What Counts as a Good Bench Press?
A hundred kilos means something different at 60 kg bodyweight than at 100. The usual answer — "one and a half times bodyweight" — is a useful rule of thumb, but it is unfair to lighter lifters, and the reason is geometry.
The question comes up sooner or later: is this any good? It is a reasonable question, because a number of kilos means nothing without a reference. A hundred kilo bench is a different achievement depending on who lifts it.
The usual reference is bodyweight, and it is a decent starting point. It is also slightly wrong, and this article is about why — and what to use instead.
The bodyweight multiple and its flaw
The simplest standard divides your max by your bodyweight. Bench your own weight, squat one and a half times it, pull twice it — figures like these are everywhere, and they give a roughly correct sense of where you stand.
The problem is that strength does not scale in proportion to bodyweight. A bigger lifter is absolutely stronger but relatively weaker, and this holds so consistently that you can read it off practically any competition results list.
The reason is geometric. Muscular force depends roughly on cross-sectional area — a two-dimensional quantity. Bodyweight is mass, a three-dimensional one. As scale increases, area grows more slowly than volume — in theory to the power of two thirds. So a lifter who weighs twice as much is not twice as strong but about 1.6 times as strong. Exponents fitted to real competition results come out slightly higher, typically 0.70–0.75, meaning the pure geometric law over-rewards the lightest lifters a little. That is exactly why DOTS is a polynomial rather than a power law.
The practical consequence is clear: a fixed bodyweight multiple is a harder target for a light lifter than a heavy one. "One and a half times bodyweight on the bench" asks considerably more of a 60 kg lifter than a 100 kg one, even though it sounds identical to both.
How scaling fixes it
The strength standards calculator uses that same two-thirds exponent. The reference figures are set for an 80 kg man and a 65 kg woman, and scaled for everyone else.
So the same level looks different at different bodyweights. Take "advanced" on the bench press, men:
| Bodyweight | Required max | Ratio to bodyweight |
|---|---|---|
| 60 kg | 99 kg | 1.65 × |
| 70 kg | 110 kg | 1.57 × |
| 80 kg | 120 kg | 1.50 × |
| 90 kg | 130 kg | 1.44 × |
| 100 kg | 139 kg | 1.39 × |
| 110 kg | 148 kg | 1.35 × |
The right-hand column is the one that tells the story. The same achievement demands a ratio of 1.65 from a light lifter and 1.35 from a heavy one. Demand a flat 1.50 from both and you systematically undervalue the light lifter and overvalue the heavy one.
For women the logic is the same and only the reference figures differ. An advanced bench is 65 kg for a 65 kg woman — a ratio of 1.00 — and 78 kg at 85 kg bodyweight, a ratio of 0.91.
Five levels
The calculator sorts results into five levels: untrained, beginner, intermediate, advanced and elite. Roughly, they mean:
- Untrained — what a healthy adult manages without any real training.
- Beginner — a few months of regular training behind you.
- Intermediate — a year or two of consistent work. This is where most people who train regularly end up.
- Advanced — several years of deliberate strength training. Progress here is slow and has to be planned.
- Elite — competitive standard. Requires years of systematic training and favourable genetics on top.
For an 80 kg man the bench cut-offs are 60, 88, 120 and 160 kg. For the squat they are 80, 120, 160 and 200 kg, and for the deadlift 100, 140, 180 and 220 kg.
What these numbers are not
Worth being direct here. These are rules of thumb, not statistics. They are assembled from established strength training reference figures, not computed from a database of a million real competition results.
Read the thresholds as directional rather than accurate to five kilos. A few things they ignore:
- Leverages. Short arms help on the bench and long arms hurt. Between two lifters of the same weight the gap can be tens of kilos on structure alone.
- Training years are not the same as age. Three years of well-programmed training produces more than ten years of turning up occasionally.
- Equipment. Results lifted in supportive gear are not comparable to raw lifting. These figures mean raw.
- How the lift is performed. A competition bench with a pause on the chest is not the same as a gym bench where the bar bounces. The difference is easily 5–10 %.
DOTS: comparing the whole total
Rather than a single lift, powerlifting compares the three-lift total, and it uses a points formula to do it. DOTS is the most widely used — most federations outside the IPF run on it, while the IPF itself moved to its own GL points in 2020. The idea is the same as above — removing the effect of bodyweight — but implemented as a polynomial fitted to a large body of real competition results.
What it looks like in practice:
| Bodyweight | Total | DOTS |
|---|---|---|
| 70 kg | 400 kg | 300.5 |
| 80 kg | 450 kg | 310.3 |
| 100 kg | 500 kg | 307.8 |
| 120 kg | 550 kg | 315.9 |
Look at the first and third rows. The heavier lifter moves a hundred kilos more, but the point gap is seven — the performances are effectively equivalent. That is exactly what the scoring exists to show.
As a rough map, 300 DOTS is a strong recreational lifter, 400 is competitive standard, and 500 is outright elite in raw lifting. World record level sits above 600. The DOTS calculator sits on the same page as the strength standards.
One caution about ratios
The bodyweight multiple has a property worth being aware of: it improves if you lose weight, without you getting any stronger. A 100 kg bench is a ratio of 1.0 at 100 kg bodyweight and 1.11 at 90 kg, with exactly the same bar.
That does not make the ratio useless, but it makes it a poor goal in itself. A more meaningful way to track progress is to watch the kilos lifted and the ratio side by side, so you can see which one actually moved.
A more useful question
"Is this good?" is ultimately a less useful question than "which of my lifts is lagging?". A level gives you one number; the relationship between your lifts tells you what to do next.
Put all three lifts into the calculator and see whether they land on the same level. The usual finding is that one lift is clearly behind — often the bench if the lower body has had more attention, or the deadlift if it has been avoided. That is concrete information you can change a program with. A level name is not.
Summary
A good bench depends on bodyweight, but not in direct proportion. A lighter lifter needs a higher ratio to reach the same level, because strength scales with bodyweight to the power of two thirds. For an 80 kg man, intermediate is about 88 kg and advanced 120 kg; at 100 kg bodyweight the same figures are 102 and 139 kg.
The numbers are directional. Use them to decide which way to go, not to decide whether a result was worth anything.
You can find your own level with the strength standards calculator. If you have not tested a max, estimate one from a work set with the 1RM calculator.