Explosive Pulling
Power Clean Strength Standards
The power clean is the one lift on this site where technique can outweigh strength completely. Enter your bodyweight for your beginner to elite power clean figures, see which level your best single sits in, and read the honest caveats about what these numbers can and cannot say.
Find Your Power Clean Level
Enter your bodyweight, pick your sex, and put in your best lift. Everything below updates as you type.
What the Power Clean Really Measures
How fast you can pull, not how hard you can grind.
A power clean takes a barbell from the floor to the front rack in one movement, caught with the thighs above parallel. The pull is the same chain as a deadlift, the hips and legs driving against the floor, but the bar has to be accelerating hard at the top and then met by a fast turnover under the elbows. Nothing about it is a grind. If the bar slows down, the rep is over.
That makes it the only lift here where a stronger person can be beaten by a more practised one. A lifter who deadlifts 500 lb but has cleaned for a month will lose to someone deadlifting 400 lb who has cleaned for three years, because the limiting factor is how much of that strength can be expressed quickly and caught cleanly.
Where These Numbers Come From
Sixty percent of your deadlift, with an honest note about technique.
Every level here is 60 percent of the deadlift standard for the same bodyweight and sex, which is the proportion most commonly seen in strength-and-conditioning settings for lifters who train the clean as an accessory rather than as a sport. The deadlift is the right parent because both lifts start the same way and are limited by the same pull off the floor.
The proportion is flat across levels, but the spread around it is wider than for any other page on this site. A trained weightlifter will clean well above 60 percent of their deadlift, sometimes 70 percent or more, because their technique lets them use more of the strength they own. A powerlifter with a huge pull and no clean practice will fall well short of it. Treat this table as a target for a general lifter, not as a verdict on an athlete who specialises either way.
| Level | Share of the deadlift standard |
|---|---|
| Beginner | 60 percent |
| Novice | 60 percent |
| Intermediate | 60 percent |
| Advanced | 60 percent |
| Elite | 60 percent |
These standards are estimates derived from typical ratios to the main lifts, rounded to the nearest 5 lb. The bench, squat, deadlift and overhead press figures they are built on are the bodyweight-ratio approximations published on our strength standards page, which are aligned with widely used references in the strength and conditioning field including ExRx.net. Nothing here is measured lab data, and no table anywhere else has been copied. Treat every figure as a target to aim at, not a verdict on you.
Power Clean Standards for Men
Estimated 1-rep max including the bar, by bodyweight.
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 lb | 65 lb | 100 lb | 130 lb | 165 lb | 200 lb |
| 130 lb | 80 lb | 115 lb | 155 lb | 195 lb | 235 lb |
| 150 lb | 90 lb | 135 lb | 180 lb | 225 lb | 270 lb |
| 170 lb | 100 lb | 155 lb | 205 lb | 255 lb | 305 lb |
| 190 lb (your bodyweight) | 115 lb | 170 lb | 230 lb | 285 lb | 340 lb |
| 210 lb | 125 lb | 190 lb | 250 lb | 315 lb | 380 lb |
| 230 lb | 140 lb | 205 lb | 275 lb | 345 lb | 415 lb |
| 250 lb | 150 lb | 225 lb | 300 lb | 375 lb | 450 lb |
Power Clean Standards for Women
Estimated 1-rep max including the bar, by bodyweight.
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 lb | 40 lb | 65 lb | 85 lb | 125 lb | 160 lb |
| 130 lb | 45 lb | 80 lb | 100 lb | 150 lb | 185 lb |
| 150 lb | 55 lb | 90 lb | 115 lb | 170 lb | 215 lb |
| 170 lb | 60 lb | 100 lb | 135 lb | 195 lb | 245 lb |
| 190 lb | 70 lb | 115 lb | 150 lb | 215 lb | 275 lb |
| 210 lb | 75 lb | 125 lb | 165 lb | 240 lb | 300 lb |
| 230 lb | 85 lb | 140 lb | 180 lb | 260 lb | 330 lb |
| 250 lb | 90 lb | 150 lb | 195 lb | 285 lb | 360 lb |
A Worked Example
Why rep sets barely help on this lift.
A 190 lb man deadlifting the intermediate standard of 380 lb has an intermediate power clean of 230 lb and an advanced target of 285 lb. If he cleans 185 lb for a solid triple, the estimate comes out around 200 lb, which sits between the novice mark of 170 lb and intermediate at 230 lb.
Note how small that jump from three reps to one is compared with a bench or a squat. It is deliberate. Rep-max formulas assume fatigue reduces force gradually, but cleans fail on speed and technique rather than on gradual fatigue, so our power clean calculator caps the estimate at five reps and we would not trust a projection from anything higher than a triple.
What These Standards Cannot Tell You
This is a skill lift wearing a strength lift's clothes.
Rep-max formulas are unreliable for explosive lifts. A set of ten cleans is a conditioning workout, not a strength test, and running it through a 1RM equation will produce a number nobody could actually lift. Estimate from a triple at most, and prefer an actual heavy single done fresh.
The other limitation is the catch. Plenty of lifters can pull a weight high enough but cannot receive it, and a missed rack position ends the lift regardless of how strong the pull was. If your clean is stuck at a load your deadlift says is easy, the fix is almost always technical: front rack mobility, elbow speed and timing, rather than more pulling strength.
More Tools
Estimate a clean, then check the pull behind it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about these standards.
How much should I be able to power clean?
At 190 lb bodyweight the intermediate power clean is about 230 lb and the advanced mark about 285 lb. At 140 lb an intermediate woman is near 110 lb. Enter your own bodyweight above for your five figures.
What is the average power clean weight?
For a 190 lb man who trains the lift occasionally, an honest single sits between the novice and intermediate rows, about 170 to 230 lb. Most people who clean in a general strength programme never get past that band, because the lift needs regular technical practice to progress.
What percentage of my deadlift should my power clean be?
About 60 percent for a general lifter, which is the ratio behind these tables. Trained weightlifters often exceed 70 percent, and lifters with a big deadlift but little clean practice commonly sit near 45 to 50 percent.
Can I use a rep max calculator for power cleans?
Only for very low reps. Cleans fail on bar speed and technique rather than gradual fatigue, so estimates from high-rep sets are meaningless. Our power clean calculator caps the input at five reps for exactly that reason.
Is the power clean better than the hang clean?
They train different parts of the same movement. The power clean from the floor includes the first pull, the hang clean starts above the knee and drills the fast second pull. These standards are written for the power clean from the floor.
How are these power clean standards calculated?
Each level is 60 percent of the deadlift standard for the same bodyweight and sex, rounded to the nearest 5 lb. They are estimates from a typical ratio and carry more individual variation than any other page on this site, because technique matters so much.