Grip strength is a whole-body health measure that happens to be taken at the hand. Of the markers we cover here, it is the cheapest to obtain: one device, no blood draw, about two minutes.

The Verdict

Average dominant-hand grip peaks around 52 to 56 kg in men and 32 to 35 kg in women in the thirties, then falls by roughly a quarter by the mid-sixties. The clinical sarcopenia thresholds sit far lower, at 27 kg for men and 16 kg for women. A 5 kg deficit tracks a 16% higher all-cause mortality risk across large cohorts, and that is an association rather than proof that training your hands changes anything.

Grip Strength Norms by Age and Sex

The figures below describe dominant-hand maximum grip on a hydraulic dynamometer, which is the device most published reference data was collected on.

Age bandMen, typical averageWomen, typical averageHow to read it
20 to 29 About 50 to 55 kg About 31 to 34 kg Peak, or close to it. Values here are a baseline to compare against later
30 to 39 About 52 to 56 kg About 32 to 35 kg The usual peak decade for both sexes
40 to 49 About 50 to 54 kg About 30 to 33 kg Decline has started and is still small
50 to 59 About 45 to 49 kg About 27 to 30 kg The decade where the slope steepens noticeably
60 to 69 About 39 to 43 kg About 24 to 27 kg Roughly a quarter below peak for most people
70 to 79 About 33 to 37 kg About 21 to 24 kg Still well above the sarcopenia cutpoints below
80 and over About 27 to 31 kg About 17 to 20 kg The decade where average values approach the clinical thresholds

Two things about this table are worth stating before you compare yourself against it. Published norms differ by several kilograms between datasets, because the device, the hand position and the number of trials all shift the result. Body size also matters: a 190 cm man and a 165 cm man of the same age and fitness will not produce the same number, and no widely used norm table adjusts for height.

Use the table to locate yourself roughly, then use your own repeat measurement a year later as the comparison that means something.

The Sarcopenia Cutpoints, and Why They Are So Much Lower

Clinical thresholds are not set at the average. They mark the point where low muscle strength starts predicting falls, fractures, hospital admissions and loss of independence.

GroupMenWomenContext
European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People Under 27 kg Under 16 kg The most widely cited European thresholds, set in 2019 and published in Age and Ageing
Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia Under 28 kg Under 18 kg Set against Asian population norms and published in JAMDA in 2020

The gap between those cutpoints and the age-band averages above is the most useful comparison here. A 72-year-old woman measuring 22 kg is below her own thirties peak by a third and still 6 kg clear of the threshold. She has an ordinary result for her age. It is not a clinical finding.

Low grip strength on its own also does not diagnose sarcopenia. The European definition treats low strength as the entry criterion and then requires a measurement of muscle quantity, by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry or bioimpedance, to confirm it. Grip is the screen. It is not the diagnosis.

How to Measure Grip Strength So It Is Comparable

Technique changes a grip result more than most people expect, and the published norms all assume one specific position.

  1. Sit down. Feet flat, back supported, shoulder relaxed and against your side.
  2. Bend the elbow to 90 degrees with the forearm in a neutral position, thumb upward. Do not brace the elbow against your body or a table.
  3. Squeeze maximally for about three seconds without swinging the arm or leaning into it.
  4. Take three attempts per hand with 30 to 60 seconds between them, and record the highest.

Standing with a straight arm and pulling downward recruits shoulder and back musculature and inflates the reading substantially. That is why a result from a novelty machine, a phone accessory, or a hang-based test is not comparable to anything in the tables above.

What Raises Grip Strength

Resistance training moves grip strength, and the exercises that move it most are the ones loading the whole body through the hands. Deadlifts, rows, farmer carries, loaded hangs and pull-ups all build forearm and hand musculature as a consequence of the main lift.

Expect a measurable change after eight to twelve weeks of consistent training. Protein intake matters alongside it, particularly for adults over 60, where the muscle protein synthesis response to a given dose is blunted and total daily intake needs to be higher to produce the same effect. Our page on protein timing covers how much and when.

A grip trainer improves your grip test and very little else. If the goal is the health state the number represents, the hands are the wrong place to start.

Testosterone Evidence and Grip Strength Outcomes

One randomised trial found that testosterone may prevent age-associated loss of lower limb muscle strength in frail older men with low to borderline-low testosterone. No trial evidence shows it raises grip strength. In the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism in 2010, Srinivas-Shankar and colleagues randomised 274 community-dwelling intermediate-frail and frail men aged 65 or older (trial report). Participants had a baseline total testosterone at or below 12 nmol/L or a free testosterone at or below 250 pmol/L. They were randomised to transdermal testosterone 50 mg a day or to placebo gel for 6 months.

At 6 months, isometric knee extension peak torque was 8.6 Newton-metres higher than with placebo (95% confidence interval 1.3 to 16.0; P = 0.02). In the testosterone group, lean body mass increased by 1.08 kg (standard deviation 1.8) and fat mass decreased by 0.9 kg (standard deviation 1.6). Physical function improved among the older and frailer men. The authors also reported improvements in quality of life, and called for further investigation.

That trial evaluated knee extension torque rather than hand force. If you expect your grip number to move because a trial moved knee torque, you are reading across two different muscles. The association between testosterone and grip strength comes from cross-sectional data rather than a randomised trial.

In the European Journal of Endocrinology in 2011, Auyeung and colleagues surveyed 1,489 community-dwelling men older than 64 (survey data). After adjustment for age, sex hormone-binding globulin and relative appendicular skeletal mass, both total and free testosterone were significantly associated with grip strength, narrow-walk speed, and a composite neuromuscular score. In that survey, higher total estradiol was associated with lower grip strength after adjustments, while free estradiol was not.

A cross-sectional association is not evidence that raising a level raises the measure. Neither study evaluated men with normal testosterone, and neither is a reason to test or treat based on a grip result.

If weakness or fatigue concerns you, discuss those symptoms with your doctor, because a grip reading cannot determine whether hormone levels are low. Our guide to signs of low testosterone covers which symptoms track the blood work.

Who Should Not Read Much Into a Grip Result

Anyone with hand or wrist pathology should treat the number as uninterpretable. Carpal tunnel syndrome, osteoarthritis at the thumb base, a healed fracture, tendinopathy and rheumatoid disease all reduce grip through the hand itself while total body strength is unaffected. A low result in that context describes the joint rather than the person.

Manual workers and climbers sit at the other end. Years of loaded gripping produce a result well above the norms for the age band without saying anything additional about general health, so the score loses its discriminating power at the top.

What would change our answer is a trial showing that raising grip strength specifically, rather than raising total strength, changes outcomes. No such evidence exists, and it is unlikely to, because the marker is valuable precisely as a proxy. Until then, measure it once properly at a clinic, repeat it in twelve months under the same protocol, and put the training effort into the compound lifts the score is really reporting on.

Reading Grip Alongside the Rest of a Longevity Panel

Grip strength and cardiorespiratory fitness measure different systems and both predict outcomes independently. VO2 max reports on the heart, lungs and oxygen delivery. Grip reports on muscle and neurological function. A person can be strong and unfit or fit and weak, and the two together describe more than either does alone.

Add gait speed if you are over 65, since it is free to measure, takes four metres of corridor, and carries a mortality signal of its own. Our guide to what biological age means covers how functional measures like these compare to the blood-based clocks. Book a clinic dynamometer reading, note the date and protocol, and diarise the repeat for twelve months.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a normal grip strength for my age?

For men, average dominant-hand grip peaks around 52 to 56 kg in the thirties. It falls to roughly 39 to 43 kg by the sixties and 27 to 31 kg past 80. For women the same curve runs from about 32 to 35 kg at peak to 24 to 27 kg in the sixties and 17 to 20 kg past 80. Published norms vary by a few kilograms between datasets. Device, hand position and protocol all shift the number, so compare your result against one reference set rather than mixing them.

What grip strength indicates sarcopenia?

Under 27 kg for men and under 16 kg for women, using the 2019 thresholds from the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People. The Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia uses 28 kg and 18 kg against its own population norms. Those numbers sit far below the age-group averages, so most people worried about a declining grip are nowhere near a clinical threshold. A 70-year-old man at 34 kg sits well below his own thirties peak and still 7 kg above the cutpoint. Low grip strength alone is not a sarcopenia diagnosis, which also requires a muscle-mass measurement.

How do you test grip strength properly?

Sit with your feet flat, shoulder down and against your side, elbow bent to 90 degrees and forearm in a neutral position. Then squeeze a hand dynamometer as hard as you can for about three seconds. Take three attempts per hand with 30 to 60 seconds of rest between them, and record the highest value. Standing, bracing your elbow against your body, or leaning into the squeeze all inflate the reading. A result from a fairground machine or a phone accessory is not comparable to a clinical one.

Does grip strength predict mortality?

It predicts it well as an association across large populations. The PURE study, published in The Lancet in 2015, followed roughly 140,000 adults across 17 countries. Each 5 kg reduction in grip strength was associated with about a 16% higher risk of death from any cause. In that cohort grip strength predicted cardiovascular death better than systolic blood pressure did. The data does not show that squeezing harder makes you live longer, and that distinction decides what you do about a low score.

Can you improve your grip strength?

Yes, and the useful version of the answer is that you improve it by training your whole body rather than your hands. Deadlifts, rows, farmer carries, pull-ups and loaded hangs all build the forearm and hand musculature while adding the total-body strength the score is standing in for. Grip trainers and squeeze balls raise the number on the dynamometer without changing much else, which improves your measurement more than your position. Expect a measurable change after roughly eight to twelve weeks of consistent resistance training.

Does grip strength indicate testosterone levels?

Only weakly, and not well enough to use as a personal screening test. The Testosterone Trials reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2016 produced small gains in lean mass and strength in older men, and the physical function endpoint was not met. Age, training history, body size and joint health all influence grip far more than testosterone does, so your own grip number is not a hormone estimate. If low testosterone is the question, our page on the signs of low testosterone covers which symptoms actually track the blood work.

What dynamometer should you buy?

A hydraulic dynamometer of the Jamar type is the device most published norms were generated on, and it is what a clinic will use. Consumer digital models costing $25 to $60 are usually consistent with themselves while reading differently from a hydraulic device, sometimes by several kilograms. That makes them fine for tracking your own trend across a year and unreliable for comparing yourself against a published table. If the number matters, ask for a measurement at a clinic rather than buying a device.

Is grip strength a good measure of biological age?

It is one input rather than a measure in itself. Grip strength tracks total muscle mass, nutritional status, neurological function and general health at once, which is why it predicts outcomes so consistently. It is also slow to move, cheap to measure and free of the assay questions that affect blood-based markers. Read it alongside VO2 max, which measures a different system, and our guide to what biological age actually means covers where both fit.

Related