How do you know if your lift is actually good

You know a lift is good when you compare it to real competition results, not a gym rumor or a generic bodyweight-multiplier chart. Enter your weight, bodyweight, sex and lift into Benchmark and it returns a percentile against 1.8 million judged powerlifting lifts, a tier word, and a curve showing exactly where you land.

How do you know if your bench press is good

A bench press is good relative to a specific population, and the only honest way to know where you stand is to check it against people who actually competed. Most of the numbers people repeat — "1.5x bodyweight is good," "225 is the mark" — come from nowhere in particular. They ignore bodyweight, sex, and age, all of which move the bar a lot. A percentile built from sanctioned meet results does the comparison properly: it places your number inside a real distribution and tells you the share of lifters you're ahead of, not a folk rule someone repeated at the gym.

What makes a good squat different from a good bench or deadlift

Squat and deadlift standards sit on different curves than bench because the lifts recruit different leverage and different populations of competitors train them unevenly. A lifter who is elite on deadlift is often merely solid on bench, and that's normal, not a red flag. This is why a single percentile number per lift matters more than a rule of thumb that tries to cover all three with one multiplier. Checking each lift separately, and then looking at the composite, gives you an honest picture instead of a flattering average.

A squat rack in a home gym, chalk dust in the air, a child incidental in the background

How to check your lift's percentile in under a minute

Two lifters mid-motion at a bench press station, seen through a gym doorway

Step 1: Choose your lift

Open Benchmark and pick bench, squat, deadlift, or the composite view that shows all three lifts on one screen.

Step 2: Enter the numbers

Type in the weight lifted, your bodyweight, sex, and age band, then tap Check. There's no exercise library to browse and no set-and-rep log to fill in first.

Step 3: Read the result

You get a percentile, a tier word, and a distribution curve showing exactly where your lift sits against 1.8 million judged competition results — all computed on your phone in a fraction of a second.

Step 4: Let it save itself

Every check is stored automatically and personal records get flagged on their own, so there's nothing to log manually the next time you want to check again.

How is the percentile actually calculated

The percentile comes from real, verified results pulled from sanctioned powerlifting meets, not an estimate or a formula someone derived once and never revisited. Those curves are checked against published norms to within a close margin, then shipped inside the app as precomputed data, so a lookup never needs a network connection. If you want the full breakdown of where the numbers come from and why they're trustworthy, this guide to strength standards walks through it, and this piece on judging any lift covers how percentile itself works as a concept.

How do you know if you're getting stronger, not just heavier

You know you're actually progressing when your percentile rises over time, not just your raw number. Bodyweight tends to creep up alongside strength, and a bigger lift can quietly mean you're standing still or even losing ground relative to your new weight class. Percentile drift tracks that placement across every check you've done, so the line you're watching is the honest one — progress against a population, not just a heavier plate on the bar.

A lifter walking away from a barbell rack across a gym floor, shot low and wide
A number alone answers nothing. Compared to the right population, it answers everything.

What's the best way to check if a lift is good

The best way to check is whichever method actually uses real competition data instead of guesswork, and for most people that rules out rules of thumb and most online calculators. Here's how the common options stack up.

1.5x bodyweight rule
Ignores sex, age, and lift type entirely. Fast, but not honest.
Generic online 1RM calculator
Estimates a max from reps, not whether that max is good. Different question.
Ask a coach or gym buddy
Useful gut check, but based on whoever they've personally trained.
Benchmark
Percentile against 1.8 million judged meet lifts, computed offline, no account needed.

Common questions

Is a 225 lb bench press good?

It depends entirely on your bodyweight, sex, and age — 225 lb can be an elite result for one lifter and an average one for another. The only way to know for your specific numbers is to check them against real competition data, which is exactly what a percentile lookup does.

Do I need to log every workout to use Benchmark?

No. Benchmark isn't a workout logger — there's no exercise library, no set-and-rep tracking, and no programme builder. You enter a lift when you want to check it, and it saves that check automatically without any ongoing logging.

Does Benchmark work without an account or internet connection?

Yes. There's no account to create, and the percentile engine runs entirely on your device using precomputed curves, so the whole app works in airplane mode with no network call in the core loop.

Is checking my squat and deadlift free, or just bench?

Bench press checks are free forever with the full result screen — percentile, tier, curve, and history. Squat and deadlift checks, plus the composite view, are part of the paid tier.

How accurate are the percentiles?

The curves are derived from roughly 1.8 million judged results from sanctioned powerlifting meets, released into the public domain by the OpenPowerlifting project, and checked against peer-reviewed published norms to within a small margin. The methodology is shown in the app itself rather than kept behind the scenes.

What is percentile drift and why does it matter more than PRs?

Percentile drift tracks how your placement against the lifting population changes over time, not just whether the number on the bar went up. It's the difference between getting heavier and actually getting stronger relative to everyone else.

If you're new to reading a percentile result at all, the beginner's guide is a good place to start before your first check, and the full breakdown of what a 100 kg bench actually means sits in this resource.

This article was drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor before publishing.