Standards

Hybrid athlete standards

What untrained to elite means for your lifting and for your running, on the one ladder the hybridAF app grades both against.

One ladder for both halves

A hybrid athlete is graded on two things: the Strength Index, from barbell lifts against bodyweight, and the Engine Index, from VO2max against age and sex. Both use the same five levels and land on the same 0 to 100 scale: untrained scores 20, novice 40, intermediate 60, advanced 80 and elite 95. Between two levels the score is interpolated; past elite it keeps climbing and stops at 100.

Because both halves share the ladder, a number means the same standing whichever half it came from. That is what lets the two combine into one Hybrid Score. Every number on this page is read from the code the app and the Hybrid Score calculator grade with.

Strength standards

Each lift is your estimated one-rep max divided by your bodyweight. The estimate is the Epley formula, weight × (1 + reps ÷ 30), from a set of 1 to 12 reps.^1,2 The cut points are sex-specific and drawn from large competition datasets, one of them more than 800,000 entries.^3,4,5 The Strength Index is the mean of the lifts you have.

Men, × bodyweight
Level	Squat	Bench	Deadlift	Press
Untrained	0.5×	0.4×	0.75×	0.2×
Novice	1×	0.75×	1.25×	0.45×
Intermediate	1.5×	1.1×	1.75×	0.7×
Advanced	2×	1.5×	2.25×	0.95×
Elite	2.5×	2×	3×	1.2×

Women, × bodyweight
Level	Squat	Bench	Deadlift	Press
Untrained	0.3×	0.2×	0.5×	0.1×
Novice	0.7×	0.4×	0.9×	0.25×
Intermediate	1.1×	0.65×	1.3×	0.4×
Advanced	1.5×	0.9×	1.7×	0.6×
Elite	1.9×	1.2×	2.3×	0.8×

Free barbell lifts only. Dumbbell, machine, Smith, trap bar and hex bar variants do not count, and neither do one-leg squats. Front, box and pause squats do: they are barbell squats, and most people lift less on them. Strength is not adjusted for age; the engine is.

Without a bodyweight, the same five levels are graded on absolute kilos instead. For men, intermediate is a 100 kg squat, 70 kg bench, 125 kg deadlift and 48 kg press; for women, 55, 32, 70 and 26 kg. That ignores body size, so a weigh-in replaces it as soon as there is one.

Engine standards

The engine is graded on VO2max, the most oxygen you can use per kilo of bodyweight per minute, in ml/kg/min. The cut points by age and sex are drawn from the FRIEND fitness registry and rounded.⁹ Intermediate is what the app treats as typical for the age band.

Men, VO2max ml/kg/min
Level	Under 30	30-39	40-49	50-59	60+
Untrained	34	31	29	26	22
Novice	42	39	36	33	30
Intermediate	48	45	42	39	35
Advanced	54	51	48	45	41
Elite	60	57	54	51	47

Women, VO2max ml/kg/min
Level	Under 30	30-39	40-49	50-59	60+
Untrained	28	26	24	21	18
Novice	35	33	31	28	24
Intermediate	41	39	36	33	30
Advanced	47	45	42	38	35
Elite	53	50	47	44	41

The same cut points as 5K times

Most people know a race time better than a VO2max. The app reads a VO2max off a race with Daniels and Gilbert’s VDOT,¹⁰ so each cut point above has a 5K time that reads as exactly that number. These are those times.

Men, all-out 5K
Level	Under 30	30-39	40-49	50-59	60+
Untrained	27:38	29:51	31:33	34:31	39:32
Novice	23:08	24:38	26:21	28:20	30:41
Intermediate	20:38	21:49	23:08	24:38	26:59
Advanced	18:40	19:36	20:38	21:49	23:36
Elite	17:03	17:49	18:40	19:36	21:01

Women, all-out 5K
Level	Under 30	30-39	40-49	50-59	60+
Untrained	32:29	34:31	36:51	41:02	46:19
Novice	26:59	28:20	29:51	32:29	36:51
Intermediate	23:36	24:38	26:21	28:20	30:41
Advanced	21:01	21:49	23:08	25:10	26:59
Elite	18:58	19:56	21:01	22:14	23:36

Derived, not published. These times are the VO2max cut points run backwards through the VDOT formula, not a 5K standard anyone measured. They assume a flat, all-out 5K; a single race carries a range of about 5 to 6 ml/kg/min, and a race that was not all-out only proves you are at least that fit. The VO2max calculator takes any distance, a steady run with heart rate, or bike power.

With no run and no VO2max at all, the app grades the engine from a HYROX finish time on five rough bands, from 88 for 60 minutes or under down to 26 for over 110. It never overrides a VO2max. The bands are on the calculator page.

Putting the halves together

The Hybrid Score is the harmonic mean of the two: 2 × strength × engine ÷ (strength + engine). It is pulled toward the weaker half. Intermediate in both (60 and 60) scores 60. Advanced strength (80) with a novice engine (40) averages 60, but scores 53. Being very good at half of it does not carry you.

The score then sits on six ranks. The rough standing next to each is the app’s own estimate, and it will be recalibrated as real athlete data comes in.

Hybrid Score ranks
Rank	Score	Rough standing
Initiate	0 to 34	Starting out
Warrior	35 to 49	About top 65%
Gladiator	50 to 64	About top 45%
Champion	65 to 77	About top 25%
Demigod	78 to 91	About top 10%
Titan	92+	About top 3%

What is published, and what is ours

From published research: the one-rep max estimate^1,2, the strength norms the lift cut points are drawn from^3,4,5, the VO2max norms by age and sex⁹ and the VDOT formula behind the 5K times.¹⁰

Our design choices: turning those norms into five rounded cut points each, the 20, 40, 60, 80, 95 ladder they sit on, dividing lifts straight by bodyweight (which slightly favours lighter lifters), the absolute-kilo fallback, the HYROX bands, the harmonic mean, the six ranks and their rough standings, and the 5K conversion. No published instrument validates a harmonic mean of strength and engine. The cut points are approximate on purpose: read them as bands, not verdicts.

Not here: standards from our own users. hybridAF does not have enough athletes yet to set a population standard, so it does not pretend to. The science page lists every source in full.

Find your own number

The hybrid athlete test, as the app scores it, takes four inputs:

One hard set of 1 to 12 reps on any of squat, bench, deadlift or overhead press, with a free barbell. More lifts give a fuller Strength Index.
One recent all-out race, at any distance, or a watch VO2max reading.
Your bodyweight, so the lifts grade against it rather than on absolute kilos.
Your age and sex.

The Hybrid Score calculator grades them on the tables above and gives you both halves, your score and your rank, in your browser. The app keeps the number current from the lifts you log and the runs it syncs.

Questions

How strong should a hybrid athlete be?

There is no single bar, but the middle of the ladder (intermediate) on these standards is a 1.5× bodyweight squat, 1.1× bench and 1.75× deadlift for men, and 1.1×, 0.65× and 1.3× for women, as estimated one-rep maxes. Advanced and elite are in the table above.

What VO2max should a hybrid athlete have?

It depends on age and sex. Intermediate under 30 is 48 ml/kg/min for men and 41 for women, and the cut points step down with each decade. The full table, untrained to elite, is above.

What is a good 5K time for a hybrid athlete?

On the same formula the app uses, an all-out 5K of about 20:38 reads as intermediate for a man under 30, and about 23:36 for a woman under 30. Those times are derived from the VO2max standards, not published standards of their own.

Are these the same standards the hybridAF app uses?

Yes. This page reads its tables from the same code the app and the calculators grade with. In the app the inputs come from the lifts you log and the runs and readings you sync, and the score falls when you stop training.

Why does the weaker half count for more?

Because the two halves combine with a harmonic mean, which is pulled toward the lower one. Strength 80 and engine 40 average 60, but the Hybrid Score is 53. The harmonic mean is our design choice, and the science page says so.

What's your number?

Work it out once with the calculator, or let hybridAF keep it current from your training and let it fall when you stop. The score is free.

Download on the App Store Open the calculator