Built from 1,366,901 verified lifts · updated Sep 2026
Deadlift Strength Standards: Average, Good & Elite
Among people who compete, the average man deadlifts about 480 lb218 kg; the average woman, about 285 lb129 kg. Here is where every number sits, by bodyweight, age and sex, on the same six-level scale Stronger uses.
Men · 180 lb82 kg bodyweight
six levels · one-rep max
- Beginner
- from the bar
- Novice
- from 270122
- Intermediate
- from 360163
- Advanced
- from 450204
- Elite
- from 540245
- World Class
- from 648294
Women · 140 lb64 kg bodyweight
Find your rank
Where does your deadlift sit?
Your bodyweight, your best set, and the level you are at right now, against lifters your size. One rep is a one-rep max; a set of up to twelve gets estimated.
1 rep = your one-rep max. Enter a set of up to 12 reps and we estimate it (Epley).
Calculations run in your browser. We measure usage, including strength levels and broad bodyweight ranges.
Your deadlift
480lb
Advanced
at or above 58% of men competing in the data at your bodyweight
A 2.67× bodyweight deadlift is Advanced for a 180 lb82 kg man. Elite starts at 540 lb245 kg, 60 lb27 kg away.
Standards by bodyweight
Deadlift standards for men and women
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite | World Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| under 14365 | 4520<1% | 198903% | 26512015% | 33115040% | 39718070% | 47621693% |
| 14365–16575 | 4520<1% | 2311052% | 3091409% | 38617530% | 46321068% | 55625295% |
| 16575–18785avg man | 4520<1% | 2651202% | 35316010% | 44120040% | 52924080% | 63528898% |
| 18785–20995 | 4520<1% | 2981352% | 39718012% | 49622550% | 59527087% | 71432499% |
| 20995–231105 | 4520<1% | 3311503% | 44120018% | 55125062% | 66130094% | 794360100% |
| 231105–254115 | 4520<1% | 3641655% | 48522030% | 60627577% | 72833098% | 873396100% |
| 254115–276125 | 4520<1% | 3971806% | 52924040% | 66130085% | 79436099% | 952432100% |
| 276125+ | 4520<1% | 43819915% | 58426562% | 73033195% | 876397100% | 1,052477100% |
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite | World Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| under 12155 | 45201% | 110501% | 138633% | 1938820% | 27612575% | 33115095% |
| 12155–14365avg woman | 4520<1% | 13260<1% | 165753% | 23110525% | 33115085% | 39718098% |
| 14365–16575 | 4520<1% | 15470<1% | 193884% | 27012235% | 38617592% | 46321099% |
| 16575–18785 | 4520<1% | 176802% | 2201008% | 30914050% | 44120097% | 529240100% |
| 18785–20995 | 4520<1% | 198904% | 24811217% | 34715772% | 49622599% | 595270100% |
| 20995–231105 | 4520<1% | 2201006% | 27612525% | 38617585% | 551250100% | 661300100% |
| 231105+ | 4520<1% | 24811212% | 31014141% | 43419793% | 620281100% | 744337100% |
Each cell is the floor of its level for a lifter in the middle of that bodyweight bracket. The app works from your exact bodyweight, so a 180 lb82 kg man who deadlifts 450 lb204 kg is Advanced, and stays Advanced until 540 lb245 kg. Beginner starts at the empty bar, because everyone starts there. Find your row by bodyweight (the top bracket is open-ended), read across, and the column your best single sits under is roughly your level; the Find-your-rank tool above gives the exact answer for your bodyweight.
Distribution
How rare is a good deadlift?
Every tested one-rep max in the data, men, all bodyweights. 76% of them have deadlifted 405 lb; 43% have deadlifted 500.
By age
Deadlift by age
The teenage years are where the number changes fastest. Nobody has measured a representative teen average, so we show the median among boys who compete in our data instead: 243 lb110 kg at 13, 452 lb205 kg at 18, a competition benchmark for each age. Each age has its own page, with its own standards by bodyweight.
boys, median competitor girls, median competitorage · lbkg · among lifters of that age who compete in our data
Milestones
The plates, and who gets there
Deadlift milestones are counted in 45s. Two plates a side is 225; four is 405, the number the whole gym knows. Here is what each rung means for a 180 lb82 kg man, and how many men in the data have reached it.
How we calculate
Where these numbers come from
Percentiles are built from 1,366,901 verified deadlift attempts by 480,472 lifters, updated September 2026. We show the method so you can judge it.
The distribution. Our percentiles come from competition results in the OpenPowerlifting open dataset: each lifter's best successful raw deadlift, with sex, bodyweight and age recorded at the meet. These numbers describe competitive powerlifters, people who entered a sanctioned meet and trained for it. They are stronger than the general gym population, and far stronger than the general public. We say so wherever a percentile appears. Drug-tested divisions deadlift less at the median than untested ones (men: 474 lb vs 496 lb); the headline numbers pool both.
The levels. Six bands, the same six Stronger uses to score every lift in the app, and read the same way. The app divides your best estimated one-rep max by your bodyweight and compares it with a set of multipliers for each lift, so each cutoff is the floor of its band for that bodyweight, and crossing it puts you in. World Class starts at 1.2 times the Elite floor. We do not redraw the scale from the competition data; we put the competition percentile beside every floor so you can see how rare each level is among people who compete.
The lift. The standards assume a barbell deadlift from the floor on a standard bar, conventional or sumo, no straps, pulled in one movement, locked out and held. That is the lift a meet judges and the one the competition percentiles come from. Trap-bar pulls, rack pulls and strapped maxes are different lifts.
Testing a one-rep max. Warm up to it in jumps that get smaller as the bar gets heavier, take three to five minutes between the last attempts, and keep the back set and put the bar down the moment the position goes; a deadlift needs no spotter. If you would rather not max out, take a set of two to six clean reps and let the calculator estimate it; the Epley formula we use is accurate to within a few percent under ten reps.
- Beginner
- Can perform the movement with the empty bar or light weight; strength is still mostly a skill and nervous-system story.
- Novice
- Ahead of most people who do not train. Typically a few months of consistent, progressive work.
- Intermediate
- Ahead of the majority of regular gym-goers. Usually one to two years of structured training.
- Advanced
- Rare in a commercial gym. Years of programming, technique and bodyweight management.
- Elite
- The second-highest band on Stronger’s scale. Competition rankings are shown separately.
- World Class
- The highest band on Stronger’s scale, not a claim of a federation record or qualification.
Sources
- OpenPowerlifting open datasetOpenPowerlifting project2026-09-05CC0Percentile curves, milestone shares, age curves and population counts: 480,472 raw lifters (best successful competition deadlift each), sanctioned meets only, para and equipped divisions excluded.
- Stronger's Strength Score scale for the deadliftStrongerThe six level floors per sex and bodyweight bracket, exactly as the app scores a lift.
- Youth Resistance Training: Updated Position Statement Paper From the National Strength and Conditioning AssociationNational Strength and Conditioning Association / Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research2009-08NSCA: Youth Resistance Training: Updated Position Statement Paper From the National Strength and Conditioning Association
- Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology position paper: resistance training in children and adolescentsCanadian Society for Exercise Physiology / Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism; abstract hosted by NLM2008-06Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology: Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology position paper: resistance training in children and adolescents
- Strength TrainingAmerican Academy of Pediatrics / HealthyChildren.org2011-07-08American Academy of Pediatrics: Strength Training
1 more cited source
- Strength Level deadlift standardsStrength LevelA published table we compare our six levels against (self-submitted user data).
What moves the number
Why your deadlift is where it is
Four things explain most of the gap between any two lifters. In order of how much they matter.
Bodyweight
The biggest predictor. The Advanced line for men runs from 331 lb150 kg at 132 lb60 kg to 730 lb331 kg at 292 lb132 kg+. Lighter lifters pull the highest multiples of their bodyweight of any lift, which is why a deadlift number needs a bodyweight beside it to mean anything.
Stance
Conventional or sumo, both count, at a meet and in the app. Sumo shortens the pull and asks more of the hips; conventional asks more of the back and hamstrings. Which one you pull more with is mostly leverages: long arms and a short torso favour conventional, long legs favour sumo. Try both for a block each and keep the one that moves, then stop switching. Our deadlift guide walks through the set-up for each.
Grip
The deadlift is the one lift where the hands can fail before the legs and back do. Every competition number on this page was pulled without straps, because a meet does not allow them, so a strapped max is a different lift. Mixed grip and hook grip are both legal and both fine; chalk is not optional past a certain weight. If your grip is what stops the bar, train it on its own instead of strapping past it.
Training age
Not your age, your years of consistent, progressive pulling. The deadlift moves fast in the first year, and most men who pull once or twice a week reach Intermediate inside it. It is also the lift that punishes too much heavy work: Advanced is built on fewer maximal pulls than most people expect, spaced further apart, and Elite is years of that patience.
Men and women
Deadlift standards for women
The deadlift is where the gap between men and women is narrowest, because it is a hip-and-back lift and women carry proportionally more of their muscle below the waist. It is still a gap wide enough that scoring a woman's pull against the men's table would misplace almost every woman, so the women's standards are their own table, built from women's lifts, and we never score a woman against the men's numbers.
For a 140 lb64 kg woman: Novice from 140 lb64 kg, Intermediate from 175 lb79 kg, Advanced from 245 lb111 kg, Elite from 350 lb159 kg. A bodyweight deadlift is a first milestone for a woman, not a ceiling; two plates a side is Intermediate for her and three plates is Advanced.
The full women's standards, by age and weightWomen · all tested lifts
The questions everyone asks
Is 225, 315, 405 or 500 a good deadlift?
Short answers, for the reference lifter. Each number has its own page with the answer by bodyweight and age.
Is 225 lb102 kg a good deadlift?
Beginner for a 180 lb82 kg man
98% of men in the data have lifted it, which is most lifters.
Full answer
Is 315 lb143 kg a good deadlift?
Novice for a 180 lb82 kg man
92% of men in the data have lifted it, which is most lifters.
Full answer
Is 405 lb184 kg a good deadlift?
Intermediate for a 180 lb82 kg man
76% of men in the data have lifted it, which is most lifters.
Full answer
Is 500 lb227 kg a good deadlift?
Advanced for a 180 lb82 kg man
43% of men in the data have lifted it, about 1 in 2.
Full answer
One-rep max
How to estimate your deadlift max
You do not need to max out to know your max. Take a set you are sure of, somewhere between two and six reps, and multiply the weight by one plus the reps over thirty. That is Epley's formula, and under ten reps it is accurate to within a few percent. Five reps at 315 lb predicts about 367 lb; three reps at 405 predicts about 445.
The estimate drifts as reps climb, because a twelve-rep set tests endurance as much as strength, so we cap the Find-your-rank module at twelve. On the deadlift the formula runs conservative for most lifters: grip and the back give out before the legs do on a long set, so a heavy set of three predicts the single better than a set of eight. Reset every rep on the floor; touch-and-go reps borrow bounce the single will not have.
| Reps | Weight | Predicted max |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 405 lb184 kg | 405 lb184 kg |
| 2 | 380 lb172 kg | 405 lb184 kg |
| 3 | 370 lb168 kg | 407 lb185 kg |
| 5 | 345 lb156 kg | 403 lb183 kg |
| 8 | 320 lb145 kg | 405 lb184 kg |
| 10 | 305 lb138 kg | 407 lb185 kg |
Getting stronger
How to add fifty pounds to your deadlift
If you are below the line you want to be on, this is the order we would fix things in.
Pull heavy once, light once
One heavy day (sets of two to five) and one lighter, faster day (sets of five to eight, or paused pulls) beats two heavy days. The deadlift is the lift that punishes too much heavy work; most stalled pulls are recovery problems wearing a strength costume.
Set the back before the bar moves
Bar over midfoot, shins to the bar, chest up, big breath, then pull the slack out until the bar bends before it leaves the floor. A rounded back that rounds further under load is the miss to be afraid of, and it is fixed in the set-up, not the pull.
Train the sticking point
If the bar is slow off the floor, you need legs and speed: deficit pulls, pause pulls an inch up, and squats. If it stalls at the knee or the lockout, you need back and glutes: rack pulls, Romanian deadlifts, heavy rows. Diagnose where it dies before you add assistance work.
Fix the grip, then forget it
Chalk, a hook or mixed grip, and one heavy hold a week. A grip that fails at 405 makes every number on this page read as a grip standard instead of a deadlift standard. Straps are fine for volume work; they are not fine for the number you log against these tables.
In competition
Powerlifting deadlift standards
A competition deadlift is stricter than a gym deadlift: one continuous pull with no downward movement, no resting the bar on the thighs, no hitching, a full lockout with the shoulders back, and the bar held until the down command. Conventional and sumo both count; straps do not. A pull with straps, a hitch or a trap bar is not directly interchangeable with a judged competition result. Our percentiles describe competition results on a standard bar; the six strength levels belong to Stronger’s scale.
Elite and World Class are labels on Stronger's scale, not federation qualifications or record predictions. The competition percentiles show how those thresholds compare with measured lifts.
Safety
Deadlift safely
Learn the deadlift setup with a qualified coach and follow your gym’s equipment instructions.
Stop the exercise if it hurts. Persistent or sudden pain needs assessment rather than a technique diagnosis from a benchmark page. Young lifters should train with qualified supervision; see the AAP’s strength-training guidance.
Questions people ask
Deadlift standards, answered
What is the average deadlift?
In our data the average man deadlifts about 480 lb218 kg for one rep and the average woman about 285 lb129 kg. Those are one-rep maxes among people who train and test the lift, not the general population, and they move a lot with bodyweight. The tables above give the number for your weight.
What is a good deadlift?
For a 180 lb82 kg man, Intermediate starts at 360 lb163 kg and Advanced at 450 lb204 kg; for a 140 lb64 kg woman, Intermediate starts at 175 lb79 kg and Advanced at 245 lb111 kg. We would call anything Intermediate or above a good deadlift. It is stronger than most people who lift.
How many people can deadlift 405?
About 76% of the men in our data have deadlifted 405 lb, which is most lifters. Among men who do not train it is far rarer. The 405 page has the number by bodyweight and age.
Do straps count?
Not on this page. Straps are not allowed at a meet, so every percentile here was pulled with bare hands and chalk, and a strapped max is a different lift. If your grip is the limit, the honest number is the one your hands can hold. Log which way you pulled and compare like with like; Stronger scores whatever you log.
What are the deadlift standards in kg?
Every number on this page switches to kilograms with the lb/kg toggle. For a 82 kg man the cutoffs are Novice 122 kg, Intermediate 163 kg, Advanced 204 kg, Elite 245 kg and World Class 294 kg.
How does age change the standards?
Deadlift strength rises through the teens, peaks in the late twenties to thirties and declines slowly after forty. Nobody has measured a representative teen average, so we do not print one; among 15-year-old boys who compete in our data the median is 347 lb157 kg, a competition benchmark for that age. The by-age page has the median for every age from 13 up, and each teen age has its own scale by bodyweight.
How do I find my one-rep max without maxing out?
Take a set of two to six clean reps with a weight you are sure of and use the Epley estimate: weight × (1 + reps ÷ 30). Five reps at 185 lb predicts about 216 lb. Our 1RM calculator does the arithmetic, and the Find-your-rank module above accepts a set instead of a max.
Does the deadlift weight include the bar?
Yes. Every number on this page is the total on the bar, bar included, which is how a lift is recorded at a meet and how Stronger logs it. A standard barbell weighs 45 lb20 kg, so a 45 lb plate on each side is 135 lb61 kg, the “one plate” deadlift, and two plates a side is 225 lb102 kg. If your gym's bar is lighter or a machine adds its own resistance, the number is not comparable.
Does sumo count as a deadlift?
Yes. Sumo and conventional are both legal at a meet, both are in our percentiles, and the app scores them the same. Sumo shortens the pull and many lifters pull more with it. Pick the one your leverages favour and stay with it long enough for the number to mean something.
Do trap bar deadlift standards exist?
Not here. A trap bar puts the load beside you instead of in front, with high handles that shorten the pull, so most people trap-bar deadlift more than they pull from a straight bar. Our percentiles are straight-bar competition pulls, and the six levels on this page are for the barbell deadlift. Log a trap-bar pull as its own exercise and compare it with itself.
Are these numbers averages of everyone, gym members or powerlifters?
Competitors. The percentiles come from 1,366,901 verified deadlift attempts by 480,472 lifters in the OpenPowerlifting open dataset, so every “% of men” on this page means men who entered a powerlifting meet. These numbers describe competitive powerlifters, people who entered a sanctioned meet and trained for it. They are stronger than the general gym population, and far stronger than the general public. The six levels are a different thing. They are Stronger's scale, the same one the app scores every lift on, and we put the competition percentile beside each level so the two never blur.
Why do different strength-standard sites give different answers?
Because they measure different people in different ways. Strength Level's tables are built from lifts its users log; ours are competition results with a judge watching. None of them is wrong about its own population, and none of them is the average of everyone. The Methodology section on this page lists every published table we cross-checked against, so you can see where each number comes from.
Sources: Strength Level deadlift standards (Strength Level)
Track your strength level, every lift, every workout.
The tables above are a snapshot. Stronger scores every set you log on its strength scale, adjusted for your bodyweight and sex, and shows you which muscle is holding your deadlift back. This is the Strength Score, and it is the reason the app exists.
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Levels: Beginner, Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Elite, World Class. Average man 480 lb.