Is a 225 lb bench press good?
For a man at 82.5–87.5 kg it is the 19th 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, 225 lb is the 19th percentile of judged lifts — novice among people who compete.
Percentile
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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?
225 lb is 102 kg. The chart is preloaded with it — change the number to check your own.
From 1.8 million judged lifts to one percentile
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
What 225 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
| Bodyweight | Percentile | Band | Median for the class |
|---|---|---|---|
| up to 52.5 kg | 93rd | Elite | 50.0 |
| 52.5–57.5 kg | 87th | Elite | 72.5 |
| 57.5–62.5 kg | 74th | Advanced | 85.0 |
| 62.5–67.5 kg | 54th | Advanced | 100.0 |
| 67.5–72.5 kg | 48th | Intermediate | 102.5 |
| 72.5–77.5 kg | 29th | Intermediate | 115.0 |
| 77.5–82.5 kg | 20th | Novice | 122.5 |
| 82.5–87.5 kg | 19th | Novice | 125.0 |
| 87.5–92.5 kg | 11th | Novice | 135.0 |
| 92.5–97.5 kg | 11th | Novice | 137.5 |
| 97.5–102.5 kg | 8th | Novice | 145.0 |
| 102.5–107.5 kg | 7th | Novice | 150.0 |
| 107.5–112.5 kg | 7th | Novice | 155.0 |
| 112.5–117.5 kg | 7th | Novice | 155.0 |
| 117.5–122.5 kg | 5th | Novice | 162.5 |
| 122.5–127.5 kg | 6th | Novice | 165.0 |
| 127.5–132.5 kg | 6th | Novice | 161.0 |
| 132.5–137.5 kg | 6th | Novice | 165.6 |
| 137.5 kg and above | 5th | Novice | 172.5 |
Women
| Bodyweight | Percentile | Band | Median 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 | 98th | World-class | 60.0 |
| 67.5–72.5 kg | 98th | World-class | 60.0 |
| 72.5–77.5 kg | 96th | World-class | 62.5 |
| 77.5–82.5 kg | 96th | World-class | 65.0 |
| 82.5–87.5 kg | 95th | Elite | 65.0 |
| 87.5–92.5 kg | 95th | World-class | 65.0 |
| 92.5–97.5 kg | 96th | World-class | 65.0 |
| 97.5–102.5 kg | 94th | Elite | 67.5 |
| 102.5–107.5 kg | 94th | Elite | 67.5 |
| 107.5–112.5 kg | 92nd | Elite | 70.0 |
| 112.5–117.5 kg | 92nd | Elite | 70.0 |
| 117.5–122.5 kg | 90th | Elite | 72.5 |
| 122.5–127.5 kg | 88th | Elite | 75.0 |
| 127.5–132.5 kg | 88th | Elite | 75.0 |
| 137.5 kg and above | 80th | Advanced | 80.0 |
SOURCE·Judged competition results (OpenPowerlifting)·225 lb scored against every published bench press class·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The road from here
| Lift | Percentile | Band |
|---|---|---|
| 102.1 | 19th | Novice |
| 112.1 | 31st | Intermediate |
| 122.1 | 45th | Intermediate |
| 132.1 | 59th | Advanced |
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 225 lb bench press good? — the short answers
Is a 225 lb bench press good?
For a man weighing 82.5–87.5 kg, 225 lb (102 kg) is the 19th 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 225 lb is the 93rd percentile for men at up to 52.5 kg and the 5th percentile for men at 137.5 kg and above. The table above gives every published class for both sexes.
What would take a 225 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 48 kg more than 225 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.