What Is Considered a Good Bench Press?

The inquiry “How much ya bench?” is uttered far too frequently within gym walls and locker rooms in an attempt to determine who has the strongest and most powerful muscular system in the room.  

The fact is, there are several different means to execute  the bench press, and it can be difficult to accurately determine what is considered a “good” bench press and who can bench more. 

Here’s a brief list of just a few of the types of bench presses that exist that make it nearly impossible to accurately compare bench press performance ability:

• Raw bench press in the gym

• Pause raw bench press in the gym

• Raw bench press in competition

• Bench press wearing bench shirt in the gym

• Bench press wearing bench shirt in competition

The above bench press variations are just a few of the nearly infinite types of bench press that can be used to compare strength levels and attempt to determine what a “good” bench press is.  These don’t take into consideration other related movements such as board presses, floor presses, close grip bench presses or incline bench presses. 

In certain circumstances, those pressing movements can be more accurate in determining pure strength and power than simple analysis of traditional bench press numbers.

Other Variables

Let’s not forget other variables that are typically used to determine how “good” a bench press is for a particular lifter. 

Body Weight

Some of the best benchers in the world have a relatively low body weight.  In power lifting competition, mathematical formulas are used to determine the best lifters.  The objective is to lift the most amount of weight, pound-for-pound, over three lifts.  One popular formula that is used to make this determination is the Wilk’s Coefficient Formula.

However, in the real world, it’s much more impressive to say that you can bench 300 lbs. than 200 lbs. no matter what your body weight. 

Age and Experience

Popular belief dictates that younger lifters, aged 30 or less, have a hormonal advantage and can recover faster than older lifters, which results in a bigger bench press.  The fact is, older lifters with decades of experience typically perform the bench press and other power lifts much better than most young lifters. 

Of course there are exceptions to this, but much of the time, the older, healthy, seasoned strength athletes tend to continue improving their numbers over many years, usually as a result of technique perfection, nervous system stimulus, and development of appropriate motor units. 

For the purpose of this article to answer the question, “What is a good bench press,” we have to eliminate many of the factors discussed above.  The variations are just too vast to even begin to simply answer this question. 

So, on the face of it, without consideration for bodyweight, age, experience, environment or use of gear, here are bench press one-rep max ranges and their classification on the “good” scale:

One-Rep Max Bench Press in Pounds:

45-135 – You can do better

135-185 – Starting to make progress but still not great

185-225 – Getting better but still needs work – You need to read this for improvement

225-275 – Now we’re getting somewhere – Here’s a tip to improve

275-315 – Decent bench press

315-365 – This is a Good bench press

365-405 – Very good

405-455 – Excellent

455-495 – Very, very strong

500+ - The best of the best

Remember, these numbers are based on unscientific observations and data gather over the course of twenty years.  They do not consider some of the most common and influential variables such as age and experience level.  

No matter what your current strength levels in the bench press, there is almost always room for improvement. 

Barring injury or other physical limitations, the muscle groups that are responsible for moving the bar through a full range of motion while bench pressing can become stronger, more resistant to injury and more flexible through a sound approach to nutrition, supplementation and exercise implementation. 

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