225 female bench is at least 2000 times more rare than a male 405 bench. Yes this was a scientific study i carried out. But srsly, saying a female 225 bench isn’t rare is ludacris 
[quote]tom63 wrote:
Don’t be a baby, words mean things. The word rare has a certain meaning . Statistically it’s rare in the female population . Its rare in the lifting population. What you observed is what you observed but your interpretation of it is incorrect.[/quote]
If words mean things, be a MAN and stop calling someone a baby simply because they disagree with you. And if I remember correctly, the initial bone of contention wasn’t the rarity, it was you calling Rodimus a liar about what he had seen with his own two eyes. Having an actuarial background, which means I was well versed in math and statistics, if you want to make this purely statistical it would be bad practice to throw out the qualifiers that Rodimus used.
He said in HIS travels and HIS experience. You totally glossed this over and tossed this to the side and have made this (in reference to Rod) an, obviously, emotional debate you are trying to justify on your part with statistics.
[quote]Rodimus Black wrote:
What some of you fail to realize is that I have repeatedly said “In MY travels and experience…” I don’t view that benchmark as rare, as I’ve encountered more than enough ladies who have done this to call it rare, from MY perspective. To say I’m wrong for sharing MY own personal perspective is idiotic at best.
Get off your high-horses, fellas. My experiences are not everyone else’s. Only mine. Doesn’t make me wrong.
[/quote]
But also it doesn’t make you right. I think the discussion was about how rare it is in “general”, not how rare it is to specific individuals.
Unfortunately when discussing if a certain occurence is rare or not you cannot use “personal experience” as a logical argument. You have to look at the wider picture.
For example Progeria is a rare disease (roughly 1 in 8 million people have it). I’ve never seen anyone who suffers from it, but talk to someone who works in a hospital if it’s a rare condition and they might say, “nah, I see a dozen people a week with it”, but that doesn’t mean it’s not rare, it’s just not that rare TO THEM.
I don’t think for one minute you are lying, you might have just been lucky enough to have seen lots of extraordinarily strong female benchers in your time, but that doesn’t mean it’s common.
You are using warped logic I’m afraid.
http://bretcontreras.com/2010/12/female-strength-levels/
FYI, here is chart from Bret Contreras regarding his opinion on female strength levels.
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
[quote]Hallowed wrote:
I wonder how many of the women that post on T-Nation bench 225.
[/quote]
I think I tried to ask this too, there are quite a few guys who do 405+ but can’t think of any women on this site. Another thing to consider for you who think 225 for women is not rare in a gym, what are the guys putting up in those gyms? If some guys are doing 500+ then you’ll need to up the womens to more than 225 for a fair comparison. The original quote was comparing 405men vs 225 women.[/quote]
Not everyone works out in a gym, so the statistics are skewed, from the jump. Hell, I work out at home and I put up more than most guys you see in a gym. That’s why I work out at home, to begin with. You’d also have to take into account the equipment available in the gym, the type of gym, the focus of the gym and the type of training offered at the gym.
There are ALWAYS qualifiers when you use statistics, and if you don’t say what the qualifiers are, upfront, it’s a moot point. That’s why the old saying, “You can make statistics say anything you want them to” is so true.
[quote]lewhitehurst wrote:
[quote]tom63 wrote:
Don’t be a baby, words mean things. The word rare has a certain meaning . Statistically it’s rare in the female population . Its rare in the lifting population. What you observed is what you observed but your interpretation of it is incorrect.[/quote]
If words mean things, be a MAN and stop calling someone a baby simply because they disagree with you. And if I remember correctly, the initial bone of contention wasn’t the rarity, it was you calling Rodimus a liar about what he had seen with his own two eyes. Having an actuarial background, which means I was well versed in math and statistics, if you want to make this purely statistical it would be bad practice to throw out the qualifiers that Rodimus used.
He said in HIS travels and HIS experience. You totally glossed this over and tossed this to the side and have made this (in reference to Rod) an, obviously, emotional debate you are trying to justify on your part with statistics. [/quote]
I never called him a liar . I said it’s very rare . He disagrees based on what he saw. I think his perception is skewed similar to a new car buyer. You buy a white car . All of a sudden you see all these white cArs. But did you pay attention to how many white cars you saw before ? Probably not. But if you pull random guys from the street you’ll find fellas who never trained lift over 225. You’d be hard pressed to find a female untrained having that ability .
As for training at home , I do also. But you’re not going to skew female strength levels with all the gal garage lifters or home lifters .
It’s a big lift for a woman . It’s rare. As I said I know a guy who won a big lottery prize . Odds were 200,000,000 to 1. Winning it is rare. Knowing a winner is much less rare.
I mean a woman who has done it at least once. Seeing the same give gals doing it multiple times doesn’t make it less rare . My son said app fifteen boys on their high school team benches 225. It’s not rare for a high school kid. But only one lady in the TOP 50 benches of all time did in that range raw. Mary Jeffrey-Ryan. I picked the 114s because the issue came in the mail yesterday.
The best lifters of all time even though it’s only 114 against a random high school team ? Yes, most of these guys are heavier . But they’re not all timers .
Women have lifted enough and competed enough to have ferretted this stuff out.
That’s my point . Elite lifters by nature are rare. They are not rare at the super bowl, Olympics , Wpo meets etc. They aren’t rare at westside barbell . They are rare compared to Joe and Jane average . I cannot believe this has to be explained .
Before gear got so helpful maybe ten poweifters in a weight class in the country could be termed elite . It’s rare among lifters. It’s more rare among everyone.
quote]FarmerBrett wrote:
[quote]Rodimus Black wrote:
What some of you fail to realize is that I have repeatedly said “In MY travels and experience…” I don’t view that benchmark as rare, as I’ve encountered more than enough ladies who have done this to call it rare, from MY perspective. To say I’m wrong for sharing MY own personal perspective is idiotic at best.
Get off your high-horses, fellas. My experiences are not everyone else’s. Only mine. Doesn’t make me wrong.
[/quote]
But also it doesn’t make you right. I think the discussion was about how rare it is in “general”, not how rare it is to specific individuals.
Unfortunately when discussing if a certain occurence is rare or not you cannot use “personal experience” as a logical argument. You have to look at the wider picture.
For example Progeria is a rare disease (roughly 1 in 8 million people have it). I’ve never seen anyone who suffers from it, but talk to someone who works in a hospital if it’s a rare condition and they might say, “nah, I see a dozen people a week with it”, but that doesn’t mean it’s not rare, it’s just not that rare TO THEM.
I don’t think for one minute you are lying, you might have just been lucky enough to have seen lots of extraordinarily strong female benchers in your time, but that doesn’t mean it’s common.
You are using warped logic I’m afraid.
[/quote]
[quote]OBoile wrote:
http://bretcontreras.com/2010/12/female-strength-levels/
FYI, here is chart from Bret Contreras regarding his opinion on female strength levels.[/quote]
Those levels make sense to be. To many people here are arguing the exception as the rule .
I’d have to agree with the people that have the basic common sense to assume that if a 225lb bench press is rare in a power lifting population, it is going to be even rarer in the full population. It would be called a “weak assumption” in any statistics related field meaning it is very likely to be true.
People who don’t believe this should go and edit their posts to something like this.
[quote] Guy/Girl wrote:
herp a derp
[/quote]
I just googled classification totals for women in the apf. Men who hit low class three to low class two would hit elite totals .1149 is elite for women in the 198s. Male elite is 1646. This is not raw btw .
Elite lifters are rare among lifters more rare among regular people. So is it so hard to see that a woman benching 225 would be both rare among lifters or the general population.
Discussion about the word “rare” and “baby” gotta be kidding me.
Anyway, just saw this thread for the first time and the second lady from the start has a sick thigh tattoo.
[quote]tom63 wrote:
[quote]OBoile wrote:
http://bretcontreras.com/2010/12/female-strength-levels/
FYI, here is chart from Bret Contreras regarding his opinion on female strength levels.[/quote]
Those levels make sense to be. To many people here are arguing the exception as the rule .[/quote]
This chart seems light to me.
It puts me at elite on almost everything and I’ve been training for exactly thirteen months.
But hey, I LIKE IT LOL.
[quote]Hallowed wrote:
This chart seems light to me.
It puts me at elite on almost everything and I’ve been training for exactly thirteen months.
But hey, I LIKE IT LOL.
[/quote]
Wasn’t their a debate over your true sex in a thread not too long ago. Just sayin.
[quote]OBoile wrote:
There are lots of guys there who might weigh 190-200 and bench 250-300 and they regularly get asked for training advice meanwhile the girl who weighs 115 and can bench 135 is ignored despite the fact that this is a far greater accomplishment.
[/quote]
Thank you for this perspective.
Both Ouroboro and I are involved in the competitive PLing community. We live thousands of miles away. And yet the only woman I’ve ever seen bench 225 raw is the exact same woman O cited: Jennifer Thompson. It is statistically a very rare endeavor.
[quote]kpsnap wrote:
[quote]OBoile wrote:
There are lots of guys there who might weigh 190-200 and bench 250-300 and they regularly get asked for training advice meanwhile the girl who weighs 115 and can bench 135 is ignored despite the fact that this is a far greater accomplishment.
[/quote]
Thank you for this perspective.
Both Ouroboro and I are involved in the competitive PLing community. We live thousands of miles away. And yet the only woman I’ve ever seen bench 225 raw is the exact same woman O cited: Jennifer Thompson. It is statistically a very rare endeavor. [/quote]
OBoile, his wife, BB and I train together from time to time. We’re all part of the small Canadian PL pond and looking at the same people. We aren’t pulling out random internet stats. We’re talking, for the most part, about people we know.
I was going to go through the IPF open world results because there are some truly humbling numbers in there. I just haven’t had a chance yet.
Just for kicks, I asked my coach, who is an IPF Cat 1 referee, how many women he has known during his long career in powerlifting who can bench over 225 raw. He could think of 3. I also asked a girl who won the open division of USAPL bench nationals in the 148 class a few years back. She won the national championship with a shirted bench at 225 lb.
This thread was so yesterday, come on TNation, isnt there another thread to argue in today? How about the low test level thread, women are getting bashed in there. 
[quote]DJHT wrote:
This thread was so yesterday, come on TNation, isnt there another thread to argue in today? How about the low test level thread, women are getting bashed in there. [/quote]
I have my shoes on and am heading over. I’m also wearing a cape. Is that weird?
[quote]ouroboro_s wrote:
[quote]DJHT wrote:
This thread was so yesterday, come on TNation, isnt there another thread to argue in today? How about the low test level thread, women are getting bashed in there. [/quote]
I have my shoes on and am heading over. I’m also wearing a cape. Is that weird?[/quote]
Not really, a lot of women in the PW section go commando so now nothing surprises me.
[quote]OBoile wrote:
http://bretcontreras.com/2010/12/female-strength-levels/
FYI, here is chart from Bret Contreras regarding his opinion on female strength levels.[/quote]
this has to be bullshit …or he just has a relatively ‘low’?? standard for what advanced/elite means…