Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

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

Verdict

Is a 130 kg squat good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 9th percentile of 20,457 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, 130 kg is the 9th percentile of judged lifts — novice among people who compete.

Intermediate Advanced Elite World-class 0255075100 80110140170200230260 kg lifted →
kg

Percentile

20,457 judged squats, men, 82.5–87.5 kg

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

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·20,457 judged squats, men, 82.5–87.5 kg·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Not your class?

130 kg is 287 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 130 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 94th Elite 72.5
52.5–57.5 kg 77th Advanced 106.6
57.5–62.5 kg 54th Advanced 127.5
62.5–67.5 kg 30th Intermediate 150.0
67.5–72.5 kg 26th Intermediate 152.5
72.5–77.5 kg 14th Novice 170.0
77.5–82.5 kg 7th Novice 182.5
82.5–87.5 kg 9th Novice 185.0
87.5–92.5 kg 5th Novice 197.5
92.5–97.5 kg 6th Novice 200.0
97.5–102.5 kg 4th Novice 210.0
102.5–107.5 kg 3rd Novice 217.5
107.5–112.5 kg 4th Novice 217.5
112.5–117.5 kg 3rd Novice 222.5
117.5–122.5 kg 2nd Novice 235.0
122.5–127.5 kg 4th Novice 229.1
127.5–132.5 kg 4th Novice 230.0
132.5–137.5 kg 2nd Novice 240.0
137.5 kg and above 3rd Novice 245.0

Women

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 97th World-class 82.5
52.5–57.5 kg 92nd Elite 95.0
57.5–62.5 kg 88th Elite 100.0
62.5–67.5 kg 81st Elite 107.5
67.5–72.5 kg 76th Advanced 111.0
72.5–77.5 kg 68th Advanced 117.5
77.5–82.5 kg 66th Advanced 117.5
82.5–87.5 kg 64th Advanced 120.0
87.5–92.5 kg 63rd Advanced 120.0
92.5–97.5 kg 62nd Advanced 120.0
97.5–102.5 kg 53rd Advanced 127.5
102.5–107.5 kg 53rd Advanced 127.5
107.5–112.5 kg 51st Advanced 130.0
112.5–117.5 kg 48th Intermediate 132.5
117.5–122.5 kg 44th Intermediate 137.5
122.5–127.5 kg 39th Intermediate 142.0
137.5 kg and above 41st Intermediate 142.5

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·130 kg scored against every published squat class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
130.09thNovice
140.014thNovice
150.020thIntermediate
160.028thIntermediate

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)·20,457 judged squats, men 82.5–87.5 kg·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Is a 130 kg squat good? — the short answers

Is a 130 kg squat good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 130 kg (287 lb) is the 9th percentile of 20,457 judged competition squats, 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 130 kg is the 94th percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and the 3rd percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.

What would take a 130 kg squat into the top fifth?

At 82.5–87.5 kg the 80th percentile — the cut-off this site calls elite — is 215 kg (474 lb). That is 85 kg more than 130 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.