Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

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

Verdict

Is a 120 kg bench press good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 43rd percentile of 29,914 judged lifts — intermediate. At other bodyweights the answer changes, and the table below gives all of them.

The short answer

At 82.5–87.5 kg bodyweight, 120 kg is the 43rd percentile of judged lifts — intermediate 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?

120 kg is 265 lb. 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 120 kg 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 97th World-class 50.0
52.5–57.5 kg 95th World-class 72.5
57.5–62.5 kg 92nd Elite 85.0
62.5–67.5 kg 82nd Elite 100.0
67.5–72.5 kg 78th Advanced 102.5
72.5–77.5 kg 61st Advanced 115.0
77.5–82.5 kg 48th Intermediate 122.5
82.5–87.5 kg 43rd Intermediate 125.0
87.5–92.5 kg 31st Intermediate 135.0
92.5–97.5 kg 28th Intermediate 137.5
97.5–102.5 kg 21st Intermediate 145.0
102.5–107.5 kg 18th Novice 150.0
107.5–112.5 kg 16th Novice 155.0
112.5–117.5 kg 17th Novice 155.0
117.5–122.5 kg 13th Novice 162.5
122.5–127.5 kg 13th Novice 165.0
127.5–132.5 kg 15th Novice 161.0
132.5–137.5 kg 13th Novice 165.6
137.5 kg and above 12th Novice 172.5

Women

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 99+ World-class 46.5
52.5–57.5 kg 99+ World-class 52.5
57.5–62.5 kg 99+ World-class 55.0
62.5–67.5 kg 99+ World-class 60.0
67.5–72.5 kg 99+ World-class 60.0
72.5–77.5 kg 99+ World-class 62.5
77.5–82.5 kg 99+ World-class 65.0
82.5–87.5 kg 98th World-class 65.0
87.5–92.5 kg 99th World-class 65.0
92.5–97.5 kg 99th World-class 65.0
97.5–102.5 kg 98th World-class 67.5
102.5–107.5 kg 98th World-class 67.5
107.5–112.5 kg 98th World-class 70.0
112.5–117.5 kg 97th World-class 70.0
117.5–122.5 kg 97th World-class 72.5
122.5–127.5 kg 96th World-class 75.0
127.5–132.5 kg 96th World-class 75.0
137.5 kg and above 93rd Elite 80.0

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·120 kg scored against every published bench press class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
120.043rdIntermediate
130.058thAdvanced
140.071stAdvanced
150.082ndElite

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 120 kg bench press good? — the short answers

Is a 120 kg bench press good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 120 kg (265 lb) is the 43rd percentile of 29,914 judged competition bench presses, which this site labels intermediate. 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 120 kg is the 97th percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and the 12th percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.

What would take a 120 kg 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 30 kg more than 120 kg.

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.