Two-handed lift vs. bench press

[CeeDub]

Salutations!

This topic has been briefly touched upon here, but I think it may be interesting enough to warrant its own thread.

Characters with amazing (or just impressive) strength are often described in terms of much much they can bench-press. What difference (or, better yet, conversion factor), if any, is there between a bench press and a two-handed lift as defined in GURPS?

[Icelander]

Bench pressing is the most technical and 'gimmicky' lift that most normal people are familar with. Improving just bench press scores and not most of the things that would fall under Lifting ST in GURPS is absolutely possible and even common. In game terms, there are plenty of Style Perks that come with power lifting styles available to boost bench press specifically and there are even some acquired morphology* Perks that would help.

As a rule of thumb for a campaign not focused on weight-lifting competitions, I would say that people unfamiliar with bench presses and/or the specific equipment in use can lift up to BLx4 without Extra Effort. With familiarity and perhaps Lifting at skill 8 or so**, a healthy character can lift BLx6.

Someone actually trained in Lifting can lift BLx8. With a Perk (or level 2 of a levelled Perk in a campaign where improving a single lift was super important) that requires 10+ points in a powerlifting style, I would allow BLx12.

If someone really wanted to lift more in a bench press, but wanted a fairly modest ST and performance in other lifts, I might allow another Perk that actually changed the shape of the character and allowed up to BLx15 or so.

*For the world-records in power lifting, the best bench press scores in various weight categories tend to be held by tiny men with very short arms and absolutely enormous guts, because that allows them to perform much less work while still meeting the technical requirements for a legal bench press lift.
** Good default from HT or maybe Dabbler Perk.

[CeeDub]

Originally Posted by Icelander

As a rule of thumb for a campaign not focused on weight-lifting competitions, I would say that people unfamiliar with bench presses and/or the specific equipment in use can lift up to BLx4 without Extra Effort. With familiarity and perhaps Lifting at skill 8 or so**, a healthy character can lift BLx6.

Well, most characters who are described in this way are physically fit or even superhumanly strong, but very rarely professional weightlifters, so I'd ignore the possibility of having trained the specific muscle groups, using specialized techniques and/or special equipment to increase performance for the purposes of this discussion. Although what you write about it is certainly very interesting, I believe the bench press is used as a (pardon the pun) benchmark specifically because it is (perhaps somewhat naively) assumed that most people do it pretty much the same way and thus measures strength reasonably well.

On a more technical note, I believe two-handed lift is BLx8. Just so we're clear, picking something up from the ground with both hands and lifting it over your head in four seconds is easier (as in, you can lift more) because it uses the whole body, i.e. it also involves leg and back muscles instead of just the arms, correct?

[Tomsdad]

Hmm Compared to lifting stuff over head, I'd say Bench press is easier I'd allow more than the BLx8.

I'd also argue it's no more gimmicky or technical than any other lift (caveat it can be potentially a more dangerous one without a spotter if inexperienced)!

In fact I'd say a technically correct clean & jerk or snatch are both more technically demanding than a bench press.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by CeeDub

...
On a more technical note, I believe two-handed lift is BLx8. Just so we're clear, picking something up from the ground with both hands and lifting it over your head in four seconds is easier (as in, you can lift more) because it uses the whole body, i.e. it also involves leg and back muscles instead of just the arms, correct?

The advantage of bench pressing is you're moving the weight far less distance (just the extension of your arms, not ground to the extension of your arms above your head), and bench pressing certainly uses more muscles than just the arms.


Your right about the legs for overhead though, but the higher you get the less they come into play. However both clean & jerk and snatch tries to leverage them as much as possible though for obvious reasons)

Records in both clean and jerk / snatch vs. bench press (look for the unshirted ones I think for a better comparison)

[CeeDub]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Hmm Compared to lifting stuff over head, I'd say Bench press is easier I'd allow more than the BLx8.

That's not my experience. Not sure whether I have ST 9 or 10, but there is no way I can bench even close to 80 kg. I think I could pull off 40 kg, assuming this measure of strength refers to a single set with only one rep. Which is kinda what got me wondering about this. Am I just a weakling or is 4x BL the correct value for bench press?

[Bruno]

GURPS Two-handed lift is a whole body exercise. Right there, that's a significant difference from a bench press, where you don't have to support the weight with your legs and hips. I don't know how much the lower back is involved, I have never done weight lifting; my suspicion is that it's also a lot less involved than in a Two-Handed Lift (GURPS tm) because again, the weight isn't being supported down your spine.

What this says to me is that the bench press is far more likely to be based on total Arm ST + Lifting ST rather than whole body lifting ST. I'm pretty strict as a GM about not letting Arm ST be used for all and sundry ST purposes that happen to include the arms (definitely not something like a clean and jerk or snatch) but this looks like a very solid place to use it.

In other words, like with archery, I would allow a leveled Unusual Training perk to buy one or two levels of Arm ST for doing weight lifting, if you have someone inclined that way.

The problem with writers citing someones bench press is that they very rarely give any information about the persons weight training background... but unless you're talking about mutant super-heroes or people empowered by artifacts or bolts from the blue, high ST simply doesn't magically appear, and then magically maintain itself.

The place that leaps out most to me is the hero from Unbreakable... who owns a weight set and clearly does workouts, before suddenly unlocking his ST boost. Or Batman - who is notorious for his years and years of training before becoming a crime fighter, and his constant training to keep at the peak of human performance.

Superman may be able to bench press a battleship, but that goes back to glaringly unnatural physiology again. He probably is not a trained weight lifter - indeed it may be impossible for him to learn the skill with human equipment (and without some spectrum band of kryptonite strapped to his arms).

It's hokey and theatrical, but I maintain the Worlds Strongest Man competition is (as a whole) testing what is in the real world most like straight, vanilla, GURPS Lifting ST, with no fancy tricks or skills or perks or whatever. There is probably lots of Extra Effort going on, of course.
The variety of not-at-all-like-normal-training competitions seems to be most like the general adventuring situation GURPS is calibrated against. I've seen everything from barrel stacking onto some stupidly high platforms at awkward angles, through caber tossing, to having a (small, engine-less) car strapped hanging off your shoulders to see if you can pick it up and walk off with it (and how far) without using your arms at all. It's not quite perfectly designed to test all the feats of ST we have numbers for in GURPS, but it's pretty comprehensive.

It's also, unfortunately, not very useful for getting GURPS stats for anyone except WSM competitors.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by CeeDub

That's not my experience. Not sure whether I have ST 9 or 10, but there is no way I can bench even close to 80 kg. I think I could pull off 40 kg, assuming this measure of strength refers to a single set with only one rep. Which is kinda what got me wondering about this. Am I just a weakling or is 4x BL the correct value for bench press?

I guess the question is could you pick and lift 80kg over your head in 4 seconds without effort equating to Extra Effort?

You say you can bench press maybe 40kg, but can you do a push up (elevated or otherwise)? When you do a push up you're "bench pressing" a reasonable percentage* of your body weight after all!

EDIT: the issue with any GURPS BLx thresholds is in RAW a person can achieve them without effort indefinitely, but go a 1Lb over them and suddenly you need lifting skill, EE etc. But then of course it's not GURPS: "pumping iron"!

*OK it's not qulte like for like as there angle of force involved

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Bruno

...

It's hokey and theatrical, but I maintain the Worlds Strongest Man competition is (as a whole) testing what is in the real world most like straight, vanilla, GURPS Lifting ST, with no fancy tricks or skills or perks or whatever. There is probably lots of Extra Effort going on, of course.
The variety of not-at-all-like-normal-training competitions seems to be most like the general adventuring situation GURPS is calibrated against. I've seen everything from barrel stacking onto some stupidly high platforms at awkward angles, through caber tossing, to having a (small, engine-less) car strapped hanging off your shoulders to see if you can pick it up and walk off with it (and how far) without using your arms at all. It's not quite perfectly designed to test all the feats of ST we have numbers for in GURPS, but it's pretty comprehensive.

It's also, unfortunately, not very useful for getting GURPS stats for anyone except WSM competitors.

I find it quite good as a rough bench mark for what people who can do the kind of things they do will look like though.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I find it quite good as a rough bench marks for what people who can do the kind of things they do will look like though.

Yeah. Very square with big necks. Very fantasy-dwarf-y. Absolutely nobody with a body-sculptors low-fat body type.
Even ignoring the leverage advantages for some of the wacky events (like throwing big heavy things), many of the challenges are simply skewed towards larger competitors. Big thick handles that are awkward even for large hands, large objects you have to wrap your arms around, high platforms to put things on... Even with the overhead lifts favoring shorter athletes, they're all well over 6 feet (6'4" to 6'8")

It's very useful for Dungeon Fantasy and supers characters, who are expected to handle totally unorthodox and large weapons (Unnatural Axes or sedans, they're all big).