Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

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

Verdict

Is a 180 kg squat good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 46th percentile of 20,457 judged lifts — intermediate. At other bodyweights the answer changes, and the table below gives all of them.

The short answer

At 82.5–87.5 kg bodyweight, 180 kg is the 46th percentile of judged lifts — intermediate 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?

180 kg is 397 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 180 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 99+ World-class 72.5
52.5–57.5 kg 98th World-class 106.6
57.5–62.5 kg 94th Elite 127.5
62.5–67.5 kg 82nd Elite 150.0
67.5–72.5 kg 79th Advanced 152.5
72.5–77.5 kg 62nd Advanced 170.0
77.5–82.5 kg 48th Intermediate 182.5
82.5–87.5 kg 46th Intermediate 185.0
87.5–92.5 kg 32nd Intermediate 197.5
92.5–97.5 kg 31st Intermediate 200.0
97.5–102.5 kg 24th Intermediate 210.0
102.5–107.5 kg 18th Novice 217.5
107.5–112.5 kg 20th Intermediate 217.5
112.5–117.5 kg 18th Novice 222.5
117.5–122.5 kg 14th Novice 235.0
122.5–127.5 kg 17th Novice 229.1
127.5–132.5 kg 17th Novice 230.0
132.5–137.5 kg 12th Novice 240.0
137.5 kg and above 12th Novice 245.0

Women

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 99+ World-class 82.5
52.5–57.5 kg 99+ World-class 95.0
57.5–62.5 kg 99+ World-class 100.0
62.5–67.5 kg 99+ World-class 107.5
67.5–72.5 kg 99th World-class 111.0
72.5–77.5 kg 97th World-class 117.5
77.5–82.5 kg 98th World-class 117.5
82.5–87.5 kg 96th World-class 120.0
87.5–92.5 kg 96th World-class 120.0
92.5–97.5 kg 96th World-class 120.0
97.5–102.5 kg 93rd Elite 127.5
102.5–107.5 kg 92nd Elite 127.5
107.5–112.5 kg 91st Elite 130.0
112.5–117.5 kg 89th Elite 132.5
117.5–122.5 kg 85th Elite 137.5
122.5–127.5 kg 84th Elite 142.0
137.5 kg and above 76th Advanced 142.5

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·180 kg scored against every published squat class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
180.046thIntermediate
190.058thAdvanced
200.069thAdvanced
210.077thAdvanced

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 180 kg squat good? — the short answers

Is a 180 kg squat good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 180 kg (397 lb) is the 46th percentile of 20,457 judged competition squats, which this site labels intermediate. 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 180 kg is above the 99th percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and the 12th percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.

What would take a 180 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 35 kg more than 180 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.