i see your point, but for me i'm reading the threads here and seeing other women lifting all over the place irl, so in one way 'comparison' is kind of inevitable anyway. i dunno about you, but if i said i never did compare myself with any other woman, i'd be lying like the proverbial rug.

and at the same time it's not even really the issue for me. i don't even know how to start expressing the depths of my ignorance when i started out, about what would be 'strong' for a woman. or even 'normal'. or 'possible'. like, seriously a case of absolutely-no-information-at-all. in real life, i have never known a woman who lifted weights in my life, or one that even thought about lifting . . . or if i did, i either didn't know it or had no idea of how much they could lift. never even heard of the concept. so i like some kind of context for all of this, because i seriously had none at all when i got interested. i even tried to get some kind of ballpark idea from that brainless woman trainer in the spring, and she flat-out refused to answer. 'it's a range', 'it depends', 'it's a ballpark' . . . but she wouldn't even answer something like 'well, is x pounds typical?'

so i kind of like tables like this. plus, y'know. for me, doing this for the first time ever at 49, it's extremely nice to see something that does take people's age into consideration. maybe there are women here who are lifting the same weights and recovering in the same time frame in their 40s as they were or would have when they were 25, but i'm pretty sure that i ain't one of them.

incidentally, and not even because i brought it up: the professional trainer who runs this 'group' i go to once a month mentioned today that in her own experience with clients, a woman who can squat with her own bodyweight for 10 reps is 'pretty freaking impressive'. so there is that.