What Is The Average Deadlift Weight?

If you’re new to deadlifting, you might wonder how much you should be lifting. The answer? It depends. The average deadlift weight varies depending on age, gender, and experience level. For example, a novice male lifter might aim for a deadlift of 225 pounds. By contrast, a female with the same experience level might target a deadlift of around 135 pounds. Understanding the average deadlift weight can help your training. This article will help you learn about the average deadlift weight and how it can help you reach your goals. One way to track your progress and stay motivated is with Liftoff's workout tracker app. This easy-to-use app helps you log your workouts, track your progress over time, and stay motivated as you work toward your goals.

What is the Average Deadlift Weight?

The average deadlift weight varies widely depending on body weight, gender, and experience level. The numbers seem modest for beginners, but consistent training can make significant progress.

Average Deadlift Weight for Men

A man weighing around 198 pounds with no prior lifting experience might deadlift around 165 pounds for the average male lifter. A novice lifter, trained for several months, can typically lift closer to 245 pounds.

Intermediate lifters with at least a year of training pull around 330 pounds. At the advanced level, which includes dedicated strength athletes, men in this weight range can deadlift well over 400 pounds, with elite lifters reaching 600 pounds or more.

Average Deadlift Weight for Women

The numbers for female lifters are slightly lower due to differences in muscle mass and body composition. A 165-pound woman with no lifting experience might start with a deadlift of about 115 pounds.

Novices can increase this to around 175 pounds, while intermediate lifters often pull over 230 pounds. With dedicated strength training, advanced female lifters can deadlift well over 300 pounds, and elite lifters in competitive strength sports may lift upwards of 400 pounds.

Factors that Influence Average Deadlift Weight

Men usually have higher muscle mass and testosterone levels, contributing to greater strength. As a result, they tend to lift heavier weights than women. Proper training, technique, and strength development can help close the gap.

Body Weight: The Link Between Heavier Lifters and Increased Deadlift Capacity

Individuals with higher body weight, particularly those with more muscle mass, typically have a greater deadlift capacity. Mass provides additional leverage and power, allowing heavier lifters to pull more weight.

Age: How Lifters of Different Ages Compare

Age plays a role in deadlifting strength, with younger lifters generally having better muscle recovery and natural strength. With proper training and consistency, older lifters can maintain or even improve their deadlift performance over time.

Experience Level: The Effect of Training on Deadlift Strength

Beginners start with lighter weights as they focus on proper form and technique. Their muscles become more efficient as they progress, and their neuromuscular coordination improves, allowing for heavier lifts.

Advanced lifters, especially those in powerlifting, can significantly increase their deadlift capacity through years of dedicated training.

Competitive Strength Levels: How Elite Lifters Push the Limits of Deadlifting

Elite powerlifters showcase how much experience and specialized training can impact deadlift strength. Male competitors often deadlift 800 lbs or more, while elite female lifters can pull between 400 and 500 kg, demonstrating the upper limits of strength potential.

Deadlift Standards Based on Body Weight

A 2021 report from the National Center for Health Statistics found that the average weight of American adults has increased in recent decades, with more than 70 percent of adults classified as overweight or obese.

The deadlift standards listed here are based on healthy percentages of body weight, regardless of actual averages in the general population.

Deadlift Standards Based on Body Weight

Deadlift standards help lifters gauge their strength levels relative to their body weight, gender, and experience level. These benchmarks provide a general idea of what to aim for at different stages of training.

Novice Lifters

Strength standards are more achievable for those just getting started but still require consistent training. A novice male should be able to lift about 1.5 times their body weight, with an average deadlift of around 256 pounds. For females, the novice standard is lifting their body weight, averaging around 143 pounds.

Advanced Lifters

With years of dedicated training, advanced lifters significantly increase their deadlift capacity. An advanced male should aim to lift 2.5 times their body weight, with an average lift of 432 pounds. Advanced female lifters typically lift 1.75 times their body weight, averaging about 254 pounds.These standards provide useful benchmarks but vary depending on training style, genetics, and overall fitness level.

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8 Tips to Improve Your Deadlift

1. Warm Up Properly: Here’s Why It Matters

A solid warm-up is critical to boosting your deadlift performance. Warming up increases muscle temperature, making the muscle more pliable and less susceptible to injury. Research suggests that warmer muscles produce significantly more force than cold ones.

A thorough warm-up is essential if you’re using the deadlift as the main compound lift in a session. It should cover all the main muscle groups involved in the lift (nearly every significant muscle group in your body).

RAMP & Progression

Start with a few deliberate warm-up exercises following the RAMP protocol (raise, activate, mobilise, potentiate). For deadlift specifically, warm-up sets should cover the movement pattern and prepare your body for the heavier loads.

Starting with the empty bar is always wise, this allows you to drill the bar path and skill aspect while continuing to prepare your muscles for action. As you approach your working loads, gradually increase the load on the bar in increments of around 10-20% of the top set load.

2. Centre the Bar: Find Your Balance for a Better Lift

If you are a beginner, this is likely a mistake you only make once! When you grab the bar, you can use the knurling (the rough part of the bar that helps with friction for gripping) as a reference point.

It’s essential to place each hand on the bar at a symmetrical point so that you can set your hands at an equal distance apart on the first part of the knurling on the bar. This ensures that the load is not unbalanced when you pull on the bar. Ultimately, this leads to a smoother lift and a lower risk of injury.

3. Ditch the Trainers: Get Flat for Your Deadlifts

One of the most essential elements of your deadlift setup is your connection with the ground. If you want to lift well, you need a stable base.

This cannot be achieved without wearing trainers with an inch of foam between your feet and the floor. For a stable base, opt for flat shoes with minimal material between your feet and the ground.

4. Keep Your Feet Flat: Maintain Your Stability

Always ensure your heels remain on the ground, helping maintain a strong base. To facilitate this, keep the bar close to your leg throughout the lift and imagine pushing your heels into the floor while lifting.

5. Use Straps or Chalk: Improve Your Grip

If you find it challenging to keep a solid grip on the bar throughout the lift, then you can do a few things to overcome this. The first and most obvious would be to work on strengthening your grip.

Using an overhand grip is more complex than using a mixed grip, as it relies more on your grip strength to prevent the bar from rolling out of your hands.

Hook Grip, Chalk & Straps

Alternatively, you can use a hook grip, which involves using your thumbs to pinch the bar and prevent it from moving. Some tools, such as chalk and wrist straps, also help you maintain a solid grip.

Chalk comes in a few different forms and will help your hands stick to the bar by removing moisture and increasing friction. Alternatively, straps are used to physically attach your wrists to the bar by wrapping them around your wrists and the bar.

6. Use a Lifting Belt: Boost Your Bracing

Another accessory that you may not have considered using is the weightlifting belt. Wearing a lifting belt provides you with something to brace against. Effective bracing involves holding a deep breath and trying to exhale against a closed epiglottis forcibly.

This technique increases intra-abdominal pressure and core rigidity, which subsequently helps to protect the spine from injury from excessive movement under load.

7. Improve Your Squat: Build a Better Deadlift

As a knee-dominant movement, the squat is one of the most productive exercises for developing quadriceps strength and size.

It also helps to develop posterior chain strength in the glutes and back muscles, which will carry over to the deadlift as these are the primary muscles used in that lift, too.

8. Perform Accessory Exercises: Target Your Weaknesses

If you want to get better at deadlifts, then you need to deadlift more. That said, performing accessory lifts can also help rectify any weaknesses limiting your progress. Some of the best exercises for improving your deadlift are:

Rowing moves: bent over rows, one-arm rows, cable rows
Pulling moves: lat pulldown, pull-ups
Hamstring isolations: hamstring curls, Nordic hamstring curls
Glute & Lower back exercises: banded hip abduction, back extensions

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Average deadlift weight refers to the median weight lifted among a given population. For instance, if 10 lifters complete a deadlift, the average deadlift weight would be the midpoint of the amounts lifted.

The average deadlift weight varies depending on several factors, including the:

Lifter’s experience level
Sex
Age
Body weight

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What Is The Average Deadlift Weight?