Jul 8, 2011

Adult Deadlifting Distribution

Here is the aggregation of men's and women's lifting abilities.  Again, the graph is inaccurate for the bottom percent or so, and the estimate equation only really applies to the 5th-95th percentiles.  I assumed a 52% proportion of women, not that it significantly affects the graph.

We can see a few distinct segments of data.  The bottom third is pretty exclusively made up of women who do not lift weights.  The middle third consists of untrained men, and women who weight train.  We see a sharp upward slope around the 73rd percentile, which is due to elite women weightlifters. The 78th to 98th percentiles, roughly, are made up of men who weight train, and the spike at the end is elite weightlifting men.

Even small children and the very weakest adults can still lift at least 20 lbs.  60 lbs is a good estimate for the 5th percentile.  The average adult (in the US) can lift up to 125 lbs.  People in the 81st percentile can lift double the average amount.  People in the 95th percentile can lift about 310 lbs.  Over 400 lbs is the territory of elite men and a handful of women.  Over 700 lbs is the territory of just a handful of men.

Again, there are unrealistic steps in the graph due to how the data was originally collected, and the smoother curve is probably more representative of the population. There should be a steep slope up from a low weight in the lowest few percentiles, but data is not available. 

Here is the same graph in kilograms:

1 comment:

  1. This is awesome. I wish I could find this for all the major lifts.

    ReplyDelete