Training status tells us something about how close you are to your genetic potential. You could also call it “level of advancedness”, but it’s clear why I’d rather keep it at training status instead.
It is muscle-group specific. For example, your chest could be training status intermediate, while your legs could still be lagging behind at training status beginner (because you never trained them before).
Training status has multiple consequences. For example, a muscle group with higher training status can recover faster and therefore be trained more often. More on this in my previous article.
To get a quick estimate of your training status for various muscle group, we can take your strength in a ‘proxy’ exercise for that muscle group and compare it to what’s genetically possible, given the ExRx Strength Standards, Bret Contreras strength standards, and my own.
First, you can estimate your 1-rep max in various exercises with this calculator, based on Epley’s formula.
Now take your 1-rep max in a given exercise, and estimate your training status for the corresponding muscle group.
Female training status calculator
Chest
Lats
Quads
Glutes
Male training status calculators
Chest
Lats
Quads
Glutes
Finally, if you want to convert back to kg, use the following calculator.
There will be an update in the future which takes note of your genetic indicators (wrist, ankle, and finger sizes).
Thank you for this. Your value to the fitness industry can never be overestimated Stijn
So great to hear this, Stef. Please let me know if there’s any room to improve the calculators. Thanks.
Hi Stjin
Thanks for this, its quite cool. Will there some calculator for hip thrust and incline leg press? Reason for me asking- In this instance my back squats are at 40kg whereas leg press can reach 180kg, Does that mean that my quads are beginner still?
Hi Hein,
For females I’ve already added a Hip thrust calculator, thinking it wouldn’t be much asked for in the male audience. In the squats your erector spinae may be holding you back, but probably you’re still a beginner since I see many Beginners rack 80-200 kg on the Leg press. That’s why it’s not suitable to measure quad training status: because the Leg press is different in every gym, there aren’t any ‘universal’ poundages that indicate beginner/intermediate/advanced level.
On second thought, I went ahead and just added a Male Hip thrust (glute) training status calculator.
I’ve been training 2 years and I’m a beginner in all exercises ?
Hi Daisy,
Your strength is compared to a big population of data, and indeed it’s possible that you can be classified as ‘Beginner’ when you’ve been training for a long time.
Thanks for replying, 😁