What's a Good Weighted Pull-Up-to-Bodyweight Ratio?

People compare weighted pull-up numbers by added plate weight alone, and that comparison is broken before it starts.

Why added weight alone doesn't tell you anything

A 150 lb lifter adding 100 lb to their pull-up and a 220 lb lifter adding 100 lb are not doing the same thing. The first lifter is moving 250 lb total. The second is moving 320 lb total. Same plate, completely different lift. This is the entire reason I track Total System Weight instead of added weight alone. Added weight is only half the number.

My own best strict chin-up is 137.5 lb added for a triple, at roughly 204-205 lb bodyweight. That puts my TSW at around 342 lb. If I only told you "137.5 lb for a triple" without the bodyweight attached, you'd have no way to know if that's an elite lift or an average one.

The ratio that actually matters

Strength-to-bodyweight ratio on a weighted pull-up is TSW divided by bodyweight. My 342 lb TSW at roughly 205 lb bodyweight comes out to about 1.67x bodyweight for a triple. That number is what's actually comparable across lifters of different sizes, not the raw plate weight.

Rough benchmarks I use when I'm evaluating where an athlete stands, for a triple:

• Below 1.0x bodyweight TSW: still building base strength, added weight work is new
• 1.0-1.3x bodyweight TSW: solid intermediate, added weight is a real part of training
• 1.3-1.6x bodyweight TSW: advanced, this is where most serious lifters plateau for a while
• 1.6x+ bodyweight TSW: competitive level, this is where meets start being winnable

These aren't official federation standards, they're benchmarks I use in my own coaching to gauge where someone actually sits, because "how much weight are you adding" tells me almost nothing without the ratio behind it.

Why this matters more for someone losing weight

If you're cutting bodyweight, your TSW can hold steady even while your added-weight number goes up, and that confuses a lot of people. Drop 10 lb of bodyweight and you can add 10 lb to the belt while your actual TSW, and therefore your actual strength demand, stays exactly the same. People see "I added weight" and think they got stronger, when the honest read is they stayed the same and just redistributed where the load comes from.

This is exactly what I ran into after switching gyms recently. My bodyweight shifted slightly and the equipment itself changed, thicker plates, different bar spacing, and if I'd only been watching my added-weight number I would have drawn the wrong conclusion about whether I was actually progressing.

Why this matters more for someone gaining weight

The inverse problem shows up when people bulk. Bodyweight goes up, and if added weight stays flat, TSW actually went up even though the person feels like they're "stuck" because the plate on the belt hasn't moved. I see people quit progressing weighted pull-ups during a bulk because they're staring at the wrong number and missing that their real load already increased.

What to actually track

Log bodyweight alongside every heavy pull-up session, not occasionally. Calculate TSW, not added weight, as your primary progress number. Check your ratio against the rough bands above every few months, not every session, since week-to-week bodyweight noise isn't meaningful but a multi-month trend is.

Where this fits

Tracking this properly, and knowing what ratio actually matters for where an athlete is in their development, is core to how I build coaching programs instead of just handing someone a percentage chart that ignores their bodyweight entirely.