The TÄGLICH
Standard

Rules

Work up to a heavy 3-rep max from the floor, conventional or sumo, double-overhand or mixed grip, no straps. Three reps, no bouncing the bar, full lockout each rep. Scored as a multiple of bodyweight: 1.0×, 1.25×, 1.5×, 1.75×, 2.0× for 1 to 5. Tested first, before any fatigue.

Why it matters

The deadlift recruits more total muscle mass under load than almost any other lift. EMG confirms it maximally drives the erector spinae and the entire posterior chain, the hamstrings, glutes and spinal extensors, at once.^[6] That total-body recruitment also makes it the most systemically demanding lift, which is why it is tested first, before fatigue. After heavy compound lifting, parasympathetic (vagal) heart-rate-variability markers are suppressed and do not fully return to baseline for around 48 hours, with perceived fatigue still elevated at 48 hours.^[7] We test a 3-rep max rather than a true 1-rep max deliberately. It is still genuinely heavy and a valid strength marker, but it carries far less injury risk than a maximal single, so the whole standard does not hinge on one risky rep.

Rules

Barbell loaded to exactly your bodyweight. Max strict reps, full range (bar to chest, full lockout), no bouncing, hips on the bench. Reps: 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 for 1 to 5.

Why it matters

This is upper-body pressing strength expressed relative to your own mass, which is the point. A raw 1-rep max bench rewards being heavy. Loading the bar to bodyweight removes that, because a bigger person must press a proportionally bigger bar, so the test reads strength to size rather than size alone. Relative strength, force per kilogram of bodyweight, is the more meaningful number for real-world capability and for most athletic transfer, because in the real world you usually have to move loads and yourself.^[1],[2] It captures the pressing half of upper-body function: pushing something or someone away, creating space, and transmitting force through the chest, shoulders and triceps with a braced trunk.

Rules

Dead-hang start, chin clearly over the bar, full extension at the bottom of each rep. Strict only: no kipping, no swinging, no half reps. As many as you can inside 2 minutes (you may rest on the bar). Reps: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 for 1 to 5.

Why it matters

The pull-up is the great equaliser of pulling strength because, like the bodyweight bench, it is normalised to your own mass. You cannot out-lever it with machines or excess weight, because every extra kilogram is a kilogram you must pull.^[1],[2] Strict standards exist to stop the body cheating: kipping turns a strength test into a coordination and hip-drive test and hides genuine pulling weakness. It is the clearest single read of vertical pulling, grip endurance and scapular control.

Rules

Lift a 40 kg ball (or equivalent odd object) from the floor to the shoulder, stand fully, then return it to the floor under control. Alternate shoulders as you like. Reps in 2 minutes: 8, 14, 20, 26, 32 for 1 to 5.

Why it matters

Almost nothing in real life has knurled handles and perfect balance. An awkward, shifting object forces the body to generate and stabilise force without ideal leverage, and the evidence shows odd-object lifting is uniquely demanding on exactly the structures that protect you. McGill biomechanical work on strongman-style odd-object lifts recorded some of the highest trunk and hip muscle activation levels ever measured, with very high spinal loads and stiffness demands, often greater than barbell equivalents.^[8] Systematic review of strongman and odd-object training confirms its strong carryover to real-world and occupational lifting tasks.^[14] This is the event that asks whether you can pick a heavy, inconvenient thing off the floor, repeatedly, without folding, which is the most common way people actually hurt themselves.

Rules

The Tabata protocol: 8 rounds of 20 seconds of bodyweight squats and 10 seconds of rest (4 minutes total), full depth (hip crease below knee), full stand. Your score is your lowest round, not your total and not your first. Lowest-round reps: 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 for 1 to 5.

Why it matters

The Tabata structure is not arbitrary. It is the actual protocol from the 1996 Tabata study, where 20-on, 10-off intervals at about 170% of VO2max improved both the aerobic system (VO2max up about 7 ml per kg per minute) and the anaerobic system (capacity up 28%) in six weeks.^[5] That dual demand is the point: it tests leg endurance where the aerobic and anaerobic systems overlap. Scoring the lowest round is deliberate. It removes the reward for sandbagging a huge first round and blowing up, and instead rewards repeatable output, which is what fatigue resistance actually means. Lower-body endurance and power also have standalone predictive value: low relative sit-to-stand (leg) power is associated with significantly higher all-cause mortality in older adults.^[9]

Rules

12 kg ball, full squat below parallel, drive up and throw to a 3 m target, catch and descend into the next rep. A rep counts only if the target is hit. Reps in 2 minutes: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 for 1 to 5.

Why it matters

This is the test overhead pattern and its hardest-to-fake conditioning piece. It chains a full squat to an overhead throw, linking legs, trunk, shoulders, breathing and timing into one cycle. Compound full-range movements like this drive heart rate and oxygen cost sharply, because so many large muscle groups work at once.^[12] The 12 kg load is chosen on purpose. Standard wall balls are often light enough to be pure cardio, whereas 12 kg makes it a genuine strength-endurance task: you have to keep producing force overhead while breathing hard and holding posture.

Rules

Chest to floor at the bottom, full stand with a jump and hands overhead at the top. Max reps in 2 minutes: 15, 25, 35, 45, 55 for 1 to 5.

Why it matters

Burpees are simple, need no equipment, and are almost impossible to hide from. They punish excess bodyweight, poor conditioning and bad pacing all at once. They are a validated whole-body high-intensity stimulus: low-volume burpee interval training produces meaningful cardiometabolic and power adaptations comparable to sprint-interval training, and whole-body HIIT of this type drives VO2max gains on par with steady-state cardio.^[12] As a test item they read full-body fatigue tolerance and the basic, survival-relevant skill of getting off the floor and back up, over and over.

Rules

Two 30 kg implements (dumbbells or handles), carried for distance over 4 minutes. You may set down and re-grip, but the clock keeps running. Distance: 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 m for 1 to 5.

Why it matters

The loaded carry is grip, traps, trunk stiffness, posture and breathing welded into one task, and it is about as real-world as a test gets. EMG quantification of the loaded-carry pattern shows high simultaneous activation of the spinal extensors, abdominals and obliques, with the load constantly trying to tip and sway you, demanding continuous trunk co-contraction.^[13] Grip is the hidden star. It is not just hand strength but a proxy for whole-body strength and physiological reserve, which is why it tracks so tightly with mortality.^[1] Loaded carrying maps almost directly to the demands of real life, which is why it is often considered more functional than static core work.^[13]

Rules

Forearm plank, straight line from heel to head, hips neither sagging nor piked. Hold to failure or to the 4-minute cap. Time: 1:00, 1:30, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 for 1 to 5.

Why it matters

We test an isometric hold rather than sit-ups on purpose. McGill spine research shows that repeated spinal flexion, exactly what crunches and sit-ups train, is a primary mechanism of disc damage, whereas the trunk real job is to resist movement and transfer force without leaking it.^[8] The plank trains and tests that anti-extension, brace-and-hold quality directly. Trunk endurance specifically, not just strength, has long been linked to back health: in the classic Biering-Sorensen prospective study of over 900 people, poorer trunk-muscle endurance predicted first-time low-back pain in the following year.^[10] A trunk that leaks under fatigue makes every other event worse, lifting, carrying, running and overhead work, which is why it earns its own test.

Rules

1.6 km (1 mile) for time, run last, after everything else. Time: 9:30, 8:30, 7:30, 6:45, 6:00 for 1 to 5.

Why it matters

The 1.6 km distance sits in the middle-distance zone where both energy systems matter. Direct measurement of energy-system contribution puts the 1500 m event at roughly 84% aerobic and 16% anaerobic, strongly aerobic but carrying the largest anaerobic share of the distance events.^[11] It is long enough to demand real aerobic capacity yet short enough that you cannot switch the anaerobic system off, the uncomfortable middle. It is run last, on tired legs, on purpose. A fresh mile mostly measures your engine, but a mile after deadlifts, carries, wall balls and burpees measures your engine plus your ability to keep moving when everything already hurts.^[3]