Garage Gym Competition - Preliminary Results

I love data and the garage gym competition certainly had no shortage of data, capturing and distributing participants by:

Data Captured

Sex

Age Range

Body Weight

Squat

Bench

Deadlift

1024 people submitted scores

193 women

829 men

2 non-binary

Of 829 men

33 were under 12

11 were 12 to 17

48 were 18 to 24

394 were 25 to 34

239 were 35 to 44

39 were 45 to 54

8 were 55 to 64

54 did not make this information public

Of 844 men

59kg - 52

66kg - 14

74kg - 41

83kg - 156

93kg - 238

105kg - 181

120kg - 100

120kg+ - 62

Less than 5% of the men would be in my age range, however the largest constituency (238 or 28% would fall into the 93 kg weight class).

93 kg Weight Class

Of the 240 athletes in the male 93 kg weight class.  

Average Squat was 332#, median was 335# (my 235# puts me at 20th percentile)

Average Bench was 242#, median was 255# (my 190# puts me at 20th percentile)

Average Deadlift was 386#, median was 405# (my 325# puts me at 28th percentile)

Pretty Impressive Numbers for the 93 kg men.  

I feel like the median numbers are outside my grasp.  However, I do have some room for improvement, especially on squat and bench.  I am targeting a 275# squat; 225# bench and 345# deadlift (845# total or 95# improvement).

28th percentile squat

30th percentile bench

32nd percentile deadlift

Ideally I would be competing at 83kg as well.  I am only 4kg away from that number as I am currently sitting at 87kg.

Historic Participation and Improvement

Year over year of 1050 scores, only 8 posted scores in 2018, 29 posted scores in 2019, 165 posted scores in 2020 and 235 posted scores in 2021.  The garage gym competition is growing.

Excluding the 38 folks who had improvements greater than 20%, the average change year over year was 7% over 192 athletes.  97 athletes lost 0-10% and 59 lost more than 10%.

Given that 7% I could reasonably expect a 250# squat; 205# bench; 345# deadlift.  However, I consider myself an experienced lifter with less room for improvement than novices.  7% represents a 50# improvement to an 800# total.

Equipment Discussion

632 used equipment in some form

407 did not

Specialty Squat Bar - 83

Specialty Bench Bar - 22

Specialty Deadlift Bar - 116

Knee Sleeves for Squat - 431

Knee Sleeves for Bench - 32

Knee Sleeves for Deadlift - 88

Knee Wraps for SBD - 46/2/3

Squat Suit/Briefs for SD - 5/5

Wrist Wraps for SBD - 162/352/30

Wrist Straps for SBD - 6/8/162

Elbow Sleeves for SBD - 19/97/9

Slingshot for Bench - 3

Deadlift Suit - 2

Other SBD - 60/18/63

I personally used knee sleeves (431) for squat.  I also used wrist wraps (352) and elbow sleeves (97) for Bench.

The most popular items were squat knee sleeves (431), bench wrist wraps (352) and deadlift wrist straps (162).  I was surprised that 116 (over 10%) of the community had a deadlift bar.  83 participants with a specialty squat bar did not surprise me as the Safety Squat Bar, Duffalo Bar and Transformer Bars are quite popular.  In retrospect, I could have used wrist straps, but I really only prefer those for higher volume sets (as opposed to 1RM efforts).