Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

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

Verdict

Is a 220 kg deadlift good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 57th percentile of 24,058 judged lifts — advanced. At other bodyweights the answer changes, and the table below gives all of them.

The short answer

At 82.5–87.5 kg bodyweight, 220 kg is the 57th percentile — advanced.

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?

220 kg is 485 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 220 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 95.0
52.5–57.5 kg 99+ World-class 135.0
57.5–62.5 kg 96th World-class 160.0
62.5–67.5 kg 87th Elite 180.5
67.5–72.5 kg 86th Elite 185.0
72.5–77.5 kg 72nd Advanced 200.0
77.5–82.5 kg 59th Advanced 212.5
82.5–87.5 kg 57th Advanced 215.0
87.5–92.5 kg 44th Intermediate 227.5
92.5–97.5 kg 42nd Intermediate 230.0
97.5–102.5 kg 35th Intermediate 237.5
102.5–107.5 kg 29th Intermediate 245.0
107.5–112.5 kg 29th Intermediate 245.0
112.5–117.5 kg 28th Intermediate 245.0
117.5–122.5 kg 24th Intermediate 255.0
122.5–127.5 kg 27th Intermediate 250.0
127.5–132.5 kg 28th Intermediate 250.0
132.5–137.5 kg 23rd Intermediate 255.0
137.5 kg and above 24th Intermediate 257.5

Women

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 99+ World-class 105.0
52.5–57.5 kg 99+ World-class 117.5
57.5–62.5 kg 99+ World-class 122.5
62.5–67.5 kg 99+ World-class 130.0
67.5–72.5 kg 99+ World-class 132.5
72.5–77.5 kg 99+ World-class 140.0
77.5–82.5 kg 99+ World-class 140.0
82.5–87.5 kg 99+ World-class 140.0
87.5–92.5 kg 99th World-class 140.6
92.5–97.5 kg 99+ World-class 142.5
97.5–102.5 kg 99th World-class 145.0
102.5–107.5 kg 99th World-class 145.0
107.5–112.5 kg 98th World-class 147.9
112.5–117.5 kg 98th World-class 147.5
117.5–122.5 kg 98th World-class 150.0
122.5–127.5 kg 97th World-class 154.2
137.5 kg and above 94th Elite 152.5

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·220 kg scored against every published deadlift class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
220.057thAdvanced
230.068thAdvanced
240.077thAdvanced
250.084thElite

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 220 kg deadlift good? — the short answers

Is a 220 kg deadlift good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 220 kg (485 lb) is the 57th percentile of 24,058 judged competition deadlifts, which this site labels advanced. 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 220 kg is above the 99th percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and the 24th percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.

What would take a 220 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 25 kg more than 220 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.