Close grip bench press strength standards

Updated 16 July 2026

A close grip bench press is about 90 percent of your regular bench, so an intermediate close grip bench sits near 0.9 times bodyweight for men. The narrower grip shifts more of the work to the triceps.

Relative strength, your best lift divided by your bodyweight, is the fairest way to compare lifters of different sizes, so the tiers below are ratios. Open the calculator to see your exact tier adjusted for your bodyweight.

Calculate your exact tier

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Close grip bench press standards as a ratio of bodyweight
Tier Men Men at 90 kg Women Women at 60 kg
Beginner Any Any Any Any
Novice 0.68× 61 kg 0.41× 25 kg
Intermediate 0.90× 81 kg 0.63× 38 kg
Advanced 1.35× 122 kg 0.90× 54 kg
Elite 1.80× 162 kg 1.22× 73 kg
World class 2.03× 183 kg 1.44× 86 kg

Standards for other lifts

Or open the full strength standards calculator to check any of 26 lifts, adjusted for your bodyweight.

How this is calculated

The tiers are the bodyweight ratio milestones strength coaches have used for decades, the same five level vocabulary, beginner to elite, you will see on popular strength ranking sites. They are coaching conventions, not population percentiles, and they group all ages together.

Relative strength falls as bodyweight rises, so the table above is quoted at a 90 kg reference for men and 60 kg for women. The calculator scales the same standards to your exact bodyweight, holding lighter lifters to a higher ratio and heavier lifters to a lower one. The competition benchmark, where shown, comes from a 2024 peer reviewed analysis of 809,986 drug tested powerlifting competition entries and applies to the squat, bench, and deadlift only.

Common questions

What is a good close grip bench press?

Around 0.9 times bodyweight is a solid intermediate close grip bench for men, roughly 90 percent of a normal bench.

How much less is close grip bench?

Most lifters close grip bench about 90 percent of their standard bench, since the narrower grip leans on the smaller triceps more.

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