The deadlift is usually the most weight you'll ever move in a gym. You pick a loaded bar up off the floor and stand tall with it, and there's nowhere to hide. It's about as honest a test of full-body pulling strength as you'll find, which is why coaches lean on it to judge how strong someone really is.
The catch is that raw numbers don't mean much on their own. A 150 lb lifter pulling 300 and a 230 lb lifter pulling the same 300 are in very different places. That's why strength standards are set as a multiple of your bodyweight, so you can see where you actually stand instead of guessing. The numbers below are estimates calibrated to public benchmarks like StrengthLevel, ExRx, and Symmetric Strength, not readings from some private database.
Deadlift standards by bodyweight (pounds)
Target one-rep max at each level, rounded to the nearest 5 lb. Find your body weight in the left column.
| Men · body weight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 140 lb | 140 lb | 210 lb | 280 lb | 350 lb | 420 lb |
| 160 lb | 160 lb | 240 lb | 320 lb | 400 lb | 480 lb |
| 180 lb | 180 lb | 270 lb | 360 lb | 450 lb | 540 lb |
| 200 lb | 200 lb | 300 lb | 400 lb | 500 lb | 600 lb |
| 220 lb | 220 lb | 330 lb | 440 lb | 550 lb | 660 lb |
| 240 lb | 240 lb | 360 lb | 480 lb | 600 lb | 720 lb |
| 260 lb | 260 lb | 390 lb | 520 lb | 650 lb | 780 lb |
| Women · body weight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 lb | 85 lb | 110 lb | 165 lb | 195 lb | 275 lb |
| 125 lb | 95 lb | 125 lb | 190 lb | 220 lb | 315 lb |
| 140 lb | 105 lb | 140 lb | 210 lb | 245 lb | 350 lb |
| 155 lb | 115 lb | 155 lb | 235 lb | 270 lb | 390 lb |
| 170 lb | 130 lb | 170 lb | 255 lb | 300 lb | 425 lb |
| 185 lb | 140 lb | 185 lb | 280 lb | 325 lb | 465 lb |
| 200 lb | 150 lb | 200 lb | 300 lb | 350 lb | 500 lb |
Deadlift standards by bodyweight (kilograms)
| Men · body weight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 kg | 60 kg | 90 kg | 120 kg | 150 kg | 180 kg |
| 70 kg | 70 kg | 105 kg | 140 kg | 175 kg | 210 kg |
| 80 kg | 80 kg | 120 kg | 160 kg | 200 kg | 240 kg |
| 90 kg | 90 kg | 135 kg | 180 kg | 225 kg | 270 kg |
| 100 kg | 100 kg | 150 kg | 200 kg | 250 kg | 300 kg |
| 110 kg | 110 kg | 165 kg | 220 kg | 275 kg | 330 kg |
| 120 kg | 120 kg | 180 kg | 240 kg | 300 kg | 360 kg |
| Women · body weight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 kg | 37.5 kg | 50 kg | 75 kg | 87.5 kg | 125 kg |
| 57 kg | 42.5 kg | 57.5 kg | 85 kg | 100 kg | 142.5 kg |
| 64 kg | 47.5 kg | 65 kg | 95 kg | 112.5 kg | 160 kg |
| 72 kg | 55 kg | 72.5 kg | 107.5 kg | 125 kg | 180 kg |
| 80 kg | 60 kg | 80 kg | 120 kg | 140 kg | 200 kg |
| 88 kg | 65 kg | 87.5 kg | 132.5 kg | 155 kg | 220 kg |
What's a good deadlift?
Here's the ladder most coaches work from, written as a multiple of your bodyweight. For men, a beginner deadlift sits around 1x bodyweight, novice is about 1.5x, intermediate is roughly 2x, advanced is about 2.5x, and elite territory starts near 3x. For women it runs a little lower in absolute terms: about 0.75x for a beginner, 1x for novice, 1.5x for intermediate, 1.75x for advanced, and around 2.5x at the elite end.
To put that in real weight, a 180 lb man at intermediate is pulling about 360 lb, and around 540 lb once he's elite. A 140 lb woman at intermediate is near 210 lb, and about 350 lb at the top. Now the honest part. The deadlift is a natural movement, so an untrained adult who's never touched a barbell can often pull close to their bodyweight for a single rep on day one. That's why the beginner bar sits higher here than it does on a lift like the bench press. Getting to a 2x pull, on the other hand, takes real training time. If you're a man moving twice your bodyweight, or a woman at 1.5x, you're genuinely strong for a recreational lifter.
What the levels mean
- Beginner. New to barbell training, in your first few weeks; strength near an untrained adult's baseline.
- Novice. Roughly 3 to 6 months of consistent training, still making fast newbie gains.
- Intermediate. About 1 to 2 years of steady training; you've hit the well-known bodyweight milestones.
- Advanced. Several years of focused training; visibly strong and stronger than most people in any gym.
- Elite. The top tier of dedicated drug-free recreational lifters; rare and earned over many years.
How to add weight to your deadlift
Most stalled deadlifts come down to technique and how you're loading the lift, not effort. Set up with the bar over your midfoot, take the slack out of the bar before you pull, squeeze your lats to keep it close to your body, and think about pushing the floor away rather than yanking upward. Your hips and shoulders should rise at the same rate. If your hips shoot up first, the weight's too heavy or your setup needs work.
For actually adding weight, the answer is almost always a structured program instead of random heavy singles. Beginners tend to make fast progress on something like StrongLifts 5x5 or Starting Strength, where you add a small amount each session. Once that stalls, a program with built-in waves like 5/3/1 keeps the plates going up without burning you out. You'll find all of those on FORMA at /programs. Deadlifts are taxing, so most people pull heavy once or twice a week and let the rest of their training support it. If you want a full breakdown of the setup and cues, the complete form guide is at /exercises/deadlift.
Men vs women
The gender gap is narrower on the deadlift than on pressing lifts. Using the standards above, an intermediate woman pulls about 1.5x bodyweight against a man's 2x, which is roughly 75% of the male number, and at the elite end it's 2.5x versus 3x, closer to 83%. The deadlift leans heavily on the hips and posterior chain, where the strength difference between men and women is smaller than it is in the upper body. So if you're a woman comparing your pull to the guys in your gym, expect to be much closer on the deadlift than you'd be on the bench.
Frequently asked questions
Is a 405 lb deadlift good?
Yes, for most people four plates is a strong pull. For a 200 lb man, 405 is right around 2x bodyweight, which lands squarely in the intermediate range and is more than most recreational lifters ever hit. For a lighter 170 lb lifter it's closer to 2.4x, which pushes into advanced. The lighter you are when you pull it, the more impressive it is.
What's the average deadlift by age?
Strength tends to peak in your late 20s and 30s and drift down slowly after that, but bodyweight ratio tells you far more than your birthday does. A trained 45-year-old will out-pull an untrained 25-year-old without much trouble. As a rough anchor, an untrained adult man can often deadlift around his bodyweight (1x), and consistent training is what moves him up the ladder, not his age.
Why is my deadlift stuck, and how do I add weight?
The usual culprits are maxing too often, a specific weak point, or a loose setup. If you stall right off the floor, add pause deadlifts or deficit pulls. If you fail near lockout, rack pulls and block pulls help. Beyond that, stop testing your max every week, run a program that adds weight in small jumps, brace hard before every rep, and give yourself enough food and sleep to recover. Progress on the deadlift is slow by nature, so small increments add up.
What's a good deadlift as a multiple of bodyweight?
For men, roughly 1x bodyweight is beginner, 1.5x is novice, 2x is intermediate, 2.5x is advanced, and 3x is elite. For women it's about 0.75x, 1x, 1.5x, 1.75x, and 2.5x across the same levels. Two times bodyweight for a man, or 1.5x for a woman, is the common benchmark people mean when they call a deadlift strong.
Is deadlifting twice a week too much?
Not for most people, as long as you manage the load. The deadlift is tiring on your whole body, so a common setup is one heavy day plus one lighter day using a variation like Romanian or deficit deadlifts. If you're new, even one focused heavy session a week will drive progress. Recovery is the limiter here, not the number of days.
Sources & references
These standards are calibrated to widely-referenced public benchmarks (StrengthLevel, ExRx / Lon Kilgore, Symmetric Strength) and published as honest estimates, not measurements from a FORMA database. Treat each value as the center of a range. They're for general comparison, not medical advice. See the full strength-standards methodology.