How the Elizabeth Calculator Works

"Elizabeth" is one of CrossFit's classic benchmark couplets: 21-15-9 reps of squat cleans at 135 lb (men) / 95 lb (women) paired with ring dips, all for time (45 of each movement, 90 reps total). It blends heavy Olympic-lifting (the squat cleans demand leg drive, bar speed, and front-squat strength) with hard gymnastics pressing (the ring dips tax the triceps, shoulders, and the stability of working on rings). You performed the workout, so your time is the measurement; this tool places it into one of five tiers, adjusted for age. The squat clean is the catch-in-a-full-squat cousin of this site's power clean calculator.

An Honest Note on the Data

Most calculators in this suite are built on a peer-reviewed study of the CrossFit population. Elizabeth is not in that study. Its tiers come instead from community benchmark data that agrees closely across sources (WodStar's RX goal times: Elite under 3:00, then 3–4, 4–7, 7–10; przilla's advanced 4–6 and intermediate 7–10; gyms reporting fast times of 6–7). We've mapped those onto the five-tier scale (Elite ≤3:30, Superior ≤4:30, Advanced ≤6:00, Intermediate ≤9:00 at peak age).

What that means for you, honestly:

• It's solid community data, but not a controlled study. The times come from coaching guidance and logged results across a broad field, not a measured research sample. Treat the tiers as a good guide rather than a precise cutoff.
• The data isn't split by sex, and it looks male-leaning. Because the tiers aren't sex-split, women are effectively measured against a mixed, male-leaning field — see the next section.
• The ring dips are a skill gate. Strict ring dips are hard, and doing them on rings adds a stability demand a bar doesn't. If you can't yet cycle them, the dips will dominate your time — your result then reflects that gymnastics skill, not your barbell capacity or engine.
• The percentile, distribution curve, and "conditioning age" are modeled on this data — read them as illustrative, not exact.

Step 1: Enter Your Time (Rx Only)

Elizabeth is scored in minutes and seconds — lower is better. The standards assume the Rx version: 135 lb (men) / 95 lb (women) squat cleans and full-range ring dips (shoulders below the elbows at the bottom, full lockout at the top). Scaling — lighter cleans, power cleans instead of squat cleans, or banded / jumping / bar dips — produces faster times that aren't comparable, so a scaled time scored here would read as artificially strong. If you scaled, treat your result as rough.

Step 2: Match Your Time to Standards

Your time is compared to age-adjusted cutoffs and assigned to one of five tiers (faster is better):

• Low — Slower than about 9:00. Below the community median — usually cleans broken into singles and multiple long breaks on the dips.
• Intermediate — Roughly 6:00–9:00. Around the middle of the Rx field; a solid, honest Elizabeth.
• Advanced — Roughly 4:30–6:00. Efficient clean cycling and near-unbroken dip sets — faster than most (~P75–P90).
• Superior — Roughly 3:30–4:30. Big touch-and-go clean sets and fast, composed ring dips (~P90–P95).
• Elite — Under about 3:30. Top ~5% of the Rx field; competitive athletes go well under this. See the note below.

These band edges come from the community benchmark times, mapped onto the five-tier scale and then adjusted for age.

What "Elite" Means Here — an Honest Caveat

"Elite" here is roughly the top 5% of the Rx field (about 3:30 at peak age), not the competitive ceiling. The very top of the sport is far faster: the fastest athletes finish Elizabeth in well under 3 minutes, cycling the 135 lb cleans in big touch-and-go sets and blasting the ring dips near-unbroken. Read "Elite" as "excellent for a serious recreational athlete," with real competitive Elizabeths sitting below it.

Why Men's and Women's Standards Are the Same Here — and Why That's a Caveat, Not a Feature

Unlike Grace or Isabel — barbell-only sprints where a sex-scaled bar lets women reach essentially the same times as men — Elizabeth has a real sex gap. The 135/95 lb squat cleans are a smaller relative load for many men, and the ring dips are a bodyweight pressing movement where men hold a clear average advantage in upper-body strength. So men are genuinely faster at Elizabeth on average.

The tiers here are nonetheless set equal for men and women — not because the workout is fair across sexes, but because the community data isn't split by sex and appears male-leaning, and inventing a female offset without data would violate this site's data-integrity rule. The honest consequence: a woman hitting a given tier is doing better, relative to women, than the same tier implies for a man. If you're a woman, read your result as a strong showing and mentally shade it up a tier.

Why Age Matters — and a Note on the Borrowed Curve

Elizabeth is a roughly three-to-nine-minute all-out effort — short and glycolytic, powered largely by high-intensity anaerobic capacity, with aerobic fitness helping you recover between sets. That capacity fades with age, so standards are scaled so an older athlete isn't measured against a 30-year-old's time.

The honest part: there's no age-banded Elizabeth data, so the peak-age cutoffs are the community times described above, while the shape of the age decline is borrowed — the same anaerobic/conditioning-decline curve used for the other metcons (roughly 1% per year from the mid-30s, accelerating after about 70). Both the base cutoffs and the age shape are estimates, not measurement.

Why Bodyweight Isn't Used to Set Your Tier

Elizabeth isn't weight-adjusted: the tier depends only on your time. That said, bodyweight isn't perfectly neutral — the ring dips reward a strong relative (strength-to-bodyweight) athlete, while the fixed-load cleans favour a stronger athlete regardless of size. With no weight classes and no bodyweight data for Elizabeth, a single time-based standard is the fair approach; just know a very light or very heavy athlete may find one movement easier and the other harder than the tiers imply.

The Cards

• Your Time & Tier — your Elizabeth time, your tier, and how much you'd need to trim to reach the next one.
• Conditioning Age — the age whose typical Elizabeth time matches yours. Because anaerobic capacity peaks in the mid-20s to mid-30s, a time faster than any age's typical mark reads as "peak-conditioning level"; slower times map to an older conditioning age.
• Population Comparison — a modeled percentile: roughly what fraction of athletes in your age group you'd be faster than.

Where You Fall

The distribution curve places your time within a modeled, illustrative spread of athletes of your sex and age, shaded into the five tiers, with faster times to the right. It's a visual sense of "how rare is this," not a literal population census.

Data Sources and Verification

• Community benchmark data — Elizabeth's tier bands come from sources that agree closely: WodStar RX goal times (Elite <3:00, then 3–4 / 4–7 / 7–10), przilla (advanced 4–6, intermediate 7–10), and gym reports of fast 6–7 times, mapped onto the five-tier scale.
• Cross-checked reported top times — Sub-3:00 elite finishes and the common "most athletes 6–10 min" range are consistent across coaching sources.
• Not the peer-reviewed study — Unlike the strength lifts, Elizabeth isn't in the CrossFit-population study; its data is community-sourced.
• Masters anaerobic-decline research — The age-adjustment curve is borrowed from established masters conditioning/aging data.

Limitations and Important Caveats

• Not sex-split, and male-leaning — The single biggest caveat: men and women share one set of tiers even though Elizabeth genuinely favours men (fixed-load cleans + ring dips). Women should read a given tier as a stronger result than it implies for a man.
• Community data, not a controlled study — Coaching-guidance and logged times across a broad field, coarser and less precise than the study-based calculators.
• Ring-dip skill gate — Strict ring dips (and the stability of working on rings) can matter more than fitness; if you can't yet cycle them, your time reflects that skill, not your engine.
• Squat-clean skill and strength — The 135/95 lb cleans reward technique and front-squat strength; a weaker or less-practiced lifter will spend far longer on the barbell.
• Modeled percentile and distribution — the percentile, curve, and conditioning age are illustrative estimates layered on the community data.
• Rx assumption — Standards are for 135/95 lb squat cleans and full-range ring dips; scaled versions (lighter load, power cleans, banded/bar dips) aren't comparable.

Disclaimer:
This calculator provides an estimate based on community benchmark data and a modeled age curve — not peer-reviewed measurement. Elizabeth is a high-intensity effort that taxes the legs, shoulders, and triceps, with ring dips a common spot for shoulder strain and failed reps as fatigue builds. Warm up properly, scale the load and the dips to your ability, keep control on the rings, protect the shoulders, and stop if you feel faint, dizzy, or a sharp pain. This tool is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered medical, fitness, or training advice. Consult a healthcare provider before beginning a new training program, especially if you have pre-existing injuries or conditions.