Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

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

Verdict

Is a 170 kg bench press good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 94th percentile of 29,914 judged lifts — elite. At other bodyweights the answer changes, and the table below gives all of them.

The short answer

At 82.5–87.5 kg bodyweight, 170 kg is the 94th percentile — elite.

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?

170 kg is 375 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 170 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 99+ World-class 50.0
52.5–57.5 kg 99+ World-class 72.5
57.5–62.5 kg 99+ World-class 85.0
62.5–67.5 kg 99+ World-class 100.0
67.5–72.5 kg 99+ World-class 102.5
72.5–77.5 kg 98th World-class 115.0
77.5–82.5 kg 97th World-class 122.5
82.5–87.5 kg 94th Elite 125.0
87.5–92.5 kg 90th Elite 135.0
92.5–97.5 kg 87th Elite 137.5
97.5–102.5 kg 80th Elite 145.0
102.5–107.5 kg 76th Advanced 150.0
107.5–112.5 kg 67th Advanced 155.0
112.5–117.5 kg 68th Advanced 155.0
117.5–122.5 kg 60th Advanced 162.5
122.5–127.5 kg 55th Advanced 165.0
127.5–132.5 kg 58th Advanced 161.0
132.5–137.5 kg 54th Advanced 165.6
137.5 kg and above 48th Intermediate 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 99+ World-class 65.0
87.5–92.5 kg 99+ World-class 65.0
92.5–97.5 kg 99+ World-class 65.0
97.5–102.5 kg 99+ World-class 67.5
102.5–107.5 kg 99+ World-class 67.5
107.5–112.5 kg 99+ World-class 70.0
112.5–117.5 kg 99+ World-class 70.0
117.5–122.5 kg 99+ World-class 72.5
122.5–127.5 kg 99+ World-class 75.0
127.5–132.5 kg 99+ World-class 75.0
137.5 kg and above 99+ World-class 80.0

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·170 kg scored against every published bench press class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
170.094thElite
180.097thWorld-class
190.099thWorld-class
200.099thWorld-class

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 170 kg bench press good? — the short answers

Is a 170 kg bench press good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 170 kg (375 lb) is the 94th percentile of 29,914 judged competition bench presses, which this site labels elite. 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 170 kg is above the 99th percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and the 48th percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.

What would take a 170 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). A 170 kg bench press is already past it.

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.