How many squats
should you do?
Here are benchmark levels for full-depth bodyweight squats by age and sex — and, more importantly, an honest account of where they come from. There is no peer-reviewed normative table for this test. Anyone presenting one as clinical data is guessing with more confidence than the evidence allows.
Not medical advice. This is general fitness information and a summary of published research, not a training or treatment plan for any individual. Progress gradually and stop if you feel pain. If you have a knee, hip, back, heart or blood-pressure condition, are pregnant, or you’re new to exercise, talk to a doctor or a qualified coach before you start. The terms have the fine print.
The honest headline
No study has established normative values for continuous, full-depth bodyweight squats performed to failure in one set. Not for adults under 60, not for anyone. The numbers circulating online trace to fitness media, certifying-body assessment forms, and crowdsourced workout-tracker data — never to a population study of this test.
So the table below is a model, built from the two most complete practical anchors and cross-checked against the one genuinely validated squat-adjacent measure that exists. We call these levels, not norms, on purpose.
The table
Reps to reach each level, assuming continuous bodyweight squats with no time limit, every rep at full depth — thighs at or below parallel — and the set ending when you stop or pause.
| Age | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18–39 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 |
| 40–49 | 25 | 28 | 33 | 39 |
| 50–59 | 20 | 23 | 27 | 33 |
| 60–69 | 16 | 20 | 24 | 30 |
| 70+ | 13 | 17 | 20 | 25 |
| Age | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18–39 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 40 |
| 40–49 | 17 | 21 | 25 | 31 |
| 50–59 | 12 | 16 | 20 | 26 |
| 60–69 | 10 | 13 | 18 | 24 |
| 70+ | 8 | 11 | 15 | 20 |
Where the numbers come from
- The base grid comes primarily from the American Council on Exercise’s Body-Weight Squat Assessment Protocol,1 age-weighted into these five brackets. ACE was weighted heaviest for two reasons: its stop rule — you can no longer complete a full repetition — is close to how this test actually ends, and its depth rule is thigh-parallel. It is an accredited certifying body’s assessment form. It is still not peer-reviewed normative data.
- Cross-checked against Topend Sports’ grid,2 which runs 20–30% lower at every matching bracket and is cued to a light chair touch rather than parallel. Kept as a floor check on the assumption that the general population is less athletic than a trainer’s assessed client, not discarded.
- The 70+ row is extrapolated. None of the practical sources split past “60+”. The 30-Second Chair Stand Test provides the one real decade-over-decade decline curve nearby — roughly 14 to 17% per decade in its average band3 — so that decay was applied to the 60–69 row.
- Deliberately excluded: workout-tracker platforms and their downstream copies. Their population is self-selected people who log lifts, and their numbers run one and a half to three times higher at equivalent ages. Elite here is a stretch goal for a general athlete, not a trained lifter’s ceiling — there is plenty of room above it.
The test that is actually validated — and why it is not this one
The 30-Second Chair Stand Test is the real thing: normed on 7,183 community-dwelling adults aged 60 to 94 in five-year bands, part of the Senior Fitness Test battery, widely republished by clinical bodies.3 A later study extended it to younger adults, finding 33.0 ± 5.4 reps in 30 seconds among healthy 19-to-35-year-olds.4
It is a different test, though, and the differences all run one way. It caps the trial at 30 seconds rather than going to failure, starts seated on a roughly 17-inch chair, and does not require the descent to reach parallel — standing fully upright is enough. Same muscles, materially easier range of motion, fixed clock. So it is useful for the shape of age-related decline in lower-body endurance, and its raw numbers are not squat-rep numbers. As a sanity check, the 60–69 men’s novice and intermediate figures above (16 and 20) sit just inside or below that test’s own 60–64 average band of 14 to 19, which is what you would expect from a harder movement.
Read the level, not the number
Two caveats that matter more than the exact figure you hit.
- Depth is a hard gate. Every number above assumes each rep reached parallel. Shallow reps inflate a count against sources that measured full-depth ones — the level goes up while the fitness does not. This is exactly why squattime refuses to count a rep until the hips reach the knee line.
- Height and bodyweight are real confounders. Taller and heavier athletes find bodyweight squat endurance harder at the same underlying fitness, and none of these sources adjust for either. If you are 6'4", read yourself a little generously.
And to be explicit, because this is where squat content usually goes wrong: these levels are not a health prediction. There is separate research linking chair-stand performance to mortality in older adults, and it does not transfer to this table — different test, different population, and observational either way. That research, handled properly →
Where squattime fits
A rep only counts when your hip crease reaches the top of your knee — the powerlifting standard, checked on every single rep by the camera. So the number you compare against the table above is measured the way the sources measured it, and a set of 40 shallow reps does not quietly become “advanced”. What counts as parallel →
How many bodyweight squats should I be able to do?
For men aged 18 to 39, roughly 30 reps at full depth is an average-population benchmark and around 45 is a stretch goal; for women in the same bracket, about 25 and 40. Those thresholds fall with age. Treat them as levels rather than clinical norms — no peer-reviewed normative table for full-depth squat reps to failure exists.
Is 50 squats in a row good?
For a general athlete, yes — 50 full-depth reps sits above the top benchmark level in every age bracket. The qualifier is depth: 50 reps where the hips reach the knee line is a different achievement from 50 partial reps, and the benchmark tables were built on full-depth testing.
How many squats a day by age?
The benchmark tables here describe a one-set test, not a daily target, and there is no evidence-based daily squat number. For health outcomes the World Health Organization asks for muscle-strengthening activity on at least two days a week, and roughly two sets taken close to failure twice weekly meets that at any age.
Is the chair stand test the same as a squat test?
No, and the difference matters. The 30-Second Chair Stand Test is genuinely validated — normed on 7,183 adults aged 60 to 94 — but it caps you at 30 seconds, starts seated in a chair, and does not require reaching parallel. It is an easier movement on a fixed clock, so its numbers cannot be read as squat-rep numbers.
Do squat rep standards exist for teenagers?
No. FitnessGram and the Presidential Youth Fitness Program test curl-ups or plank, a mile run or PACER, and push-ups or pull-ups — no squat event. There is no youth squat grid to draw on, so under-18s are best read against the 18 to 39 bracket.
Sources
- American Council on Exercise, Body-Weight Squat Assessment Protocol, reprinted with permission from Mackenzie B, 101 Performance Evaluation Tests (2005). A trainer-administered age and sex grid whose stop rule — you can no longer complete a full repetition — is close to how squattime ends a set. A certifying body’s assessment form, not peer-reviewed normative data.
- Topend Sports, Squat Test, credited to Antonetti V, Total Fitness. A home-testing grid, consistently 20–30% below ACE at matching brackets, cued to a light chair touch rather than thigh-parallel.
- Rikli RE, Jones CJ. Development and validation of a functional fitness test for community-residing older adults. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, 1999;7(2):129–161. The Senior Fitness Test battery, including the 30-second chair stand, normed on 7,183 adults aged 60–94. A validated clinical test — but a seated start, a 30-second cap and no depth requirement, so its numbers are not squat-rep numbers.
- Lein DH, et al. Normative values for the 30-second chair stand test in healthy young adults. International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 2022;17(5):907–914, n=81, ages 19–35: 33.0±5.4 reps in 30 seconds; 34.0±5.2 for the more active subgroup versus 31.5±5.5 for the less active (p=0.04).
- Deeper squats elicit substantially greater gluteus maximus and adductor magnus activation than partial squats, and full-range squat training produced greater glute and adductor volume gains than half-squat training in randomised comparison; differences narrow when load is equated to each depth’s own repetition maximum, so depth and load both matter independently.
- World Health Organization, Guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour, 2020. Muscle-strengthening activity involving all major muscle groups on at least two days a week, for all adults; an estimated 10–30% of adults actually meet it.