Rachel McKinnon weightlifting results compared to male and female powerlifters

[BuzzPeakWankBobbly]

[LONG POST]

Rachel McKinnon has been publicly tweeting about their workout recently and then I fell down a rabbit hole of (also publicly available) statistics:

twitter.com/rachelvmckinnon/status/1122578451192602626

One of their lifts was stated as follows: "Doing low ROM deadlifts. 485lb singles" (220kg)

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WORKING ASSUMPTIONS FOR POST

1. R McKinnon competes in the 35-44 age category for cycling, which is generally accepted as the starting “Masters” age range in sports.
2. According to the velonews article (link at end) R McKinnon weighs around 200lbs (~88kg)
3. R McKinnon may have only been doing “one rep max” which can be higher than part of a general lifting workout (although the tweet does say deadlifts (plural)).
4. R McKinnon's tweet appears to mean a Romanian Deadlift, versus a Conventional Deadlift - which I think is what the British Powerlifting results are for (link at end). I don't believe the difference in lift is significant here though.

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So I looked at the British Powerlifting records for the entrants that match that as closely as possible:

• For women this would be the 84+kg Masters group
  (note: this is the maximum weight grouping and includes all women that weight and over.)

• For men, the 83kg Masters group
  (there are 2 further weight classes for men - 93kg and 105kg)

I have used the “2018 British Masters Classic Championships” results; then calculated the mean, median and mode for each class (links at end).

There were 13 entrants in the women’s 84+kg class and 15 entrants in the men’s 83kg class.

Women’s Best Deadlifts (84+kg): Mean: 161.5kg / Median: 150kg / Mode: 170kg, 150kg
(Individual “best deadlift”: 192.5 187.5 170 170 150 145 150 137.5 130 120 207.5 200 140)

Men’s Best Deadlifts (83kg): Mean: 214.8kg / Median: 210kg / Mode: 210kg, 200kg, 202.5kg
(Individual “best deadlift”: 272.5 265 232.5 255 210 215 200 202.5 252.5 210 200 180 202.5 175 150)

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I then looked at the higher class men’s results as well:
Men’s Best Deadlifts (93kg): Mean: 212.5 / Median: 235 / Mode: 250
(Individual “best deadlift”: 250 235 220 235 240 250 222.5 237.5 210 180 250 237.5 250 185 245 16 150)

Men’s Best Deadlifts (105kg): Mean: 248 / Median: 237.5 Mode: 200
(Individual “best deadlift”: 323 302.5 260 230 200 237.5 255 225 200)

These results show that that R McKinnon’s tweeted lift falls in between the averages of the 93kg and 105kg classes, and completely outranks every British Powerlifting female's best efforts in 2018. Every. Single. One.

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Six months ago in the velonews article, Rachel McKinnon stated "My body produces next to no testosterone, and my levels are below the bottom of the average female range, to the point where they’re essentially undetectable" - which reads as if they believe they are virtually indistinguishable from females in terms of biological advantage.

So, er, right… No inherent male bodily or muscular advantage, yet able to lift more than all the female power lifters on their best lift in the 2018 British Powerlifting Masters Classic Championships? ALL OF THEM? And, somewhat amazingly, significantly more than most of the men’s bests as well?

This is why women's sport will be destroyed.

LINKS:
www.velonews.com/2018/10/news/commentary-the-complicated-case-of-transgender-cyclist-dr-rachel-mckinnon_480285

www.myprotein.com/thezone/training/deadlift-variations/

www.britishpowerlifting.org/documents/665_british_masters_classic_championships.pdf

www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/statistics/mean-median-mode.php

Have FPFW seen these stats? I'm twitter banned so not up to date with them now 😕

Wow OP this is incredible research!

Just a thought - it really seems odd that Mckinnon would be compare so well to the men's stats. Which makes me wonder f there wasn't some fibbing going on.

Brilliant work

This person should not be competing against women. It’s clearly grossly unfair

Great research. Thank you.

If this bullshit is allowed to continue it will destroy women's sport

Good research OP - email it to FPFW (I think there’s an email address on their site). Normally I try to avoid clicking on anything which references RM, but glad I made an exception this time!

Nobody apart from whoever is on MN this afternoon has seen them.
I tried to be as transparent and open as I could with everything I looked up because they are just facts as facts are wont to be. I'm not a scientist or statistician, just one of those pesky uppity women (so apologies in advance for any inaccuracies or statistical errors).

TBH, I too doubted RM's veracity after I'd seen the numbers, but I'm just going on what they made public to the world. As a cyclist, they don't need to be especially strong in explosive 1RM ways like power lifters so it doesn't really add up.

Feel free to use as you want - ideally remind people that Mumsnet isn't just a bunch of wimmin discussing pushchairs and soup recipes!

Also, current female athletes really cannot speak up about this so it means a lot that someone would take the time to do this, thank you.

And weightlifting is not even RMcK's sport. Just imagine if it was.

And weightlifting is not even RMcK's sport. Just imagine if it was

Good lord, lets not give them any ideas!!

I can’t take credit for it unfortunately. I’ve seen other people calling them that.

The funny thing was, I was actually looking at this person, Sofie Lewis first off - RM was kind enough to RT their post (again, all publicly available info)

twitter.com/SofieEnyo/status/1123157272178376704

uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-display/showROFundraiserPage?userUrl=SofieLewis&pageUrl=1

You can see Sofie is very certain that they are female and how difficult they have found life, how distressing and upsetting etc. They live life the fabled "as a woman" way, and use she/her etc

They ran the London Marathon this weekend, in a very respectable 3.38, well done them!
twitter.com/SofieEnyo/status/1123157272178376704

In fact they came 6733rd place. In the Men | Category: 18-39
results.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com/2019/?page=4&event=MAS&num_results=1000&pid=list&search%5Bsex%5D=M&search%5Bage_class%5D=18

But with that time, they could have come 1862nd in the women's race. Given sex is claimed to be whatever you think it is, I am left wondering why that wasn't the case for Sofie.
results.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com/2019/?page=2&event=MAS&num_results=1000&pid=list&search%5Bsex%5D=W&search%5Bage_class%5D=%25

Looking at the pic I'm not sure what they're doing but that's not set up for a normal deadlift so that may explain the numbers.

Also discovered I'm blocked by McKinnon for whatever reason, feel like I've joined a not-very exclusive club

Just a correction about your marathon runner, they placed 3166 in their category (Men, 18-39). The 6733 result was against all men in all age categories. According to the Marathon website, they finished ahead of 90% of the women runners, having been ahead of 73% of the other men.

Lellochip I'm not sure what they're doing but that's not set up for a normal deadlift so that may explain the numbers.

Romanian deadlift starts with the bar raised - you don't get it from the floor: www.fitwirr.com/fitness/-deadlift-vs-romanian-deadlift
that is what the text and pic indicate in RM's tweet.

Although interestingly that article also concludes with "But you won't be able to lift as much weight as the standard or conventional deadlift."

Which would mean either the figure on the tweet is (charitably) in error; or RM can conventionally deadlift more than just about any pro lifter in their age category, despite not being a pro lifter?

I don't know which of those is correct - so in this type of situation I'd probably look at the person making the bold claim and see if they were generally a reliable source of facts.

AssassinatedBeauty Just a correction about your marathon runner, they placed 3166 in their category (Men, 18-39). The 6733 result was against all men in all age categories. According to the Marathon website, they finished ahead of 90% of the women runners, having been ahead of 73% of the other men.

Thank you for the correction - told you I wasn't a statistician!

How many record-breaking male cyclists are also record-breaking male weight-lifters?

I’m struggling to imagine some of those hulks on two-wheels. It would look like Bluto in a Popeye cartoon.

Cyclists are a diverse bunch.

You have the racing snakes who look like strips of leather and are light and nimble. People like Chris Froome, who weighs 69kg with

Pics of aforementioned Chris F and Robert F

OP please can you archive this research.

I have it as a word doc on my hard drive!

And while I'm here, for posterity, let's not forget that a fellow tw to R McKinnon has also just smashed a bunch of women's lifting records, so we'll probably never see those again either (I haven't yet see the actual stats though)

www.theblaze.com/news/transgender-female-weightlifter-smashes-multiple-womens-world-records-in-single-day-and-notable-former-athletes-cry-foul

Yes archive OP and send to FPFW.. good effort