Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

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

Verdict

Is a 405 lb squat good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 49th 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, 405 lb is the 49th 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?

405 lb is 184 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 405 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 99+ World-class 72.5
52.5–57.5 kg 99th World-class 106.6
57.5–62.5 kg 95th Elite 127.5
62.5–67.5 kg 84th Elite 150.0
67.5–72.5 kg 81st Elite 152.5
72.5–77.5 kg 65th Advanced 170.0
77.5–82.5 kg 51st Advanced 182.5
82.5–87.5 kg 49th Intermediate 185.0
87.5–92.5 kg 35th Intermediate 197.5
92.5–97.5 kg 33rd Intermediate 200.0
97.5–102.5 kg 26th Intermediate 210.0
102.5–107.5 kg 20th Intermediate 217.5
107.5–112.5 kg 22nd Intermediate 217.5
112.5–117.5 kg 20th Intermediate 222.5
117.5–122.5 kg 15th Novice 235.0
122.5–127.5 kg 18th Novice 229.1
127.5–132.5 kg 19th Novice 230.0
132.5–137.5 kg 13th Novice 240.0
137.5 kg and above 14th 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 99+ World-class 111.0
72.5–77.5 kg 98th World-class 117.5
77.5–82.5 kg 98th World-class 117.5
82.5–87.5 kg 97th 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 94th Elite 127.5
102.5–107.5 kg 93rd Elite 127.5
107.5–112.5 kg 92nd Elite 130.0
112.5–117.5 kg 90th Elite 132.5
117.5–122.5 kg 87th Elite 137.5
122.5–127.5 kg 86th Elite 142.0
137.5 kg and above 79th Advanced 142.5

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·405 lb scored against every published squat class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
183.749thIntermediate
193.760thAdvanced
203.770thAdvanced
213.778thAdvanced

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 405 lb squat good? — the short answers

Is a 405 lb squat good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 405 lb (184 kg) is the 49th 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 405 lb is above the 99th percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and the 14th percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.

What would take a 405 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 31 kg more than 405 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.