Incline bench press strength standards

Updated 16 July 2026

The incline bench press is usually about 80 percent of your flat bench, so an intermediate incline bench sits near 0.8 times bodyweight for men. The incline shifts the load toward the upper chest and shoulders, which is why the numbers trail the flat bench.

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.

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Incline 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 0.65× 59 kg 0.40× 24 kg
Intermediate 0.95× 86 kg 0.65× 39 kg
Advanced 1.30× 117 kg 0.90× 54 kg
Elite 1.60× 144 kg 1.15× 69 kg
World class 1.90× 171 kg 1.40× 84 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 incline bench press?

Around 0.8 times bodyweight is a solid intermediate incline bench for men, with advanced lifters past 1.2 times. It usually trails the flat bench by roughly 20 percent.

How much less is incline than flat bench?

Most lifters incline press about 80 percent of their flat bench, because the incline angle recruits the shoulders more and the chest less.

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