Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

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

Verdict

Is a 500 lb total good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is below the 1st percentile of 20,368 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, 500 lb is the 1st percentile of judged lifts — novice among people who compete.

Intermediate Advanced Elite World-class 0255075100 260340420500580660740 kg lifted →
kg

Percentile

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20,368 judged totals, men, 82.5–87.5 kg

No lift entered. The curve is every judged totals in this class — add yours to it.

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·20,368 judged totals, men, 82.5–87.5 kg·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Not your class?

500 lb is 227 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 500 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 54th Advanced 220.0
52.5–57.5 kg 14th Novice 312.5
57.5–62.5 kg 5th Novice 372.0
62.5–67.5 kg 1st Novice 430.0
67.5–72.5 kg 1st Novice 440.0
72.5–77.5 kg <1 Novice 485.0
77.5–82.5 kg <1 Novice 515.0
82.5–87.5 kg <1 Novice 520.0
87.5–92.5 kg <1 Novice 555.0
92.5–97.5 kg <1 Novice 562.5
97.5–102.5 kg <1 Novice 585.0
102.5–107.5 kg <1 Novice 605.0
107.5–112.5 kg <1 Novice 605.0
112.5–117.5 kg <1 Novice 615.0
117.5–122.5 kg <1 Novice 645.0
122.5–127.5 kg <1 Novice 630.0
127.5–132.5 kg <1 Novice 627.5
132.5–137.5 kg <1 Novice 652.5
137.5 kg and above <1 Novice 665.0

Women

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 46th Intermediate 232.5
52.5–57.5 kg 25th Intermediate 267.5
57.5–62.5 kg 18th Novice 281.2
62.5–67.5 kg 13th Novice 295.0
67.5–72.5 kg 11th Novice 305.0
72.5–77.5 kg 8th Novice 320.0
77.5–82.5 kg 7th Novice 320.0
82.5–87.5 kg 8th Novice 323.7
87.5–92.5 kg 7th Novice 327.5
92.5–97.5 kg 7th Novice 325.0
97.5–102.5 kg 6th Novice 342.5
102.5–107.5 kg 5th Novice 342.5
107.5–112.5 kg 5th Novice 347.5
112.5–117.5 kg 4th Novice 350.0
117.5–122.5 kg 4th Novice 362.5
122.5–127.5 kg 4th Novice 370.0
137.5 kg and above 2nd Novice 380.0

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·500 lb scored against every published powerlifting total class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
226.81stNovice
251.81stNovice
276.81stNovice
301.82ndNovice

Men at 82.5–87.5 kg bodyweight. Percentile gained per 25 kg, so you can see what the next plate is actually worth.

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·20,368 judged totals, men 82.5–87.5 kg·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Is a 500 lb total good? — the short answers

Is a 500 lb total good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 500 lb (227 kg) is below the 1st percentile of 20,368 judged competition totals, 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 500 lb is the 54th percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and below 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 500 lb total into the top fifth?

At 82.5–87.5 kg the 80th percentile — the cut-off this site calls elite — is 597 kg (1,315 lb). That is 370 kg more than 500 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.