Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

Real judged lifts. Zero self-reported numbers. This is what strong actually is.

Verdict

Is a 120 kg deadlift good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 2nd percentile of 24,058 judged lifts — novice. At other bodyweights the answer changes, and the table below gives all of them.

The short answer

At 82.5–87.5 kg bodyweight, 120 kg is the 2nd percentile of judged lifts — novice among people who compete.

Intermediate Advanced Elite World-class 0255075100 100140180220260300 kg lifted →
kg

Percentile

24,058 judged deadlifts, men, 82.5–87.5 kg

No lift entered. The curve is every judged deadlifts in this class — add yours to it.

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·24,058 judged deadlifts, men, 82.5–87.5 kg·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Not your class?

120 kg is 265 lb. The chart is preloaded with it — change the number to check your own.

From 1.8 million judged lifts to one percentile

  1. Take only judged lifts. Every row is an attempt performed on a competition platform in front of three referees. Anything from a phone, a survey or a training log is not in the archive at all.
  2. Drop equipped lifts. Raw only — no squat suits, no bench shirts. A suit is worth tens of kilos and would silently inflate every figure on the page.
  3. Count each lifter once, at their best. Somebody who competes twenty times is one data point, not twenty, so the curve is a population of people rather than a population of meets.
  4. Split by sex and 5 kg bodyweight class, then by age band. A lift is a different achievement at 60 kg and at 120 kg, so a single national average would be an average of two different questions.
  5. Sort the class and read off the 99 cut points. Your percentile is the position of your lift in that sorted list — not a score, a rank against named people.
  6. Publish nothing thin. A slice with fewer than 500 lifters is not given a page: its tails would be noise dressed as a standard.
percentile(x)  =  100 × count(best_raw ≤ x) ÷ n

  class   =   sex  ×  5 kg bodyweight bucket  [ ×  age band ]
  n       =   lifters in that class, each counted once, at their best
  x       =   your lift, in kilograms

  band    =   01–19  novice        50–79  advanced      95–99  world class
              20–49  intermediate  80–94  elite

The full method, including what is excluded and why →

What 120 kg means at every bodyweight

The same lift is a different achievement at 60 kg and at 120 kg. This is the whole answer, not one row of it.

Men

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 74th Advanced 95.0
52.5–57.5 kg 35th Intermediate 135.0
57.5–62.5 kg 16th Novice 160.0
62.5–67.5 kg 6th Novice 180.5
67.5–72.5 kg 5th Novice 185.0
72.5–77.5 kg 2nd Novice 200.0
77.5–82.5 kg 1st Novice 212.5
82.5–87.5 kg 2nd Novice 215.0
87.5–92.5 kg <1 Novice 227.5
92.5–97.5 kg 1st Novice 230.0
97.5–102.5 kg <1 Novice 237.5
102.5–107.5 kg <1 Novice 245.0
107.5–112.5 kg <1 Novice 245.0
112.5–117.5 kg <1 Novice 245.0
117.5–122.5 kg <1 Novice 255.0
122.5–127.5 kg <1 Novice 250.0
127.5–132.5 kg <1 Novice 250.0
132.5–137.5 kg <1 Novice 255.0
137.5 kg and above <1 Novice 257.5

Women

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 74th Advanced 105.0
52.5–57.5 kg 55th Advanced 117.5
57.5–62.5 kg 47th Intermediate 122.5
62.5–67.5 kg 39th Intermediate 130.0
67.5–72.5 kg 33rd Intermediate 132.5
72.5–77.5 kg 27th Intermediate 140.0
77.5–82.5 kg 25th Intermediate 140.0
82.5–87.5 kg 26th Intermediate 140.0
87.5–92.5 kg 23rd Intermediate 140.6
92.5–97.5 kg 23rd Intermediate 142.5
97.5–102.5 kg 20th Intermediate 145.0
102.5–107.5 kg 20th Intermediate 145.0
107.5–112.5 kg 19th Novice 147.9
112.5–117.5 kg 20th Intermediate 147.5
117.5–122.5 kg 15th Novice 150.0
122.5–127.5 kg 15th Novice 154.2
137.5 kg and above 16th Novice 152.5

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·120 kg scored against every published deadlift class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
120.02ndNovice
130.03rdNovice
140.04thNovice
150.06thNovice

Men at 82.5–87.5 kg bodyweight. Percentile gained per 10 kg, so you can see what the next plate is actually worth.

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·24,058 judged deadlifts, men 82.5–87.5 kg·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Is a 120 kg deadlift good? — the short answers

Is a 120 kg deadlift good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 120 kg (265 lb) is the 2nd percentile of 24,058 judged competition deadlifts, which this site labels novice. Everyone in that comparison entered a powerlifting meet, so they are stronger than the general gym population.

Does bodyweight change the answer?

Substantially. The same 120 kg is the 74th percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and below the 1st percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.

What would take a 120 kg deadlift into the top fifth?

At 82.5–87.5 kg the 80th percentile — the cut-off this site calls elite — is 245 kg (540 lb). That is 125 kg more than 120 kg.

Who these numbers describe. Everyone in this dataset entered a powerlifting competition. They are stronger than the general gym population, so a 50th percentile here is well above an average gym-goer — we would rather tell you that than quietly flatter you. Nobody has ever published a trustworthy random sample of what people lift in commercial gyms; what exists instead is app data that people type in themselves.

See all 10 sites in this family, with what each one answers

Published by

Amit Sharma

Auckland real-estate agent and marketer. Builds free, sourced data tools.