Lift Ratio Fingerprint
Enter your squat, bench, and deadlift to see your lift distribution fingerprint - and find out which lift is dragging down your total compared to 1,000,000+ competition lifters. Want general guidance on how your lifts should compare? See the strength standards hub.
Your Lifts
Enter your best squat, bench press, and deadlift. All three are required.
Population Average Fingerprint (Male, Raw)
How the average competitive male raw lifter distributes their total across the three lifts. Enter your own lifts above to see how your fingerprint compares.
| Lift | Share of Total |
|---|---|
| Squat | 35.3% |
| Bench Press | 23.5% |
| Deadlift | 41.2% |
| Bench / Squat ratio | 0.68 |
| Deadlift / Squat ratio | 1.18 |
Derived from 648,315 verified competition entries (OpenPowerlifting).
Comparing against 1,000,000+ competition lifters...
Lift Distribution Fingerprint
Each lift as a percentage of your total, compared to the population average.
Comparison against 1,000,000+ verified competition entries (OpenPowerlifting).
What Is a Lift Ratio Fingerprint?
Every powerlifter has a unique lift distribution - a ratio between their squat, bench press, and deadlift that reflects their individual strengths, weaknesses, limb proportions, training history, and biomechanical leverage. Your lift ratio fingerprint is that distribution expressed as a percentage of your total, plotted against what the competitive population looks like at the same sex and equipment category.
Where your fingerprint deviates from the population average is diagnostic: a bench that is significantly lower than the population norm relative to your squat and deadlift means the bench is your limiting lift. A deadlift that is far above average relative to your bench suggests either a genuine structural advantage on the pull or years of prioritising it. Both patterns have direct training implications.
This tool uses exclusively verified competition data from the OpenPowerlifting database - 3.84 million competition entries from 1,000,000+ unique lifters across 200+ federations. Every lift in the dataset was performed under standardised judging. Self-reported databases are not used, which means the population ratios reflect what competitive lifters actually produce under meet conditions.
How to Read Your Fingerprint
The bar chart shows three rows - squat, bench, and deadlift - each displaying your lift as a percentage of your total alongside the population average for the same percentage. Deviation badges show how far above or below average each ratio sits. The weakest lift is the one with the largest negative deviation, meaning it contributes the least to your total relative to what is normal for your demographic. The strongest lift has the largest positive deviation.
Common Fingerprint Patterns
Weak bench relative to squat and deadlift - The most common imbalance in raw powerlifting, particularly among taller lifters with longer arms. The bench typically sits at 55-65% of the squat in the competitive population; significantly below that flags it as the limiting lift. Chest and tricep development, paused bench training volume, and technique refinement (leg drive, arch, bar path) are the usual levers.
Weak squat relative to bench and deadlift - Less common but seen frequently in lifters who transitioned from bodybuilding or Olympic lifting backgrounds. The squat demands the most technical refinement to express strength fully under competition conditions. A squat below 85% of the deadlift for raw men is typically below average. Addressing bar position, depth consistency, and quad/hip development helps close this gap.
Weak deadlift despite strong squat and bench - Seen in lifters with shorter arms, high hips, or those who have historically avoided heavy pulling. The deadlift is often the last lift to peak because it takes the longest to recover from and accumulates fatigue from the earlier lifts on meet day. Increasing pulling frequency, grip work, and lockout strength typically addresses this pattern.
Frequently Asked Questions
In raw male powerlifting, the bench press typically sits at around 60-68% of the squat for competitive lifters. For raw women, the ratio is usually slightly lower - around 55-65% - because women tend to have relatively greater lower-body strength. In equipped lifting the ratios shift upward because bench shirts add more weight to the bench than squat suits add to the squat. Your fingerprint compares your specific ratio against the population average for your exact sex and equipment category, so the comparison is always apples-to-apples.
Not necessarily. Some deviation from the population average is genetic and structural - lifters with short arms genuinely have mechanical advantages on the squat and disadvantages on the bench press. Trying to force equal ratios against your biomechanics is an uphill battle that may not pay off in total points. The more useful question is whether your weakest lift is underperforming because of fixable factors: low training volume on that lift, technical inefficiencies, or a muscle group that has been neglected. Structural imbalances (limb lengths, insertion points) are better worked around than eliminated.
Equipped powerlifting (single-ply, multi-ply) shifts all three ratios because the equipment returns different amounts of energy depending on the lift. Bench shirts add significantly more to the bench than squat suits add to the squat in percentage terms for most lifters, which raises the bench-to-squat and bench-to-deadlift ratios relative to raw. Deadlift suits and suits with straps add moderately to the deadlift. The population averages in this tool are filtered by equipment so your comparison is always against lifters using the same equipment category, giving you a meaningful fingerprint within your specific context.
The ratios themselves are fairly stable whether you use gym maxes or competition maxes, because both are scaled to the same total. If your gym bench is 80% of your gym squat, it will likely be close to 80% under competition conditions as well - assuming you use consistent standards across all three lifts. For the most accurate comparison use competition-legal standards: paused bench, squat to depth, full deadlift lockout. If your gym bench is touch-and-go and your squat is slightly high, the ratios will be distorted relative to the competition population. The weakest-lift diagnosis is still directionally correct, but the deviation numbers may overstate or understate the gap.
The deviation is the difference between your lift's share of your total and the population average share for that lift. For example, if the population average bench is 27% of total and your bench is 24% of your total, your bench deviation is -3 percentage points - meaning your bench contributes 3 percentage points less to your total than is typical. This is distinct from your raw weight percentile: a -3% deviation means your bench is proportionally weak relative to your other lifts, not necessarily that your bench is weak in absolute terms. High deviations (positive or negative) above 3-4 percentage points indicate meaningful structural imbalances worth addressing in training.