How much should somebody be able to bench press with appreciable muscle and years training?

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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I train with two friends. One of them is a power lifter type who can hit nearly 400 raw. He’s about 200, short and maybe 25-30% bodyfat. My other friend is an active men’s physique competitor he’s tall and about 175lbs lean in the offseason and in incredible shape maybe 12% bodyfat at most. His muscular size is enviable, yet he struggles to make progress on pressing movements and hasn’t ever benched more than 250. He trains reps in the 150-170 range.

From a lean mass perspective he is undoubtedly in better shape than my other friend who benches 400. Both have never followed any real dedicated strength programs, yet both have wildly different results that seem to:

A) Defeat the idea that more muscle means more strength.

B) Point to the fact that some people can just do whatever and make outstanding progress.

Both have trained around 7 or 8 years or so. Given this information my question is what somebody should be expected to bench given time spent training this long and having undeniably built a muscular base?

Why do some people struggle with such low weights given a high level of muscle mass and what could be done?

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Good question! It may surprise you to learn that I don’t think these strength discrepancies are very surprising. A few thoughts:

Lean Body Mass

While the 175lb friend may look more “muscular” because he is lean, the math suggests otherwise.

  • The 200lb lifter at 20% body fat has approximately 160lbs of LBM
  • The 175lb lifter at 12% body fat has approximately 154lbs of LBM

Of course, LBM is not the same as skeletal muscle, as it includes everything that’s “not fat”. That said, I suspect the heavier individual is actually carrying more muscle. All else being equal, I’d predict the person with more muscle mass to be able to lift more weight.

Specificity Matters (SAID principle)

Strength is specific. The 400lb bencher has spent years practicing the skill of producing maximal force against high external loads. The physique competitor, while still lifting weights, has not spent the same amount of training resources on the maximal bench press strength, e.g. rep ranges, accessory work, skill development, and total training load dedicated to the bench.

Hypertrophy Nuance

It is a common myth that bodybuilding-style training creates “non-functional” sarcoplasmic hypertrophy while powerlifting creates “contractile” myofibrillar hypertrophy. In reality, muscle growth involves a proportional expansion of both.

Most data shows that as a muscle increases in size, the myofibrillar proteins and the sarcoplasm grow together. While very high-volume training might cause a transient bias toward sarcoplasmic expansion (often due to temporary swelling or edema), this isn’t a permanent “type” of muscle. Advanced lifters might reach a limit where further myofibrillar growth is slow, but for most people, muscle is muscle. The difference in their strength isn’t because of the “type” of muscle they have, but how they’ve trained that muscle to function.

Normative Data: What is “Expected”?

Instead of guessing based on anecdotes, we can look at large-scale normative data to see where a 250lb bench press actually sits for an 83kg (183lb) male in the 18–35 age bracket.

To calculate this, we use the strength-to-weight Ratio (Bench Press Weight / Body Weight). For your 175lb (79.5kg) friend benching 250lbs (113.6kg), his ratio is 1.43

For powerlifters, we have some data on bench press strength norms (listed as percentile/ratio)

  • | 90th| 1.96 |

  • | 75th | ~1.75 |

  • | 50th (Median) | 1.56 |

  • | 40th| 1.48 |

  • | 25th | ~1.35 |

Your “muscular” friend is currently sitting around the 35th to 40th percentile compared to powerlifters. Not bad considering that it’s not his sport and about what I’d expect given the lack of programming specificity.

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