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How big a deadlift is possible naturally?

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Its going to vary wildly from person to person. 300 is going to be pretty rare in the lifting community. Even though average is hard to define, just for jokes sake, say 50% of all men who chose to lift weights. If they did it perfectly I don't think they'd all succeed. Done imperfectly a comically low amount succeed.

Maybe you could look at the sample of all men who compete, and try to figure out the difference between mediocre and excellent training on progress. I reckon if you took the results of all national meets in big countries you'd be looking at 5% or less pulling 300+. Even less for true drug free.

So at a guess I don't think the average lifter can deadlift 300 even with perfect coaching. 260-280 is probably more realistic.

Are you adding drugs to the mix or not with that 260-280 number?

Reply 21

Angry cucumber

Original post by FuelBowser

Is 300 kg conventional impossible for the average man, but achievable sumo?

Depends entirely on leverages and height, arm length to leg length ratio etc

Reply 22

Scoobiedoobiedo

Original post by FuelBowser

Are you adding drugs to the mix or not with that 260-280 number?

My gym is full of hundreds of 'average' guys. To put it in perspective, I'm the first person to deadlift 260kg in 7 years, and before that there was only one guy who could. The next highest deadlifts are 225kg, 220kg and 215kg, so four of us with 200+kg deadlifts out of hundreds of members. Which is awful, but it's what you get with 'average' lifters.

260 as 'average' would be very impressive, 300 would be amazing and very improbable. I think though that if you deadlift 300kg+, probably even 260kg+ you are far from average. In real life how many people do you see deadlift those numbers, like I say, at my gym one in 7years, that's one 260+kg deadlift out of thousands of members over the years.

Leverages, height and weight all come into it too.

A guy who weighs 80kg isn't deadlifting 260kg. If he could he would be at an elite level. I know a guy who is 110kg and pretty lean, he has a 272.5 deadlift, being 110kg and lean isn't exactly average though is it.

Only way to really find out though is to deadlift and see how strong you can get.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 23

FuelBowser

Original post by Angry cucumber

Depends entirely on leverages and height, arm length to leg length ratio etc

What bit of average don't you understand?

Reply 24

Angry cucumber

Original post by FuelBowser

What bit of average don't you understand?

Average doesn't really exist....

The difference for joe bloggs in the street is probably not massive as to whether they pull 300kg sumo or not. It's the genetic lucky who are significantly stronger at sumo due to proportions.

Reply 25

SmashConcept

Why is it lucky to be better at sumo? Seems less lucky to me. More technique, harder on your hips and more that can go wrong in gear.

Reply 26

FuelBowser

Original post by Angry cucumber

Average certainly does exist. The average man is 5'9 and 38 years old.

Could an average height man of average build. with average genetics, average leverages pull 300 kg with a lifetime of training using any deadlift technique he wished?

Reply 27

illusionz

Original post by FuelBowser

Average build and 38 years old are mutually exclusive to a lifetime of training.

Quite frankly you come across as acting obtuse.

Reply 28

FuelBowser

Original post by illusionz

Average build and 38 years old are mutually exclusive to a lifetime of training.

Quite frankly you come across as acting obtuse.

Reported for rudness

Reply 29

Angry cucumber

Original post by SmashConcept

Why is it lucky to be better at sumo? Seems less lucky to me. More technique, harder on your hips and more that can go wrong in gear.

Shorter range of motion - less strength to move the same weight to lock out. If you've got long arms and relatively short legs - happy times

Reply 30

SmashConcept

But all the people it applies to are less good at deadlifting than the people it doesn't apply to except like Belyaev I guess so.......... I think that makes them unlucky.

Reply 31

Angry cucumber

Original post by SmashConcept

But all the people it applies to are less good at deadlifting than the people it doesn't apply to except like Belyaev I guess so.......... I think that makes them unlucky.

There's a reason most WRs are done sumo

Reply 32

SmashConcept

I didn't even know that was the case.

Reply 33

TooEasy123

Considering it doesn't take that long on the grand scheme of things to get to 200kg, the average person could probably get to 300kg if they focused all their efforts and life on it. Would they want to (or give a crap about) being able to do it? Probably not.

Reply 34

SEHughes

At lighter bodyweights, maybe a 2.5x bodyweight deadlift would be achievable to most.

Reply 35

redbuthotter

Original post by FuelBowser

Are you adding drugs to the mix or not with that 260-280 number?

Relatively drug free - like drug free at time of lifting, since IPF is supposedly drug tested. So probably light cycling is ok, but no need to bomb halo and tren.

Everyone else's views are essentially a wild guess, as was my 260-280.

The only useful data is to look at people who choose to compete in powerlifting nationally. They're probably at least semi motivated and training well vs your average gym clown.

Hard question to answer is how much difference does professional full time training make and how many of those 111 men havn't peaked and when they do peak could they hit 300.

I seriously doubt 1 in 2 men could do it, up from 8 in 111. At a push maybe 1 in 4.

It would be useful to see their year on year progress, start point, how they're training ect.

Then you could make a reasonable estimate of the % of guys who could hit a 300 pull with a life time of training.

IMO after 7 years or so natty you're not going to explode your lifts that much further. If you've trained well.

Reply 36

redbuthotter

Original post by TooEasy123

There's a huge difference between 200 and 300. More or less everyone at national level powerlifting meets can pull 200. 300 it drops to less than 10%. And this is arguably the most specifically trained population. The guys who chose to compete.

Reply 37

TooEasy123

But if this person made their whole life revolve around just this 1 goal, I reckon they could do it.

E.g. massive focus on this and everything else supplementary, forever bulking/eating hard (especially this) with no concern about weight class, resting all day, no physically/mentally demanding jobs, no other commitments etc. It wouldn't be practical, possible or agree with most people's lifestyle aims though, which would be the hardest part to follow... But it still shows that said person has the potentiality within them to do it

Reply 38

SmashConcept

Original post by redbuthotter

But a lot of powerlifters are midgets because of the weight classes. So if you think about it, in a counter-intuitive sort of way powerlifting might actually over-represent people with below average genetics for deadlifting max weights.

If you selected for people of average height, let's say 5'7 to 6'0, then what percentage of them are deadlifting over 300 at national and international meets?

Reply 39

illusionz

Powerlifters as a whole are a bad group to select. The majority control their weight in such a fashion as to limit their strength potential. If you're talking about dedicating oneself to deadlifting 300kg then you have to assume one would eat enough and hence only look at the open class of powerlifters.