Progress calculator: are your gaining strength and muscle at an optimal rate?

Are you wondering how quickly you should be progressing for your training level? This calculator gives you the answers for the Bench press, Squat, and Traditional deadlift.

The calculations are based on muscle gaining estimates from myself, Menno Henselmans, Greg Nuckols, Lyle McDonald, Alan Aragon, and scientific research [1, 2], which I translated to the perfect measure of muscle gains: strength gains on the big exercises.

If you want to see the exact calculations to come to the numbers used in the calculators below, see this Sheets document. You can email any suggestions for improvement to info@stijnvanwilligen.com

If you think the strength progress from the calculator seems rather slow, then just take the rate per week and multiply it by 20 to see how much strength you would gain in ~5 months! Over longer stretches of time, sustained little strength gains add up to great accomplishments.

First, let’s see how quickly you were gaining strength in either the Bench press, Squat, (Romanian) Deadlift, or Hip thrust with the calculator below.

Before you go on to the progress calculators, I urge you to determine your training status in the listed exercises (and muscle groups) here: