Enter your squat, bench, and deadlift and this calculator checks your lift ratios against typical ranges for raw lifters, then flags the lift that’s lagging. Add your overhead press if you want that checked too.
The point is finding your weak lift while it’s cheap to fix. A lagging bench means months of missed pressing volume you could be doing right now.
Enter your squat, bench, and deadlift to see your lift ratios against typical ranges and find the lift that’s lagging. Overhead press is optional. Typical raw ranges are shown below.
| Ratio | Typical |
|---|---|
| Bench : Squat | 0.60 – 0.85 |
| Deadlift : Squat | 1.10 – 1.30 |
| Overhead press : Bench | 0.55 – 0.75 |
Women and newer lifters tend to sit toward the low end on bench:squat. Use these as a guide for where to add work.
Table of Contents
The Typical Ratios
For a raw lifter, bench usually lands around 0.75x your squat, with most lifters falling between 0.60 and 0.85. Deadlift usually lands around 1.2x your squat, between 1.10 and 1.30. Overhead press runs about two thirds of your bench.
These come from two independent places that happen to agree. Christian Thibaudeau’s Know Your Ratios table (adapted from Poliquin’s work) lines up with aggregated data from millions of logged lifts. When a coach’s table and a big pile of meet data land on the same numbers, they’re worth taking seriously.
What to Do About a Lagging Lift
More of that lift. Frequency and volume fix most imbalances, and the cleanest way to get them is a program built around the weak movement.
For a lagging bench, run a bench-focused block or add a second pressing day. nSuns benches up to 4 times a week and is famous for fixing benches. For a lagging deadlift, the Candito deadlift program is a dedicated pulling block. For a lagging squat, Sheiko squats you often at manageable intensities and cleans up technique along the way.
Read the Ratios With Some Slack
These are balance checks, and they move with your build and history. Long arms help your deadlift and hurt your bench, so a lanky puller can sit outside the bench range forever without anything being wrong. Women typically bench a lower fraction of their squat, so read the bench ratio toward the low end. And newer lifters often show a high deadlift ratio simply because squat technique takes longer to learn.
If a ratio is far outside its range and it matches what you feel in training, that’s the signal worth acting on.
Related Calculators
Get your 1RMs from the 1RM calculator if you haven’t tested lately, compare each lift to the strength standards for your class, and score your total with the DOTS calculator.
