Age 18 · men and women · the scale by bodyweight, not a guessed average
Average Bench Press for an 18 Year Old
Among 18-year-old men who compete, the median bench is 248 lb112 kg; among women who compete, it is 121 lb55 kg. Those are competition benchmarks. No general-population average exists: nobody has measured a representative sample of 18-year-olds, and the numbers that circulate are guesses. Below is the six-level scale by bodyweight, the same six levels Stronger scores every lift on, and beside each level how rare it is among 18-year-olds who actually compete.
- Men · 20995–231105 lbkg · Intermediate from
- 276 lb125 kg
- Novice from 165 lb75 kg · Advanced from 386 lb175 kg · Elite from 441 lb200 kg
- Women · 14365–16575 lbkg · Intermediate from
- 116 lb53 kg
- Novice from 77 lb35 kg · Advanced from 154 lb70 kg · Elite from 231 lb105 kg
Men · 220 lb100 kg bodyweight · age 18
- Beginner
- from the bar
- Novice
- from 16575
- Intermediate
- from 276125
- Advanced
- from 386175
- Elite
- from 441200
- World Class
- from 529240
Women · 154 lb70 kg bodyweight · age 18
The markers are the median among 18-year-olds who compete in our data: 248 lb112 kg for men, 121 lb55 kg for women. Treat them as a competition benchmark, not a general-population average; the lifters who enter a meet are its strong end.
Find your rank
Where does your bench sit at 18?
Your level comes from Stronger's scale at your bodyweight. Your percentile compares you with 18-year-olds who compete. Enter a set of up to twelve reps and we estimate the max; you do not need to test one.
276 × 3 ≈ 304 lb one-rep max (Epley). Up to 12 reps keeps the estimate honest.
Calculations run in your browser. We measure usage, including strength levels and broad bodyweight ranges.
Your bench
304lb
Intermediate
at or above 63% of men competing in the data aged 18 at your bodyweight
A 1.38× bodyweight bench is Intermediate for a 220 lb100 kg man at 18. Advanced starts at 385 lb175 kg, 81 lb37 kg away.
Standards at 18
Bench press standards for 18 year olds, by bodyweight
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite | World Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| under 14365 | 45201% | 99451% | 1657525% | 23110580% | 26512095% | 317144100% |
| 14365–16575 | 45201% | 116531% | 1938820% | 27012282% | 30914097% | 370168100% |
| 16575–18785 | 45201% | 132601% | 22010025% | 30914088% | 35316098% | 423192100% |
| 18785–20995 | 45201% | 149681% | 24811235% | 34715793% | 39718099% | 476216100% |
| 20995–231105rail row | 45201% | 165751% | 27612545% | 38617594% | 441200100% | 529240100% |
| 231105–254115 | 45201% | 182832% | 30313757% | 42419298% | 485220100% | 582264100% |
| 254115–276125 | 45201% | 198905% | 33115063% | 46321098% | 529240100% | 635288100% |
| 276125+ | 45201% | 2199915% | 36516684% | 511232100% | 584265100% | 701318100% |
| Bodyweight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite | World Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| under 12155 | 45201% | 55251% | 833820% | 1105065% | 1657598% | 19890100% |
| 12155–14365 | 45201% | 66301% | 994525% | 1326065% | 1989099% | 238108100% |
| 14365–16575rail row | 45201% | 77354% | 1165330% | 1547075% | 231105100% | 278126100% |
| 16575+ | 45201% | 88406% | 1326050% | 1768086% | 265120100% | 317144100% |
These are not the adult standards scaled down by a guess, and we do not invent a separate teenage scale either. The floors are the same six Stronger uses at any age, so a number means the same thing on the app and on this page. What changes with age is the small figure under each floor, the share of 18-year-olds who compete in our data and bench less than it. Reaching 276 lb125 kg at 20995–231105 is Intermediate on the scale, and the figure beneath it tells you how rare that is at 18. Only brackets with at least a hundred 18-year-old competitors are shown; the top one is open-ended.
13 to 18
How 18 compares to the ages around it
Eighteen is where the teenage curve hands over to the adult standards. Every point is a link.
boys, median competitor girls, median competitorage · lbkg · among lifters of that age who compete in our data
How we calculate
Where these numbers come from
Percentiles are built from 1,668,369 bench press competition results (one per lifter per meet) by 556,880 lifters, updated September 2026. We show the method so you can judge it.
The distribution. Our percentiles come from competition results in the OpenPowerlifting open dataset: each lifter's best successful raw bench, with sex, bodyweight and age recorded at the meet. These numbers describe competitive powerlifters, people who entered a sanctioned meet and trained for it. They are stronger than the general gym population, and far stronger than the general public. We say so wherever a percentile appears. Drug-tested divisions bench less at the median than untested ones (men: 276 lb vs 305 lb); the headline numbers pool both.
The levels. Six bands, the same six Stronger uses to score every lift in the app, and read the same way. The app divides your best estimated one-rep max by your bodyweight and compares it with a set of multipliers for each lift, so each cutoff is the floor of its band for that bodyweight, and crossing it puts you in. World Class starts at 1.2 times the Elite floor. We do not redraw the scale from the competition data; we put the competition percentile beside every floor so you can see how rare each level is among people who compete.
Testing a one-rep max. Warm up to it in jumps that get smaller as the bar gets heavier, take three to five minutes between the last attempts, and use a spotter or safeties. If you would rather not max out, take a set of two to six clean reps and let the calculator estimate it; the Epley formula we use is accurate to within a few percent under ten reps.
- Beginner
- The lowest band on Stronger’s scale, from the empty bar up to the Novice floor.
- Novice
- The second band on Stronger’s scale, from the Novice floor up to the Intermediate floor.
- Intermediate
- The third band on Stronger’s scale, from the Intermediate floor up to the Advanced floor.
- Advanced
- The fourth band on Stronger’s scale, from the Advanced floor up to the Elite floor.
- Elite
- The second-highest band on Stronger’s scale. Competition rankings are shown separately.
- World Class
- The highest band on Stronger’s scale, not a claim of a federation record or qualification.
Sources
- OpenPowerlifting open datasetOpenPowerlifting project2026-09-05CC0Percentile curves, milestone shares, age curves and population counts: 556,880 raw lifters (best successful competition bench each), sanctioned meets only, para and equipped divisions excluded.
- Stronger's Strength Score scale for the bench pressStrongerThe app's six levels per sex, as multiples of bodyweight. Each table floor is worked out for the middle of its bodyweight bracket, and the app scores a single rep about 3% above the weight lifted, so near a floor the app's level can differ from the table's.
- NSCA Strength and Conditioning Professional Standards and GuidelinesNational Strength and Conditioning Association / Strength and Conditioning Journal2017-12NSCA: NSCA Strength and Conditioning Professional Standards and Guidelines
All 16 cited sources
- Bench Press Standards for Men and Women (lb)Strength Level LimitedPublished standards table: By Bodyweight
- Bench Press Standards for Men and Women (kg)Strength LevelStrength Level published standards
- Bench Press Strength Standards for Men and Women (kg)StrengthLogPublished standards table: Bench Press Strength Standards by Body Weight
- Bench Press Strength Standards for Men and Women (lb)StrengthLogStrengthLog / Styrkelabbet published standards
- 2023 STRENGTH STANDARDS — Snatch – Clean & Jerk – Back Squat – Bench Press – Deadlift – PressLon Kilgore / Kilgore Academy2023Published standards table: BENCH PRESS (MEN) / BENCH PRESS (WOMEN)
- Basic Strength StandardsThe Aasgaard Company2012Published standards table: Bench Press - Adult Men / Bench Press - Adult Women
- Bench Press StandardsExRx.netPublished standards table: Bench Press Standards
- Bench Press Strength StandardsGravitus, Inc.Published standards table: Bench Press Standards by Bodyweight (lb)
- Max Bench Press CalculatorGravitus, Inc.Women's standards table: Bench Press Standards for Women (lbs)
- Bench Press StandardsStrength OriginsPublished standards table: Competitive Bench Press Standards
- Profiling the absolute and relative strength of a special operations police unitBMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation / Springer Nature2022-06-20Published standards table: Table 2. Bodyweight, strength data and overall change (Mean ± SD) for five TPs over 18 months — Bench Press Absolute Strength (kg)
- Bench Press TestBrianMac Sports CoachPublished standards table: A good 1RM for the bench press
- 1RM Bench Press Calculator - Test Your Upper Body StrengthTopend Sports / Robert WoodPublished standards table: 1 Rep Max Bench Press Table for adults (weight lifted per bodyweight)
- How Much Can the Average Person Bench Press?Healthline2019-06-14Published standards table: Bench press average by weight — Men / Women
- Lifter Classifications100% RAW Powerlifting Federation2012-01-01Women's standards table: Women’s Bench Press
- Triage Ultimate Health Targets Assessment ToolTriageMethodWomen's standards table: Bench Press (1RM) – (Weight: 1.5)
How our scale compares
Our six levels are Stronger's own scale, and the percentages beside them come from competition results. Below is a summary of the published tables people actually copy: whose numbers they are, whom they describe and how they were made, so you can see how a “good” bench on this page compares to what other sources call good. None of them measures the general population either.
- Strength Level Limited · 18 tables (lb, ratio, kg)Male and female Strength Level usersOriginally based on fixed Kilgore/ExRx tables in 2007. Publisher says July 2015 replaced that model with community-data regressions; May 2016 incorporated joint lift/bodyweight modelling. Current table belongs to the 2026 refresh. These are not independent probability estimates for all adults.
- StrengthLog · 12 tables (kg, lb)Men and women who use StrengthLogStrengthLog says the standards are calculated from user training logs; no Kilgore derivation is claimed. Sample date, age distribution, lift-verification protocol and detailed statistical construction are not supplied on the inspected page.
- Lon Kilgore / Kilgore Academy · 1 table (kg)Men and women, ages 15–89Author combines scientific literature, published drug-tested classic/raw lifting results and coaching observation. The author resource page explicitly says the 2023 revision supersedes prior tables. No cell-level dataset or reproducible estimation code is provided.
- The Aasgaard Company · 2 tables (lb)Adult Men / Adult WomenSource specifies Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, 3rd edition techniques. Every bench numeric cell matches the inspected 2007 ExRx table, but level names differ. This is documented numerical identity, not proof of an unpublished licensing or authorship history.
- ExRx.net · 1 table (lb)Adult men and womenExplanatory source credits Dr. Lon Kilgore, the training definitions in Practical Programming (Kilgore, Rippetoe, Pendlay), Starting Strength exercise technique and published lifting-performance standards. Numeric identity with the publisher-hosted 2012 Starting Strength sheet is directly established.
- Gravitus, Inc. · 5 tables (lb)Male / Female Gravitus usersPublisher-owned app logs; best estimated 1RM per lifter, Brzycki formula, extreme outliers excluded. Asterisks designate weight points with fewer than 50 lifters, estimated by the publisher through allometric scaling.
- Strength Origins · 2 tables (lb)Men / Women; raw, drug-tested, sanctioned full-power competitors, ages 16–65Publisher, not this inventory, processed OpenPowerlifting using Power Query; best-total performance per lifter-year, valid nonzero full SBD results, raw and drug-tested, weight classes rebinned to IPF style. No underlying data were downloaded or recomputed for this job.
- BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation / Springer Nature · 2 tables (kg, ratio)47 male Australian elite police officersPrimary retrospective cohort measurements; barbell touches chest, full extension, bench contact maintained. Same lead coach across tests.
- BrianMac Sports Coach · 1 table (ratio)men / womenAuthor-published coaching judgment; no cell-level dataset or derivation is given. A separate McArdle citation is used by the page’s assessment machinery, but the source does not prove these two good thresholds are that table.
- Topend Sports / Robert Wood · 1 table (ratio)adults; both sexes as stated by the publisherThe author explicitly attributes the scores to personal experience, not a federation, research sample or ACSM norm.
- Healthline · 1 table (lb)Men / Women, ages 18–59; page explains sex as assigned at birthThe page links ExRx for these standards. Unlike the fixed numerical 2007 ExRx/2012 Starting Strength cells, this page prints ranges. No inspected evidence establishes how those range endpoints were constructed.
- 100% RAW Powerlifting Federation · 1 table (lb)Women competing in 100% RAW; ranking-informed performance classes, not population normsFAQ identifies PowerliftingWatch rankings, primarily 2008–2010, as the backbone of Elite standards, with formulas, federation input and judgment. Other classes are related to Elite. The female FAQ explicitly discusses limited participation and hypothetical stronger fields. No uniform male×factor derivation is stated.
- TriageMethod · 1 table (ratio)Women using the publisher’s health-targets assessment; no sampled population disclosedPublisher explicitly sets female standards at approximately 60–75% of male standards, varying by movement. This is a stated coaching method; no fixed 0.6 factor is applied or inferred here.
What apps publish about their own users
- Strength Level: average bench of 212 lb among male Strength Level cohort; no fixed bodyweightMethod: Self-submitted lifts feed fitted strength/bodyweight distributions. Rep sets can be converted to estimated 1RM. Not a general-population figure.
- Strength Level: average bench of 112 lb among female Strength Level cohort; no fixed bodyweightMethod: Self-submitted lifts feed fitted strength/bodyweight distributions. Rep sets can be converted to estimated 1RM. Not a general-population figure.
- StrengthLog / Styrkelabbet: average bench of 100 kg among male users in the 24,408-user bench standards cohortMethod: Public standards cite users’ training logs, but do not fully disclose selection, deduplication or fitting. Not a general-population figure.
- StrengthLog / Styrkelabbet: average bench of 47 kg among female users in the 24,408-user bench standards cohortMethod: Public standards cite users’ training logs, but do not fully disclose selection, deduplication or fitting. Not a general-population figure.
Our own figure, for comparison: the median competitor in the data benches 281 lb127 kg (men) and 127 lb58 kg (women).
For lifters and coaches
Benching at 18, answered
What is the average bench press for an 18 year old?
Among 18-year-old men who compete in our data, the median bench is 248 lb112 kg; among women who compete, it is 121 lb55 kg. That is a competition benchmark, not a general-population average: the lifters who enter a meet are the strong end of their age group. No study has measured a representative sample of 18-year-olds on the barbell bench press, and the figures that circulate online are guesses copied between sites, so no general-population average exists. The table on this page gives the level for an 18-year-old at each bodyweight.
What is a good bench press for an 18 year old?
For a 220 lb100 kg 18-year-old man, Intermediate starts at 276 lb125 kg and Advanced at 386 lb175 kg. For a 154 lb70 kg woman, Intermediate starts at 116 lb53 kg and Advanced at 154 lb70 kg.
Is it safe for an 18 year old to bench press?
Yes, on the same terms as for any adult lifter: technique before load, weight added in small steps, and a set-up that makes a failed rep safe. The spotter answer below covers that last part for the bench.
Should an 18 year old test a one-rep max?
Not casually. A true max is the one set where technique is most likely to break. Estimate the max from a set of three to five reps instead; it is within a few percent, and the number on this page is exactly as useful. A qualified coach can supervise a max test when there is a reason for one.
Does an 18 year old need a spotter?
Yes, on every bench set. The NSCA's professional standards say attentive spotting must be provided on the bench press. In a power rack, set the safeties just below chest height as well: a spotter plus safeties is how the bar never pins an 18-year-old.
Sources: NSCA Strength and Conditioning Professional Standards and Guidelines (National Strength and Conditioning Association, 2017)
Should an 18 year old be able to bench their bodyweight?
It is a milestone, not a requirement. For a 220 lb100 kg 18-year-old man, a bodyweight bench is Novice on the scale, and 13% of 18-year-old competitors in our data at that bodyweight bench less than it. For a 154 lb70 kg woman it is Advanced, and 75% of 18-year-old competitors at that bodyweight bench less. Nobody has measured how many 18-year-olds in general can do it, and we would not guess.
How much should an 18 year old bench in kg?
The same scale, in kilograms. For a 100 kg 18-year-old man, Intermediate starts at 125 kg and Advanced at 175 kg; for a 70 kg woman, Intermediate starts at 53 kg and Advanced at 70 kg. The lb/kg toggle at the top of the page switches every number, including the table.
Track the number as it climbs, scored for your bodyweight and sex.
Stronger scores every set against standards adjusted for your bodyweight and sex, shows a strength level for each muscle group on a colour-coded body map, and keeps the log so the progress is visible week to week. Technique first; the app keeps the score.
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Bench press standards at 18: Intermediate from 276 lb for a 220 lb man and from 116 lb for a 154 lb woman. Median among 18-year-old competitors in our data: men 248 lb, women 121 lb. Previous: Average Bench Press for a 17 Year Old.