The overhead press is one of the most honest lifts in the gym. There's no leg drive to hide behind and no bounce off your chest, just your shoulders and triceps moving a bar from your collarbone to lockout overhead. That's why it stays stubborn for most people, and why a good number here tells you a lot about your real pressing strength.
Standards make the most sense as a multiple of your bodyweight, because a 150-pound lifter and a 220-pound lifter aren't going to press the same load. The numbers below assume a strict, standing press for a single rep. If you push-press or press seated with back support, you'll move more than these figures, so judge yourself by a clean strict rep.
Overhead Press standards by bodyweight (pounds)
Target one-rep max at each level, rounded to the nearest 5 lb. Find your body weight in the left column.
| Men · body weight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 140 lb | 50 lb | 75 lb | 110 lb | 155 lb | 195 lb |
| 160 lb | 55 lb | 90 lb | 130 lb | 175 lb | 225 lb |
| 180 lb | 65 lb | 100 lb | 145 lb | 200 lb | 250 lb |
| 200 lb | 70 lb | 110 lb | 160 lb | 220 lb | 280 lb |
| 220 lb | 75 lb | 120 lb | 175 lb | 240 lb | 310 lb |
| 240 lb | 85 lb | 130 lb | 190 lb | 265 lb | 335 lb |
| 260 lb | 90 lb | 145 lb | 210 lb | 285 lb | 365 lb |
| Women · body weight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 lb | 20 lb | 40 lb | 55 lb | 85 lb | 110 lb |
| 125 lb | 25 lb | 45 lb | 65 lb | 95 lb | 125 lb |
| 140 lb | 30 lb | 50 lb | 70 lb | 105 lb | 140 lb |
| 155 lb | 30 lb | 55 lb | 80 lb | 115 lb | 155 lb |
| 170 lb | 35 lb | 60 lb | 85 lb | 130 lb | 170 lb |
| 185 lb | 35 lb | 65 lb | 95 lb | 140 lb | 185 lb |
| 200 lb | 40 lb | 70 lb | 100 lb | 150 lb | 200 lb |
Overhead Press standards by bodyweight (kilograms)
| Men · body weight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 kg | 20 kg | 32.5 kg | 47.5 kg | 65 kg | 85 kg |
| 70 kg | 25 kg | 37.5 kg | 55 kg | 77.5 kg | 97.5 kg |
| 80 kg | 27.5 kg | 45 kg | 65 kg | 87.5 kg | 112.5 kg |
| 90 kg | 32.5 kg | 50 kg | 72.5 kg | 100 kg | 125 kg |
| 100 kg | 35 kg | 55 kg | 80 kg | 110 kg | 140 kg |
| 110 kg | 37.5 kg | 60 kg | 87.5 kg | 120 kg | 155 kg |
| 120 kg | 42.5 kg | 65 kg | 95 kg | 132.5 kg | 167.5 kg |
| Women · body weight | Beginner | Novice | Intermediate | Advanced | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 kg | 10 kg | 17.5 kg | 25 kg | 37.5 kg | 50 kg |
| 57 kg | 12.5 kg | 20 kg | 27.5 kg | 42.5 kg | 57.5 kg |
| 64 kg | 12.5 kg | 22.5 kg | 32.5 kg | 47.5 kg | 65 kg |
| 72 kg | 15 kg | 25 kg | 35 kg | 55 kg | 72.5 kg |
| 80 kg | 15 kg | 27.5 kg | 40 kg | 60 kg | 80 kg |
| 88 kg | 17.5 kg | 30 kg | 45 kg | 65 kg | 87.5 kg |
What's a good overhead press?
For men, a beginner press lands around 0.35x bodyweight, which is a real starting point for someone who's never trained the movement. Novice is about 0.55x, and that's roughly where most guys sit after a few honest months of pressing. Intermediate is 0.8x bodyweight, which for a 185-pound lifter is around 150 pounds overhead. Advanced is 1.1x, and elite is about 1.4x, so a lean 180-pounder hitting 250 for a strict single is genuinely rare.
For women, the ladder runs 0.2x at beginner, 0.35x at novice, and 0.5x at intermediate. A 140-pound woman pressing 70 pounds strict is right in that intermediate range. Advanced is 0.75x, and elite is a full bodyweight press at 1.0x, which very few women ever reach. If you're an average adult walking in off the couch, expect to start near the beginner line and climb quickly in the first year before the gains slow down.
What the levels mean
- Beginner. New to barbell training, in your first few weeks; strength near an untrained adult's baseline.
- Novice. Roughly 3 to 6 months of consistent training, still making fast newbie gains.
- Intermediate. About 1 to 2 years of steady training; you've hit the well-known bodyweight milestones.
- Advanced. Several years of focused training; visibly strong and stronger than most people in any gym.
- Elite. The top tier of dedicated drug-free recreational lifters; rare and earned over many years.
How to add weight to your overhead press
Most stalls come from a soft setup, not weak shoulders. Squeeze your glutes and brace your abs so your ribcage doesn't flare, keep the bar over your midfoot, and drive your head "through the window" once the bar clears your face. If the bar drifts forward, you'll grind every rep. The full form guide at /exercises/overhead-press walks through grip width, bar path, and the shrug at the top.
To actually add weight, run a program that presses often and adds load in small jumps. The overhead press responds to 2.5-pound increases far better than 5s, since the muscles doing the work are small. Starting Strength and StrongLifts 5x5 build the press in early, and 5/3/1 is designed around slow, repeatable progress on it. You'll find all three on FORMA at /programs. Two pressing days a week, one heavier and one lighter, tends to beat hammering it hard every session.
Men vs women
The overhead press shows one of the widest gaps between men and women of any lift, because it's almost pure upper body with no help from the hips. At the intermediate level women press about 0.5x bodyweight against 0.8x for men, and at elite it's 1.0x versus 1.4x. That works out to roughly 60 to 70 percent, a wider split than you'd see on the squat or deadlift, where the lower body pulls the numbers closer together. It's not a knock on anyone's training; it's just how upper-body strength tends to distribute. Read your press against the women's column and skip the comparison to a training partner's bar.
Frequently asked questions
Is a 135 lb overhead press good?
It depends on your bodyweight, but for most men it's solid. At 180 pounds, a strict 135 overhead is 0.75x bodyweight, just under the intermediate mark of 0.8x. If you weigh 150, that same 135 is 0.9x and pushing toward advanced. For a trained man it's a respectable place to be, and for a woman at almost any bodyweight, 135 strict overhead would be an elite-level lift.
What's the average overhead press by age?
These standards are built for healthy adults in their training prime, roughly their 20s and 30s, and they don't adjust the ratios by age. Pressing strength tends to peak in that window and drift down slowly after 40, so an older lifter hitting the intermediate line of 0.8x (men) or 0.5x (women) is doing very well. If you're a teenager or over 50, treat the novice numbers, 0.55x and 0.35x, as a strong target rather than a floor.
Why is my overhead press stuck and how do I add weight?
The press stalls easily because the working muscles are small, so the same 5-pound jumps that work on your squat will bury you here. Switch to 2.5-pound or even 1.25-pound plates and add load slowly. A lot of sticking points sit at the lockout, so add some close-grip or push-press work, press twice a week, and make sure you're eating and sleeping enough to recover between sessions. A structured program like 5/3/1 handles the small increments for you.
What overhead press should I hit relative to my bodyweight?
As a multiple of bodyweight, aim for 0.55x if you're a man past the true-beginner stage, 0.8x to call yourself intermediate, and 1.1x or higher for advanced. For women the same rungs are 0.35x, 0.5x, and 0.75x. A full-bodyweight press, 1.0x for women and 1.4x for men, sits at the elite end and takes years of consistent pressing to build.
Is the overhead press the same as the military press?
Close, but not identical. "Overhead press" usually means a standing strict press with a stance about hip-width, while a true military press is done with your feet together, which is harder to balance. These standards assume a standing strict press with no leg drive. If you push-press or use a seated press with back support, you'll move more weight, so don't hold those numbers up against the strict-press ratios here.
Sources & references
These standards are calibrated to widely-referenced public benchmarks (StrengthLevel, ExRx / Lon Kilgore, Symmetric Strength) and published as honest estimates, not measurements from a FORMA database. Treat each value as the center of a range. They're for general comparison, not medical advice. See the full strength-standards methodology.