I went to the local community fitness gym, and had a go bench pressing. I'm in good shape and benched 75% of my weight 3 times. I told some old guy (about 50) about this and he told me it was pathetic, and that he used to bench press about 3 times his weight, and he reckons he could bench about 150% his weight now but he doesn't lift anymore.
Is this guy a bs'ing ol' bastard, or is he being realistic?
old people can be very deceitful.................
Funny how this pops up like once a month or so, but in a different form each time. Ive seen stats posted here before that state that beching your bodyweight puts you at average or above average for the population they looked at.
So benching your own weight only puts you at about average? I always thought benching your own weight would make you damn strong.
The guy is most likely a liar. If he was benching 3x his weight at 150 lbs, then he was putting up 450. A triple bodyweight bench is very rare.
It also depends on how much you weigh, a 150 lber benching his own weight is hardly considered strong but a 250 lber doing it would make him above average, imo.
He wasn't very exact about how much he used to be able to lift, but he said it was over 2x his body weight.
What about this guy lifting 150% times his bodyweight now? He weighed about 190lb and carried mostly body fat, but he looked somewhat strong.
275 at 50 years old when he doesn't lift? Doubtful
He's probably exaggerating. But at the same time, 75% for 3 reps isn't a very good bench at all if your lifting.
Last time this came up I thought the consensus for bench was:
1.5X bodyweight = good athlete
2X bodyweight = good powerlifter
3X bodyweight = world class