Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

Real judged lifts. Zero self-reported numbers. This is what strong actually is.

Verdict

Is a 115 lb bench press good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is below the 1st percentile of 29,914 judged lifts — novice. At other bodyweights the answer changes, and the table below gives all of them.

The short answer

At 82.5–87.5 kg bodyweight, 115 lb is the 1st percentile of judged lifts — novice among people who compete.

Intermediate Advanced Elite World-class 0255075100 5080110140170200 kg lifted →
kg

Percentile

29,914 judged bench presses, men, 82.5–87.5 kg

No lift entered. The curve is every judged bench presses in this class — add yours to it.

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·29,914 judged bench presses, men, 82.5–87.5 kg·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Not your class?

115 lb is 52 kg. The chart is preloaded with it — change the number to check your own.

From 1.8 million judged lifts to one percentile

  1. Take only judged lifts. Every row is an attempt performed on a competition platform in front of three referees. Anything from a phone, a survey or a training log is not in the archive at all.
  2. Drop equipped lifts. Raw only — no squat suits, no bench shirts. A suit is worth tens of kilos and would silently inflate every figure on the page.
  3. Count each lifter once, at their best. Somebody who competes twenty times is one data point, not twenty, so the curve is a population of people rather than a population of meets.
  4. Split by sex and 5 kg bodyweight class, then by age band. A lift is a different achievement at 60 kg and at 120 kg, so a single national average would be an average of two different questions.
  5. Sort the class and read off the 99 cut points. Your percentile is the position of your lift in that sorted list — not a score, a rank against named people.
  6. Publish nothing thin. A slice with fewer than 500 lifters is not given a page: its tails would be noise dressed as a standard.
percentile(x)  =  100 × count(best_raw ≤ x) ÷ n

  class   =   sex  ×  5 kg bodyweight bucket  [ ×  age band ]
  n       =   lifters in that class, each counted once, at their best
  x       =   your lift, in kilograms

  band    =   01–19  novice        50–79  advanced      95–99  world class
              20–49  intermediate  80–94  elite

The full method, including what is excluded and why →

What 115 lb means at every bodyweight

The same lift is a different achievement at 60 kg and at 120 kg. This is the whole answer, not one row of it.

Men

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 53rd Advanced 50.0
52.5–57.5 kg 16th Novice 72.5
57.5–62.5 kg 6th Novice 85.0
62.5–67.5 kg 2nd Novice 100.0
67.5–72.5 kg 2nd Novice 102.5
72.5–77.5 kg <1 Novice 115.0
77.5–82.5 kg <1 Novice 122.5
82.5–87.5 kg <1 Novice 125.0
87.5–92.5 kg <1 Novice 135.0
92.5–97.5 kg <1 Novice 137.5
97.5–102.5 kg <1 Novice 145.0
102.5–107.5 kg <1 Novice 150.0
107.5–112.5 kg <1 Novice 155.0
112.5–117.5 kg <1 Novice 155.0
117.5–122.5 kg <1 Novice 162.5
122.5–127.5 kg <1 Novice 165.0
127.5–132.5 kg <1 Novice 161.0
132.5–137.5 kg <1 Novice 165.6
137.5 kg and above <1 Novice 172.5

Women

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 64th Advanced 46.5
52.5–57.5 kg 46th Intermediate 52.5
57.5–62.5 kg 37th Intermediate 55.0
62.5–67.5 kg 30th Intermediate 60.0
67.5–72.5 kg 27th Intermediate 60.0
72.5–77.5 kg 23rd Intermediate 62.5
77.5–82.5 kg 21st Intermediate 65.0
82.5–87.5 kg 22nd Intermediate 65.0
87.5–92.5 kg 21st Intermediate 65.0
92.5–97.5 kg 18th Novice 65.0
97.5–102.5 kg 16th Novice 67.5
102.5–107.5 kg 14th Novice 67.5
107.5–112.5 kg 13th Novice 70.0
112.5–117.5 kg 12th Novice 70.0
117.5–122.5 kg 10th Novice 72.5
122.5–127.5 kg 8th Novice 75.0
127.5–132.5 kg 8th Novice 75.0
137.5 kg and above 5th Novice 80.0

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·115 lb scored against every published bench press class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
52.21stNovice
62.22ndNovice
72.23rdNovice
82.26thNovice

Men at 82.5–87.5 kg bodyweight. Percentile gained per 10 kg, so you can see what the next plate is actually worth.

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·29,914 judged bench presses, men 82.5–87.5 kg·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Is a 115 lb bench press good? — the short answers

Is a 115 lb bench press good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 115 lb (52 kg) is below the 1st percentile of 29,914 judged competition bench presses, which this site labels novice. Everyone in that comparison entered a powerlifting meet, so they are stronger than the general gym population.

Does bodyweight change the answer?

Substantially. The same 115 lb is the 53rd percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and below the 1st percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.

What would take a 115 lb bench press into the top fifth?

At 82.5–87.5 kg the 80th percentile — the cut-off this site calls elite — is 150 kg (331 lb). That is 98 kg more than 115 lb.

Who these numbers describe. Everyone in this dataset entered a powerlifting competition. They are stronger than the general gym population, so a 50th percentile here is well above an average gym-goer — we would rather tell you that than quietly flatter you. Nobody has ever published a trustworthy random sample of what people lift in commercial gyms; what exists instead is app data that people type in themselves.

See all 10 sites in this family, with what each one answers

Published by

Amit Sharma

Auckland real-estate agent and marketer. Builds free, sourced data tools.