Strength standards for women: the female deadlift average, squat and leg press, from real data

Search for the female deadlift average and you'll get a dozen confident tables, each with a different number, none of which say where it came from. Here's the honest version: there is no measured average deadlift for women in general, because nobody has ever tested a random sample of women on a barbell. What does exist is good data on women who compete in powerlifting, solid population data on grip strength, and a lot of guesswork in between.

This post walks through the numbers that actually come from research, labels exactly who each one describes, and explains why online strength standards disagree with each other. Use them as context. If you'd rather have your numbers turned into a plan, that's what a training app that rewrites your plan every week is for. The weights on the bar are still up to you.

Female deadlift average: the short answer

The best current figure is a median, not an average, and it describes competitive lifters, not everyone.

A 2026 analysis of 850,972 entries from unequipped, drug-tested powerlifting meets found the median female deadlift rose from 114 kg in 2000 to 142.5 kg in 2024 (van den Hoek et al., 2026). The same paper found squat and deadlift medians typically rose by 2.5 to 7.5 kg every five years, so the authors recommended updating norms at 5-year intervals.

Three things to know before you compare yourself with 142.5 kg:

• ›It's a median. Half the women in that dataset pulled more, half pulled less.
• ›It's competitors. These are women who trained for a meet, made weight, and lifted under a referee. That's a selected group, not the woman next to you doing her first month of training.
• ›It's across ages and bodyweights. The figure mixes a 52 kg teenager and a 90 kg master lifter. Your own weight class and age group will sit above or below it.

So if your deadlift is under 142.5 kg, you are not below average for women. You're below the median for women who compete in powerlifting, which is a different and much less interesting sentence.

If you want to build toward numbers like these instead of just reading about them, a plan you can start this week is the practical next step. The broader foundations, from exercise choice to how many sets to do, are in the hub guide to the best strength training app for women and program options.

Strength standards for women: what the research actually measured

Most "strength standards" articles skip this part. There are only a few kinds of real data, and each one answers a different question.

Powerlifting norms by percentile

The 2024 study pooled 809,986 entries from unequipped, drug-tested meets, including 238,336 from women, and expressed each lift relative to bodyweight for the 10th to 90th percentiles by sex, age and weight class (van den Hoek et al., 2024). Relative strength was highest for young adults aged 18 to 35. At the 90th percentile in that group, women lifted:

Read that carefully. The 90th percentile means only one in ten of these already-selected competitors lifted that much. It's the top of a strong group, not a target for your first year.

The same study found strength declined after young adulthood but didn't vanish. Women over 80 at the 90th percentile still deadlifted 1.68 × bodyweight (van den Hoek et al., 2024). The authors also built a free online tool so you can look up your own percentile by age and weight class.

Grip: the only true population number

Grip strength is the one place with genuine general-population norms for women. A 2014 study pooled about 60,800 measurements from 12 British studies and found women's peak median grip was 31 kg between ages 26 and 42 (Dodds et al., 2014).

It's measured on a hand dynamometer, not a barbell, so it won't tell you what you should deadlift. But it's the closest thing to an honest "average woman" strength figure that exists.

Average squat for women

The squat has the same problem as the deadlift: the good data is from competitors. In the 2024 powerlifting norms, the 90th percentile squat for women aged 18 to 35 was 2.26 × bodyweight (van den Hoek et al., 2024). That's a ceiling-level number for trained lifters, not a typical one.

Two things make squat numbers especially slippery:

• ›Depth. A competition squat goes below parallel and is judged. A gym squat often isn't. Comparing a half squat with a meet squat flatters you and tells you nothing.
• ›Equipment. These norms come from unequipped meets. Supportive suits and knee wraps add weight to the bar, so equipped numbers aren't comparable.

If you're chasing squat numbers, depth and technique come first. The women's squat record question, and why there's no single number for it, is a useful reality check on what years of squatting look like.

Average leg press for women: why there's no good standard

The leg press is the lift people most want a standard for and the one that least deserves one.

Leg press machines differ in sled angle, sled weight, and whether they use plates, a stack or air resistance. A number on one machine doesn't translate to another. Even the research reflects this: one of the few published normative datasets for the leg press measured 445 adults aged 60 to 85 on a specific pneumatic machine, and among the women, there were no significant differences in absolute or relative strength across age groups (Parrino et al., 2021). Useful if you're 70 and training on that exact machine. Not useful for comparing your leg press with a stranger's.

The practical answer: use the leg press to track yourself, on the same machine, with the same seat setting and depth. That's a perfectly good measure of progress. It just isn't a standard.

Why online strength standards disagree

Look up the same lift on three websites and you'll get three answers. That isn't because one of them found a secret dataset. It's because they're measuring different things, or nothing at all.

Where the numbers come from

Before trusting any table, find out where its numbers came from. The usual options:

• ›Self-reported lifts typed into a website by its users. No referee, no depth check, no way to know whether a "deadlift" was a deadlift.
• ›A coach's opinion, sometimes a good one, presented as categories like "novice" and "advanced" without any data behind the cut-offs.
• ›Judged competition results, which are verified but only describe people who compete.

Only the last one is research-grade, and even that comes with the selection caveat above.

Bodyweight multipliers don't scale

A lot of standards say things like "an intermediate woman deadlifts 1.5 × bodyweight", as if that ratio means the same thing at every size. It doesn't. A 2026 study of 101,898 drug-tested classic powerlifters, 34,109 of them women, found relative strength falls non-linearly as body mass rises, so a single fixed multiplier isn't equally attainable across weight classes (Montenegro et al., 2026). Lighter lifters pull a bigger multiple of their bodyweight. Heavier lifters pull more total weight. A one-size ratio is unfair to someone.

The same study found the deadlift made up about 42–45% of the competition total in the lightweight classes, with that share shrinking in heavier classes (Montenegro et al., 2026). For many lighter lifters, the deadlift is the strongest of the three lifts.

Old data goes stale

Strength norms also age. The median female deadlift at meets rose by 28.5 kg between 2000 and 2024 (van den Hoek et al., 2026). Any table built on older data, or copied from another table built on older data, underestimates what trained women lift today.

How to use strength standards (and when to ignore them)

Standards are context, not a grade. A few ways to use them well:

Compare yourself with yourself. Your deadlift now versus your deadlift in six months is the only comparison that tells you whether your training works. Write it down.

Use like-for-like data. If you compare with powerlifting norms, lift to powerlifting standards: full depth on the squat, a locked-out deadlift, no bounce. Good woman deadlift form is the same as anyone's, and it's the difference between a number that means something and one that doesn't.

Look at your own weight class and age. A median across every age and size is a blunt tool. Percentile tools that let you pick your category, like the one from the 2024 study, are far more useful than a single number.

Consider a meet. If you want a number that counts, a local classic meet gives you a referee, a scale and three attempts. You don't need much gear; a belt is optional, and if you're shopping for a powerlifting belt for women, fit matters more than any women-specific design.

Don't compare with men. On average, men lift more in absolute terms, mostly because they carry more muscle. If you're wondering are men physically stronger than women, the research says yes, especially in the upper body, and it also says women gain strength at a similar or greater relative rate on the same training (Roberts et al., 2020). That's exactly why every credible norm is split by sex.

What actually moves your numbers

None of the tables above make you stronger. Training does: heavy squats and deadlifts once or twice a week at around RPE 7–8, small jumps in weight, grip work so your hands don't cap your pull, and, if you run, no heavy legs the day before intervals or the long run. Do that for a year and the standards stop being interesting. You'll be too busy beating your own.

How exrsz handles strength goals

exrsz builds a periodized plan from your goal, schedule, level and equipment, so a strength goal gets heavy squats and deadlifts at the center of the week. It balances running and lifting in one plan, adapts each week to how you actually trained, and reshuffles missed sessions instead of stacking them.

FAQ

What is the average deadlift for a woman?

There's no measured average for all women. Among women in unequipped, drug-tested powerlifting meets, the median deadlift was 142.5 kg in 2024 (van den Hoek et al., 2026), but that describes competitors, not the general population.

Is a bodyweight deadlift good for a woman?

It's a solid milestone for most women in their first year of training, but there's no research-based cut-off for "good". Relative strength falls as bodyweight rises, so the same multiplier is easier for lighter lifters than heavier ones (Montenegro et al., 2026).

What is a strong deadlift for a woman?

In powerlifting data, the 90th percentile for women aged 18 to 35 was 2.66 × bodyweight (van den Hoek et al., 2024). That's the top tenth of competitive lifters, so anything near it is strong by any measure.

Are online strength standards accurate?

Most aren't research. Many are built from self-reported lifts or a coach's opinion, use bodyweight multipliers that don't scale across sizes, or rely on old data. Judged competition data is more reliable, but only describes people who compete.

What is a good leg press for a woman?

There's no reliable standard, because leg press machines differ too much for numbers to transfer. Track your own leg press on the same machine and settings over time instead.