Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

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

Verdict

Is a 315 lb squat good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 15th 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, 315 lb is the 15th 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?

315 lb is 143 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 315 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 98th World-class 72.5
52.5–57.5 kg 86th Elite 106.6
57.5–62.5 kg 67th Advanced 127.5
62.5–67.5 kg 43rd Intermediate 150.0
67.5–72.5 kg 38th Intermediate 152.5
72.5–77.5 kg 22nd Intermediate 170.0
77.5–82.5 kg 13th Novice 182.5
82.5–87.5 kg 15th Novice 185.0
87.5–92.5 kg 8th Novice 197.5
92.5–97.5 kg 9th Novice 200.0
97.5–102.5 kg 6th Novice 210.0
102.5–107.5 kg 5th Novice 217.5
107.5–112.5 kg 6th Novice 217.5
112.5–117.5 kg 5th Novice 222.5
117.5–122.5 kg 4th Novice 235.0
122.5–127.5 kg 6th Novice 229.1
127.5–132.5 kg 6th Novice 230.0
132.5–137.5 kg 4th Novice 240.0
137.5 kg and above 4th Novice 245.0

Women

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 99+ World-class 82.5
52.5–57.5 kg 97th World-class 95.0
57.5–62.5 kg 94th Elite 100.0
62.5–67.5 kg 91st Elite 107.5
67.5–72.5 kg 87th Elite 111.0
72.5–77.5 kg 81st Elite 117.5
77.5–82.5 kg 80th Elite 117.5
82.5–87.5 kg 77th Advanced 120.0
87.5–92.5 kg 76th Advanced 120.0
92.5–97.5 kg 75th Advanced 120.0
97.5–102.5 kg 67th Advanced 127.5
102.5–107.5 kg 67th Advanced 127.5
107.5–112.5 kg 65th Advanced 130.0
112.5–117.5 kg 62nd Advanced 132.5
117.5–122.5 kg 58th Advanced 137.5
122.5–127.5 kg 51st Advanced 142.0
137.5 kg and above 51st Advanced 142.5

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·315 lb scored against every published squat class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
142.915thNovice
152.921stIntermediate
162.929thIntermediate
172.939thIntermediate

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 315 lb squat good? — the short answers

Is a 315 lb squat good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 315 lb (143 kg) is the 15th 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 315 lb is the 98th percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and the 4th percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.

What would take a 315 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 72 kg more than 315 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.