The Squat Test
Here, we measure lower-body strength — the foundation that speed, jumping, and nearly every explosive action are built on.
What this looks like
You warm up, then squat a moderately heavy weight for as many quality reps as you can. From the load and the rep count, we calculate an estimate of your maximum strength — a method that tracks a true one-rep max within a few percent, without asking a developing athlete to hold perfect technique under the heaviest weight they've ever felt. Then we divide the estimate by your bodyweight.
That last step is the whole point. A 200-pound squat means something completely different at 130 pounds of bodyweight than at 190. Relative strength — strength per pound of you — is the number sport actually cares about.
Why we test it
Because strength is the floor under almost everything else. Research on hundreds of youth athletes shows relative squat strength tracks closely with sprint speed and jump height — roughly half of what separates fast athletes from slow ones lives in strength per pound.
One more thing worth knowing: if your technique isn't ready to be loaded yet, we don't load it. That's not a failed test — that's the map telling us exactly where to start.
What we're really looking for
The bar tells us the load; how your reps look tells us the rest.
- Do you hit depth with your chest up, or does the trunk fold to get there?
- Do the knees track where the toes point, or cave inward as fatigue builds?
- Is rep five as crisp as rep one — or is the pattern quietly falling apart?
- Does the weight move with intent, or just move?
What good looks like
First, what leg strength actually buys you: faster acceleration, higher jumps, and the ability to hold your ground — or take someone else's — in contact. It's the foundation that speed and power get built on, which is why it correlates so strongly with both.
Now the numbers, for context. Elite-academy youth soccer players with real training history average roughly 1.4× bodyweight at 13–14 and 1.6–1.7× by 15–18 (front squat). Competitive teen powerlifters — a self-selected strong group — average about 1.3× at 13 rising to 2.0× by 18 for boys, 1.2× to 1.5× for girls (back squat). And a finding worth sitting with: in a study of 492 elite academy players, not one squatted more than 2× bodyweight. So when someone online claims every high schooler should double-bodyweight squat — the data says otherwise.
If you're newer to training and sit well below these numbers, that's expected — the trained athletes in these studies took years to get there. Your number is a starting point, and it exists to climb.
When the number and the ability don't match
Strong squat, modest jump or sprint? You have force you're not yet turning into motion — usually a rate or elasticity opportunity, and great news, because the hard part (the strength) is already built. Weak squat next to a decent sprint? Adding strength per pound is likely the most direct speed training you can do.
What we do about it
Your strength-per-bodyweight tells us where you are on the path, and that decides the work: technique and positions first, then progressive strength, then converting strength into power. In that order — because loading a pattern you can't yet own builds the wrong thing.
What's underneath this number
Depth needs ankle and hip range. Bracing needs trunk control. The squat is where Access and Control get loaded — which is why we screen both before the bar gets heavy.