GURPS ST vs real wold records

[Infornific]

Regarding statting bench presses and such, my own inclination would be to base ratios of lifts on the world records and assume world records require 5 to 6 times more lift (BL) than a normal (ST 10) human.

For example the world record for a raw bench press is 770 lbs and for a deadlift is 1105. That suggests a ratio of 7 to 10, so perhaps BL*7 for base bench press and BL*10 for a deadlift. Matching the world records would require a ST of around 23 or 24. A character who could bench 350 lbs would need a BL of 50 or a ST close to 16. Of course more realistically a champion power lifter would have a lower ST plus Lifting ST and Lifting skill. You could add in a Perk for +1 ST with a specific lift to allow more variation.

So once you established the likely ratios you could then estimate BL multiples and work out required ST from there. How fussy you'd want to get with Lifting ST, skills & perks is up to you.

Looking at your numbers for the 100kg trained man, the ratio for Military Press:Bench Press:Dead Lift seems to be around 3:4:6. Maybe BL*2 for Military Press, BL*3 for Bench Press and BL*5 Deadlift (kilos instead of pounds.) That would suggest a ST of 13 or so based on the numbers you gave.

Unfortunately from what you've said the ratios for untrained lifts aren't the same as for trained lifts. I don't know how to handle this - perhaps a penalty for untrained use of certain lifts would work in game terms.

Regarding HP, HP are supposed to correlate with Mass and living creatures with realistic biology should have HP equal to (cube root of weight in lbs)*2. Durability aside from mass is supposed to be represented by DR and HT. However that relationship is much looser for PCs who can have exceptional HP due to sheer gumption. For a normal GURPS campaign I'd use mass as a floor for HP. In a harshly realistic campaign you might set HP close to Mass but that keeps HP in a tight range.

Things like push ups, chin ups, etc are trickier. GURPS ST represents absolute force but chin ups depend on a high ST to body mass ratio. A small wiry man who could do a lot of chin ups might have a modest ST while an NFL nose tackle who is much less adept at such exercises would have a high ST. I would be inclined to use either HT or a HT based skill roll to express such abilities. Alternately you could make it a multiple of BL verses the character's own body weight.

[AlexanderHowl]

Build drastically changes the HP to Weight ratio though, so the correlation of HP to weight is only an average rather than a rule. A ST 10 very fat person with Gigantism (minimum 374 lbs) will have 11 times the weight per HP as a ST 10 skinny person with Dwarfism (minimum 34 lbs). Even within the same build, weights may be up to 60% different without altering HP.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Lifting ST is clearly marked as a Exotic Trait. It cannot be normally purchased by humans. An Unusual background or a Special Exercises Perk is required.

That perk might just be assumed for buying these traits. Two levels of Lifting ST doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility and Special Exercises seems to intentionally be made to allow for Exotic Traits to be taken as regular ones withing certain limits especially considering it has its own recommended limit.

[Bengt]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I've never liked the +5%/MoS system because it doesn't make any sort of sense to me. Instead I make it work like similar skills and give a flat +20% (like Hiking) which makes calculating possible lifts with the skill easier to know. In your situation that means it could be a BL of 40 (ST14 is close enough) to reach that.

I think Lifting skill is fine for adventuring situations (e.g. tipping a big rock onto the advancing orcs, lifting a beam of a person trapped in a burning building) where the great variation represents how good a grip you can find, how well you can brace yourself, etc. It's just nonsens for doing weights at the gym. :)

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by GWJ

....

I don't know what way of lifting exactly it means. If I could accurately relate that, to the real world exercises, I think it could be very helpful :) For example "2xBL" is Military Press? Push-Press? Snatch? Clean-and-Press?

And how to account Extra-Effort and the Lifting skill?

This last bit is key, personally I view willpower EE and lifting skill as extremely important for modelling realistic lifts by people who have spent a lot of time training to lift. GURPS uses skills to value add to stats to do stuff.

if you do searches for thread on this subject you'll see I've posted in them a lot so I won't regurgitate all that here. But suffice to say I've never understood why we're generally fine with a shooting skill adding significant value to results on top of DX, but some seem to think lifting skill and training shouldn't give significant benefits to lifts in the system, or justify specific increases in certain applications of ST (i.e. lifting ST)

Originally Posted by seycyrus

No, no one knows this because it is not true.

Yeah it is, because body builders are concentrating on a different end goal than power lifters. To do that they train in different ways. So of course the end results are different.


Now obviously body builders still go the gym and in abstract lift weights so they see some benefit, but weight training for looks and weight training for max lift is very different.

A side note though body builder weights are weird because they tend to be lighter than they 'look' (although not light in absolute terms) because of the lack of body fat.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Lifting ST is clearly marked as a Exotic Trait. It cannot be normally purchased by humans. An Unusual background or a Special Exercises Perk is required.

I know many people ignore this but they are in disagreeemnt with the RAW.

The only lifts that would not be affected by Arm ST (also Exotic but probably a lot more common in the Real World) would be things like Leg Presses or others where the weight is not held in the hands. I know about the importance of leg strength in lifting weights overhead but this is another cases where Gurps fits reality rather broadly.

Well, if you're lifting the weight all the way from the ground, and B353 strongly implies that this is what GURPS is talking about when it says 'lift', you need leg strength past a certain fairly low weight (the amount you can lift off the ground by leaning down with your legs straight is quite limited, and the risk of back damage from doing that with a heavy weight is high). I'd rule that Arm ST in excess of overall Lifting ST is only useful for weights that you are handling whilst already standing.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Lifting ST is clearly marked as a Exotic Trait. It cannot be normally purchased by humans. An Unusual background or a Special Exercises Perk is required.

I know many people ignore this but they are in disagreeemnt with the RAW.

The only lifts that would not be affected by Arm ST (also Exotic but probably a lot more common in the Real World) would be things like Leg Presses or others where the weight is not held in the hands. I know about the importance of leg strength in lifting weights overhead but this is another cases where Gurps fits reality rather broadly.

Originally Posted by Rupert

Well, if you're lifting the weight all the way from the ground, and B353 strongly implies that this is what GURPS is talking about when it says 'lift', you need leg strength past a certain fairly low weight (the amount you can lift off the ground by leaning down with your legs straight is quite limited, and the risk of back damage from doing that with a heavy weight is high). I'd rule that Arm ST in excess of overall Lifting ST is only useful for weights that you are handling whilst already standing.

Yeah given how hard it is to completely isolate the rest of the body from a lot of lifts, I'd say Lifting ST is less exotic than Arm ST in all but the most specialised cases

Although is we accept that arm st is still involving a lot of core strength as well It's not so odd I guess.

But yeah the issue is lots of real life lifting doesn't fall neatly into the various GURPS descriptions of either lifts or subdivisions of ST.

But until GURPS: Olympics/Physical fitness is published I think GURPS is very much physical activities are in service of adventuring.

[GWJ]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

A side note though body builder weights are weird because they tend to be lighter than they 'look' (although not light in absolute terms) because of the lack of body fat.

Actually it's opposite :) Muscle mass is more dense than fat tissue, so 5 kg of muscles will have smaller volume than 5 kg of fat. Thus, if we have two 130 kg persons looking almost the same (I mean almost the same volume, shape etc.), the one who have more muscles and less fat, will be the heavier one.

Originally Posted by Rupert

Well, if you're lifting the weight all the way from the ground, and B353 strongly implies that this is what GURPS is talking about when it says 'lift', you need leg strength past a certain fairly low weight (the amount you can lift off the ground by leaning down with your legs straight is quite limited, and the risk of back damage from doing that with a heavy weight is high).

Hm I can't find the implication there is default "from the ground". And when you lift something with your legs straight, you still using mainly your leg muscles, just more of the stress is on your back thighs muscles ;) So I would assume that lifts from the ground are full-body movements.

Originally Posted by Rupert

I'd rule that Arm ST in excess of overall Lifting ST is only useful for weights that you are handling whilst already standing.

That's why I'm asking about which exercise :) I doubt it's military press, more likely it's Push-Press (because why someone shouldn't use their legs if he can do this to help himself in some adventuring situation?), and we have to remember that even holding some maximum weight is stressful to core muscles stabilizing the spine. You can have mega strong arms, but if your core is weak, your lifts will be cut down. And even helping with leg drive will be less useful, because you won't able to make your core stiff enough to properly transmit the energy from your legs to the barbell, and you can use just a part of this leg drive.

[GWJ]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

Simply saying it is true does not make it so, even if you say it repeatedly.

Working out and pushing/pulling weight makes you big, it also makes you strong.

A powerlifter that weighs 200 pounds more than a non-powerlifter will be stronger.

Do you have any data?

I'm thinking about Arnold, Franco and Lou.

Simply saying it's not true does not make it so, even if you say it repeatedly. If you want to argue, you should use actual arguments (and read what I write especially for you...).

How many times more I should write "relative to mass"? Read about Wilks Coefficient at least, and then you should know what I'm talking about ;)

About Schwarzenegger and Columbu (and others like Coleman, who I think was the strongest bodybuilder), as I said, both of them had an adventure with powerlifting, olympic weightlifting, or both. Or at least worked hard in some physical workplace like factories, steel mill, etc. And of course there are exceptions, almost mutants, like Greenstein (not bodybuilder, but he get shot in the head and left the hospital the same day, and generally was unhumanly strong, and I heard that there were people who died trying to repeat some of his feats, eg. pulling an airplane with his hair). But we're talking about general trend here, not a about a few picked exceptions.

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I've never liked the +5%/MoS system because it doesn't make any sort of sense to me. Instead I make it work like similar skills and give a flat +20% (like Hiking) which makes calculating possible lifts with the skill easier to know. In your situation that means it could be a BL of 40 (ST14 is close enough) to reach that.

This is a reasonable fix to the problem.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Lifting ST is clearly marked as a Exotic Trait. It cannot be normally purchased by humans. An Unusual background or a Special Exercises Perk is required.

I know many people ignore this but they are in disagreeemnt with the RAW.

Lifting ST appears all over the place in GURPS supplements though, for various degrees of Real World type people. If martial artists can have Lifting ST, then someone who specialises in lifting things, like someone who lifts weights, can surely have Lifting ST. I can get behind charging a Perk I guess.