Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

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

Verdict

Is a 225 lb squat good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 3rd 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, 225 lb is the 3rd 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?

225 lb is 102 kg. 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 225 lb 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 79th Advanced 72.5
52.5–57.5 kg 44th Intermediate 106.6
57.5–62.5 kg 24th Intermediate 127.5
62.5–67.5 kg 10th Novice 150.0
67.5–72.5 kg 8th Novice 152.5
72.5–77.5 kg 4th Novice 170.0
77.5–82.5 kg 2nd Novice 182.5
82.5–87.5 kg 3rd Novice 185.0
87.5–92.5 kg 1st Novice 197.5
92.5–97.5 kg 2nd Novice 200.0
97.5–102.5 kg 1st Novice 210.0
102.5–107.5 kg <1 Novice 217.5
107.5–112.5 kg 1st Novice 217.5
112.5–117.5 kg 1st Novice 222.5
117.5–122.5 kg <1 Novice 235.0
122.5–127.5 kg 2nd Novice 229.1
127.5–132.5 kg 1st Novice 230.0
132.5–137.5 kg <1 Novice 240.0
137.5 kg and above 1st Novice 245.0

Women

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 78th Advanced 82.5
52.5–57.5 kg 60th Advanced 95.0
57.5–62.5 kg 51st Advanced 100.0
62.5–67.5 kg 41st Intermediate 107.5
67.5–72.5 kg 36th Intermediate 111.0
72.5–77.5 kg 29th Intermediate 117.5
77.5–82.5 kg 28th Intermediate 117.5
82.5–87.5 kg 28th Intermediate 120.0
87.5–92.5 kg 27th Intermediate 120.0
92.5–97.5 kg 26th Intermediate 120.0
97.5–102.5 kg 22nd Intermediate 127.5
102.5–107.5 kg 22nd Intermediate 127.5
107.5–112.5 kg 20th Novice 130.0
112.5–117.5 kg 20th Novice 132.5
117.5–122.5 kg 18th Novice 137.5
122.5–127.5 kg 17th Novice 142.0
137.5 kg and above 17th Novice 142.5

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·225 lb scored against every published squat class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
102.13rdNovice
112.14thNovice
122.16thNovice
132.110thNovice

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 225 lb squat good? — the short answers

Is a 225 lb squat good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 225 lb (102 kg) is the 3rd 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 225 lb is the 79th percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and 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 225 lb 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 113 kg more than 225 lb.

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.