Part of the data ring
WHITELIGHTS

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

Verdict

Is a 205 lb bench press good?

For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 11th 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, 205 lb is the 11th 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?

205 lb is 93 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 205 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 91st Elite 50.0
52.5–57.5 kg 79th Advanced 72.5
57.5–62.5 kg 61st Advanced 85.0
62.5–67.5 kg 39th Intermediate 100.0
67.5–72.5 kg 34th Intermediate 102.5
72.5–77.5 kg 18th Novice 115.0
77.5–82.5 kg 11th Novice 122.5
82.5–87.5 kg 11th Novice 125.0
87.5–92.5 kg 6th Novice 135.0
92.5–97.5 kg 6th Novice 137.5
97.5–102.5 kg 5th Novice 145.0
102.5–107.5 kg 4th Novice 150.0
107.5–112.5 kg 4th Novice 155.0
112.5–117.5 kg 5th Novice 155.0
117.5–122.5 kg 3rd Novice 162.5
122.5–127.5 kg 4th Novice 165.0
127.5–132.5 kg 4th Novice 161.0
132.5–137.5 kg 3rd Novice 165.6
137.5 kg and above 4th Novice 172.5

Women

BodyweightPercentileBandMedian for the class
up to 52.5 kg 99+ World-class 46.5
52.5–57.5 kg 99th World-class 52.5
57.5–62.5 kg 98th World-class 55.0
62.5–67.5 kg 96th World-class 60.0
67.5–72.5 kg 95th World-class 60.0
72.5–77.5 kg 92nd Elite 62.5
77.5–82.5 kg 92nd Elite 65.0
82.5–87.5 kg 91st Elite 65.0
87.5–92.5 kg 92nd Elite 65.0
92.5–97.5 kg 92nd Elite 65.0
97.5–102.5 kg 89th Elite 67.5
102.5–107.5 kg 89th Elite 67.5
107.5–112.5 kg 87th Elite 70.0
112.5–117.5 kg 86th Elite 70.0
117.5–122.5 kg 81st Elite 72.5
122.5–127.5 kg 80th Elite 75.0
127.5–132.5 kg 81st Elite 75.0
137.5 kg and above 70th Advanced 80.0

SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·205 lb scored against every published bench press class·REVIEWED JUL 2026

The road from here

LiftPercentileBand
93.011thNovice
103.020thIntermediate
113.032ndIntermediate
123.046thIntermediate

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 205 lb bench press good? — the short answers

Is a 205 lb bench press good?

For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 205 lb (93 kg) is the 11th 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 205 lb is the 91st percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and the 4th percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.

What would take a 205 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 57 kg more than 205 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.