first 50%.