Published October 2, 2026 · 6 min read
How HyperTrophy Rank’s strength ranks work
What each rank measures, where the thresholds come from, and what is evidence versus our own judgement. Limits included.
Every muscle has a rank based on what its exercises lift for your bodyweight and sex: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Champion and Legend, each with I, II and III. That makes 15 steps. This article explains how they are calculated, where the thresholds come from and, above all, which part is published evidence and which part is our own decision.
What is measured
The app takes the estimated 1RM of each session and divides it by your bodyweight on that day.
- Estimated 1RM: the average of two well-known formulas, Epley and Brzycki, applied to your repetitions to failure. Those are the reps you did plus the RIR you logged: 8 reps at RIR 2 count as an effort of 10. If you do not log RIR, the app treats the set as taken to failure, which underestimates your strength if it was not. Above 12 reps to failure nothing is estimated: the formulas stop being valid, and an invented number does not help.
- Per exercise: an exercise is worth the highest step any of your sessions reached.
- Per muscle: a muscle is worth the step of its best exercise in which it is the primary muscle. Triceps do not rank up from the bench press.
- No weigh-in, no rank, because everything is measured against your bodyweight.
What is evidence
From Gold I to Legend III, the thresholds are the 10th to 90th percentiles of relative strength in the squat, bench press and deadlift across 809,986 entries of raw, drug-tested powerlifting, by sex and weight class (van den Hoek et al., 2024, Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, CC BY 4.0 licence; tables 5 and 6).
Each decile is one step. Gold I is already stronger for your weight than one in ten of the people who compete. Between two weight classes we interpolate by your bodyweight, because with equal training, the heavier person lifts fewer times their bodyweight. The lightest classes (43 and 53 kg) are left out, since they are mostly teenagers.
What is our own judgement
The study’s data begin where competitors begin. For everything below and beside that, we made decisions, and we call them what they are:
- Bronze and Silver, below where the study starts: 40, 50, 60, 72 and 85 % of its 10th percentile. Bronze I is any mark at all. That way a beginner moves up a step every few weeks.
- All other exercises (about 45 common ones) are measured as a proportion of one of the three reference lifts, according to what is typical at the same level: the incline press is worth 0.82 of the bench press, the leg press 1.8 of the squat, the Romanian deadlift 0.75 of the deadlift. Those proportions are ours, not the study’s.
- Dumbbells are understood per dumbbell.
- Pull-ups and dips use a different proportion for women, with less relative upper-body strength for their weight.
- A machine depends on the machine: its rank is only indicative. A variant uses its original’s standard, and exercises without a standard give no rank.
- The overall rank your friends see (the average of the steps of the 14 muscles with a standard, counting those with no rank yet as Bronze I) is also our own call. It rewards the whole body, not one strong lift.
| Part | Origin |
|---|---|
| Gold I to Legend III thresholds | Evidence: van den Hoek et al., 2024 |
| Interpolation by bodyweight | Evidence, applied with our method |
| Bronze and Silver | Our own judgement |
| Proportions for other exercises | Our own judgement |
| Overall rank | Our own judgement |
You earn it and you keep it
Each session counts with the weight of its day, so gaining weight in a bulk does not cost you steps. What you still need for the next one is measured with today’s weight.
How it tells you what is missing
The app expresses the distance to the next step as a concrete set, using the reps of your best set and how many times your bodyweight that bar is: “For Gold I: 48 kg for 6 reps · 0.9 times your weight”. For pull-ups, “+10 kg for 8 reps” or “12 reps with your weight”. The weight is rounded up to the nearest half kilo, so it really gets you there. If you weigh less today than when you set the mark, it tells you.
The trophies
The metal sets the colour and the trimmings: Bronze and Silver, a cup; Gold, with a plinth; Champion, with laurels; Legend, with a star and sparkles, all in ice blue. The step sets the handles: none at I, the logo’s at II and with a curved point at III.
What the rank does not say
- It is a comparison with competing powerlifters, not with the general population.
- It does not adjust for age, because the app does not ask for it. From age 35 the study’s percentiles drop, so the rank is demanding for anyone older.
- Machines and the proportions between exercises are approximations.
A rank is a way to set a goal for your strength, not a verdict on you. If one day you weigh less or change exercise, your rank says nothing about your worth; it only says where you stand against that reference.