Squat & Deadlift Standards Calculator

Pick the lift. Squat and deadlift use separate scales, so choose Squat first. Pick the sex. Choose Male. This sets the factor to 1.0; Female sets it to 0.8.

Enter bodyweight and the lift. Enter 80 and 140. The fields are labelled kilograms. The ratio has no units, so pounds for both give the same tier, as long as you don't mix units.

Read the results. The tier shows Intermediate and the ratio shows 1.75×. The threshold grid lists 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5. At 80 kg bodyweight, that means bar weights of 60, 80, 120, 160 and 200 kg. He is 20 kg past the start of Intermediate and 20 kg short of Advanced.

Switch the lift to Deadlift and enter 180. The ratio is 2.25× and the tier is Advanced. That lands exactly on the cut-off, and a ratio that equals a cut-off counts as reaching that tier. The same lifter is a tier higher on the deadlift than on the squat, which is common.

No true max? A set of 120 kg for 5 reps on the squat gives an estimated 1RM of 137.5 kg. That is the average of Epley (140 kg) and Brzycki (135 kg), a ratio of 1.72 and still Intermediate.

Ratio = lift 1RM ÷ bodyweight.

Base thresholds: squat: [0.75, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5]; deadlift: [1.0, 1.25, 1.75, 2.25, 2.75].

Thresholds used = base thresholds × factor, where the factor is 1.0 for men and 0.8 for women.

Tier = the highest threshold the ratio reaches or passes: Beginner, Novice, Intermediate, Advanced or Elite. Below the first threshold, the result is Untrained.

Bar weight needed for a tier = threshold × bodyweight.

On the men's scale, each deadlift cut-off is exactly 0.25× bodyweight above the matching squat cut-off. As a percentage, that gap shrinks as the tiers rise: the deadlift figure is a third higher at Beginner (1.0 against 0.75) but only a tenth higher at Elite (2.75 against 2.5). The women's scale keeps the same pattern at 0.2× bodyweight.

A 60 kg woman who squats 90 kg has a ratio of 1.5. On the women's squat scale that is Intermediate, because it is past 1.2 but short of 1.6. Her 120 kg deadlift is a ratio of 2.0, which is Advanced on the women's deadlift scale, past 1.8 and short of 2.2. Like the man above, she is a tier higher on the deadlift.

Put the man's 140 kg squat and 180 kg deadlift on a 100 kg lifter instead. The squat ratio drops to 1.4, which is Novice, and the deadlift to 1.8, which is Intermediate. Both lifts fall one tier with no change to the bar. A ratio rewards being light, so a lifter who is gaining size may see their tier stall or drop while their absolute strength is still rising. Keep a log of the bar weight next to the tier.

A ratio is only as honest as the rep behind it. The shortcuts that add the most weight are exactly what competition rules forbid.

Squat depth. Under the International Powerlifting Federation's technical rules, the top surface of the legs at the hip joint must go below the top of the knees. The lifter then stands back up to locked knees. A half squat can easily add enough weight to jump a tier. If you aren't sure you hit depth, film the set from the side.

Deadlift lockout. The rep ends when you stand fully upright, with your knees locked and shoulders back. The bar must not move downward on the way up, and you must not rest it on your thighs to hitch it higher. Lower it under control rather than dropping it. Sumo and conventional stances both count.

Equipment. A belt is allowed in raw powerlifting. Lifting straps, knee wraps and supportive suits either aren't allowed or put you in a separate equipped category, and all of them add weight. Enter a lift done the way you plan to retest it.

Test safely. Squat inside a rack with the safety pins set just below your bottom position, and work up in small jumps. Stop a deadlift single as soon as your back starts to round. If you don't want to test true singles, the one-rep max calculator can estimate one from a hard set of a few reps.

The squat and deadlift scales and the 80 percent factor for women are round-number coaching ratios, not figures from a published table. Rippetoe and Kilgore's tables in *Practical Programming for Strength Training* take a different approach. They list absolute pounds for each bodyweight class, so the ratios they imply fall as bodyweight rises. For a man around 80 kg, the book's intermediate squat and deadlift land close to this tool's 1.5× and 1.75×. Its elite deadlift sits higher than 2.75×, and for much lighter or heavier lifters the two drift apart. For trained competitors, van den Hoek and colleagues (*Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport*, 2024) published relative squat and deadlift strength by sex and age from drug-tested, unequipped meets.

Body proportions move these lifts more than the bench. Long thighs compared with the torso make a deep squat mechanically harder, while long arms shorten the distance the bar travels in a deadlift. Two equally strong lifters can land a tier apart on either lift for that reason alone. If your squat and deadlift tiers differ by two or more, leverage and technique are more likely explanations than a real weakness.

The cut-offs are a rule of thumb, not a validated standard. They make no adjustment for age, bodyweight class or training history, and a plain ratio favours lighter lifters. The calculator can't see depth, lockout, equipment or stance, and it treats a gym single the same as a judged competition lift. It is a personal progress marker, not a ranking and not medical advice. Anyone with back, hip or knee injuries, or with heart or blood-pressure conditions, should get clinical advice before attempting maximal lifts.

If your best recent effort was a set rather than a single, run it through the one-rep max calculator first. It averages the Epley and Brzycki estimates, as in the 137.5 kg squat example. For the upper body, the bench press standards calculator uses the same ratio method with its own cut-offs and a larger 65 percent factor for women. The two pages together give a rough picture of balance between upper and lower body. To turn a goal such as reaching a 2.0× squat into weekly sessions, the workout planner sets out exercises, sets and reps. For bodyweight endurance benchmarks alongside these loaded lifts, the push-up and sit-up fitness test calculator rates repetitions by age and sex.