How much should I be able to bench press?

After a year or two of consistent training, benching your bodyweight for one rep is a solid goal for most men. For most women, something around half to two thirds of bodyweight is a comparable milestone. If you're under that right now, that's normal. Most people who just started can't bench close to their bodyweight.

The numbers below are rough. Height, arm length, age and how long you've been training all move them around, so treat them as a rough guide and not a grade.

Rough bench press standards

These are one rep maxes as a multiple of bodyweight, based on common strength standards.

For men:

• Beginner (first few months): around 0.5x to 0.75x bodyweight
• Intermediate (1 to 2 years): around 1x to 1.25x bodyweight
• Advanced (several years of focused training): around 1.5x bodyweight
• Elite: 2x bodyweight and up

For women:

• Beginner: around 0.25x to 0.5x bodyweight
• Intermediate: around 0.5x to 0.75x bodyweight
• Advanced: around 1x bodyweight
• Elite: 1.25x bodyweight and up

So a 180 lb guy benching 135 lb is right where you'd expect a beginner to be. Hitting 185 to 225 lb would put him in the intermediate range.

Why your bench might feel behind

A few things make the bench look worse than it is:

• Long arms. The bar travels further, so the same strength moves less weight.
• Not training it often enough. The bench is a skill as much as a strength test. Once a week is usually not enough for it to move fast.
• Ego reps on bad form. Bouncing the bar off your chest or lifting your hips feels like progress, but it doesn't carry over.

You don't need to max out to know

Testing a true one rep max isn't necessary to see where you're at. If you can do a weight for 5 clean reps, you can estimate your max from that (here's how to estimate your one rep max). It's safer, and you can do it on a normal training day.

Push-ups train the same pressing muscles, and League of Fitness has 60-second push-up races where your phone camera counts the reps against a real opponent. It is a different test from a one rep max, but it gives you another number to watch move.

A better question to ask

I think "am I getting stronger month over month?" is more useful than "is my bench good?". If your 5 rep weight keeps going up, you're doing it right, whatever the chart says. If it's been stuck for a couple of months, that's when it's worth changing something, and this guide on increasing your bench covers what to try first.