See my previous post titled "What is Powerlifting?" if you're not familiar with this competitive weightlifting sport.
Let's pretend you're just getting into Powerlifting and you want to do it for fun (and maybe compete if you get really good at it). What should your target weight be when you're first starting out?
How much you are going to be lifting depends on your goals. If you're just start off trying it to see what it is like then you should be conservative and take your time, so you can more easily avoid injuries. If you are planning to be lifting in a competition then you’re going to want to push the boundaries and aim for as much as you can physically (and mentally) achieve.
The Rule of Thumb
You want to work up to a goal. Getting there will vary on the individual depending upon your weight and gender (and to some extent height), so don't immediate assume that you can start at that number. You want to work up to it gradually.
For people not lifting in a competitive capacity you should start by aiming to eventually lift about 1 to 1.5 times your bodyweight, assuming that you are a normal size and not overly skinny or overweight. That doesn't mean you are starting off by lifting those weights. No, that means you should work up to trying to lift those weights.
During a competition a beginner female competitor could be expected to lift 101% of their bodyweight, and a male beginner could be expected to lift 133% of their bodyweight*. This is considered to be a realistic goal for beginners because they're expecting to lift that weight in 3 different exercises: The Squat, the Bench Press and the Deadlift.
* According to one of the authors of "Practical Programming for Strength Training".
How realistic theses goals are can also vary on the exercise being conducted.
For Beginner Men:
- 1.5 times your bodyweight is considered to be a realistic goal for both squatting and deadlifting.
- 1.25 times your bodyweight is considered realistic for bench pressing.
For Beginner Women:
- 1.15 times your bodyweight for squatting and deadlifting.
- 0.9 times your bodyweight for bench pressing.
Obviously more experienced powerlifters will be lifting a lot more than that, but for beginners this is a good target weight to work up to.
You also need to consider how many repetitions of each lift you are doing while training. Higher reps means you will have to reduce the total weight you are lifting, so for powerlifting you generally want to be doing only 1 to 12 reps, but lifting a larger amount.
When preparing for a competition, or trying to build more strength, 1 to 5 repetitions is considered normal.
If the athlete is focusing on technique or is worried about hypertrophy (increasing the size of muscle fibers) then they will do 6 to 12 reps and use a more moderate weight.
Thus if you're a beginner and you need to focus on technique more then you should focus on doing 6 to 12 reps in the beginning so that you can build good form and technique, thereby avoiding sports injuries.
If you enter a competition that is when you can change your reps to a lower number and add a lot more weight.
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