Strength to Weight Ratio

[grglandr]

Has anyone ever thought of applying the power to weight ratio formula, typically used for engines and vehicles, to measure strength in weight lifting? (i.e. power to weight = p/w)

For example, if you weigh 200lbs and can squat 300lbs your “strength to weight ratio” would be 300/200 = 1.5. Indicating that every 1lb of bodyweight exerts 1.5lbs of strength.

I also thought about averaging the big four exercises (squats, bench, overhead press, and dead lift) as a benchmark for overall strength. Which would look like;

((SQ +BP + OP + DL)/4)/Bodyweight

Maybe it is redundant if you are already tracking bodyweight and body fat, but I thought it might be a good way of tracking progress and figured I’d share.

Regards,
Greg

[Vlad]

Have a look at this post:
http://stronglifts.com/forum/how-to-assess-your-progress-and-strength-level-t19692.html

[muddy]

Hey Greg,

You may want to check out something called a Wilks coefficient for translating lift totals between weight classes and genders. We're using it now in both the Olympics competition and the Stronglifts Strongest Man/Woman competitions to help provide a levelizing effect.

The thinking for Wilks (and there are other such methods) is different than the p/w idea. For p/w in an engineering context, it makes sense where your concerns are the lightest engine for a particular task. In weightlifting, people are concerned about what represents a roughly equivalent achievement, regardless of weight or gender.

So the rough idea behind Wilks is to plot the totals of high end lifters across various weights and both genders, in an effort to see what this implies about the capabilities on average of human beings at different weights. A curve is fit to the data, which is then used to "translate" between weights and genders.

What this empirical data shows is that, in terms of comparable achievement, dividing by body weight is too simplistic a way to model it. Still, people will talk about 1.5BW squats and all, and it's a good albeit rough marker for what it is. But if you're interested in how comparisons are made at powerlifting meets and such, you may want to check into Wilks and related methods.

EDIT: Short version, read what Vlad wrote.

[grglandr]

Excellent info guys!!!

I now have the formula in my excel sheet. For the best accuracy, what exercises should i include in the total weight lifted?

[muddy]

I believe Wilks is based on a powerlifting total, so squat + bench + deadlift. Since the formula is based on fitting a curve to empirical data, it may or may not hold up as well if you extend it to other lifts, or to individual lifts.