Grip Strength Norms Calculator

Hand grip strength, measured by squeezing a dynamometer, is a quick and surprisingly powerful marker of overall muscle strength. Low grip strength is linked with higher risk of disability, hospitalisation and death in later life, and it is the first test in the European consensus definition of sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss).

This calculator compares your best grip reading with normative data from Dodds et al. (2014), who pooled 60,803 measurements from 49,964 people in twelve British studies aged 4 to 90+. It interpolates the mean, standard deviation and centiles for your exact age and sex, then reports your percentile, z-score, a T-score against peak young-adult strength, and whether you are below the EWGSOP2 cut-off for low grip strength (27 kg for men, 16 kg for women).

Use your maximum reading from both hands, ideally the best of three attempts per hand, seated with the elbow bent at 90 degrees — the protocol most of the reference studies used. Different dynamometer brands and positions give slightly different readings, so compare repeated tests on the same device for tracking change.

The reference mean, SD and centiles come from Table 2 of Dodds et al. (2014) at five-year age points, linearly interpolated to your exact age. Your z-score is converted to a percentile with the standard normal distribution, which matches the published centiles closely across adult ages.

The T-score compares you with the peak young-adult mean at age 32 — 51.9 kg (SD 9.9) for men and 31.4 kg (SD 6.1) for women — the same approach used for bone density. A T-score of −2.5 works out to 51.9 − 2.5 × 9.9 ≈ 27 kg for men and 31.4 − 2.5 × 6.1 ≈ 16 kg for women; EWGSOP2 adopted these Dodds-derived values (below 27 kg and below 16 kg) as its cut-offs for low grip strength.