[quote]The Pencil Neck wrote:
Dirty_Bulk wrote:
This thread is a real eye opener. Do you guys really think that an average trainee is incapable of a 2x bodyweight squat? That’s 360@180, 400@200, or 500@250. A 1.5x bodyweight bench is 270@180, 300@200, or 375@250. These are good numbers for a high school student, but not a serious adult.
The vast majority of people are not athletes. The vast majority of people have never done anything seriously athletic in their lives. You’re right, those are pretty good numbers for a high school athlete now think about how many people at a high school are athletes. When they grow up, almost all of the athletes will turn into non-athletes and very few of the non-athletes will turn into athletes.
Over the past 10-15 years, I’ve worked with a lot of trainers, I’ve trained a few people, I’ve been in a lot of gyms, but more importantly I’ve worked in a lot of offices and I’ve lived in a lot of places across the US. And your view of how athletic most people are is very, very off.
If you take the average guy off the street, even a fairly athletic guy, they’re not going to be able to bench bodyweight without several months of training. When I first started benching, I was about 35 years old and I weighed 175# and I could barely bench 135# after several months in the gym. It took me several months to work my bench up to 175#… and by that time, my weight was up to 200#. 
There was recently a challenge on a certain football site and one of the regular posters on this blog, who’s a 43 year old guy, lost a bet and had to do 25 pushups. He couldn’t do it. That’s most guys out there.
However, I think with training, and it might take several years, I think most guys can squat/deadlift 2x bodyweight and bench 1.25x bodyweight. But saying that a regular guy is going to be able to squat 500# and do 50 pullups is ridiculous.
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Yeah, but I don’t think this is is about what the average guy is GOING to achieve. This is about the potential of a guy with average genetics COULD achieve should they find it in them to work diligently for a period of time and train and eat properly. Most that could conceivably reach these numbers will not.