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and thanks in advance for your help. I've been weightlifting a few months, and I'm wondering just how far below my my strength is.

I am a 19 year old male. My questions are: What should a reasonably fit man of my age(not sick, not overweight or otherwise disadvantaged) be able to lift? General standards such as bench presses, number of chinups that can be done, weight that can be bicep curled, etcetera.

Is there a somewhat widely accepted physical fitness test to measure myself against? Maybe an army test or something?

What should a somewhat athletic person of my age and height be able to lift? My height is about 5'4" and my weight is around 130 pounds.

I weightlift once every two days, upper body only, and very low weights and few reps. I am, as said above, relatively small, and weightlifting is my only exercise. As such, how many calories should I attempt to eat every day?

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So you want to know how strong you should be? I think that no matter your age, height, weight, experience... everyone will be different there are no standards to compare to and better yet no real reason to unless you want to compete. Generally I believe that as long as you are healthy and you're stronger than you were the last time you lifted (to an extent) that in itself is strong enough.

However, I did find this site when I was looking for strength standards which I can't really attest for: Strength Standards.

I guess according to this site you should be able to bench around 125lbs? (1RM)

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  • the ExRx strength standards are pretty good, googling "strength standards" is a fairly good way to get a generic benchmark.
    – John
    May 11, 2017 at 15:42
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Before I say this, I should warn you you might not like everything that you hear. If you are a 5'4, 130 Ib 19 yr old male, your bench should be roughly 65 Ibs, curl 20-25 Ibs, and since your weight is generally low, you should be able to do about 20 chin ups with correct form. This is referring to a person of this description who has average fitness. However, a "fitness test," is not all about the weight you can lift. In order to measure your fitness, you should try doing pull ups, push ups, crunches, and running. A person of your description with reasonable fitness should be able to do at least 25 push ups, 40 crunches, 6 pull ups, and run a mile in about 8-11 minutes. If they are doing under 15 of any of these other than pull ups or of they are taking more than 13-14 minutes to run the mile, they are out of shape. If they are doing 40 push ups, running the mile in under 8 minutes, etc., they are exceptionally fit. Fitness should be measured by calisthenics and cardio, not weights. Also, your calorie count should probably range about 1900 calories, to be healthy with what you are doing.

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    "Fitness" is a very general term that's meaning is highly dependent on the task that is required. As such it can be measured in many other ways aside from only calisthenics and cardio. A rock climber will have a different "fitness" than a runner or a swimmer, etc. Even if any one of them are (or aren't) "fit".
    – Alex L
    Sep 20, 2015 at 3:28
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    -1 for "Fitness should be measured by calisthenics and cardio, not weights." All major health governing bodies disagree. Sep 23, 2015 at 6:17

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