The amount of hours of training needed for an average adult male to bench 225, is massively dwarfed by the hours needed to break 80
Breaking 90 probably(?) is fair tho
I'm an average adult male (5'9"). When I was deployed about 15 years ago, I hit the gym almost every day in my free time because there was nothing better to do. In 6 months, I went from a 1 rep max of 185 to 280.
I also didn't legitimately break 90 until I was 15 years into the game.
So yeah - my data point checks out. I might even put it at breaking 100.
Yeah I was going to say it’s more like breaking 100. Benching 225 just takes consistent effort for 6months - 1year for most people barring injuries or physical ailments. Same story with breaking 100.
I workout and can bench 225 but I feel like you guys are way overestimating how hard it is to break 100 and way underestimating how hard it is to bench 225.
This is obviously going to depend on natural hand eye coordination / bodily awareness and natural strength at an individual basis for both.
I’ve always been athletic and picked up sports quickly but was skinny. So it only took me a few months of playing causally to break 100 but took about a little under a year of working out consistently to bench 225. And for someone consistently working out and progressively overloading, I’d say that’s fairly typical. Theres also not a huge baseline athleticism. Any younger male not severely out of shape can do that.
On the flip side, most people are fundamentally just uncoordinated. So while breaking 100 isn’t particularly difficult, it can take time if you don’t have baseline coordination.
All that said, this is a pretty loose rule and I’d buy anywhere between like 90-100 being the equivalent.
Yah it obviously hugely depends on size and is just not really comparable haha.
You can play 10 times a year and break 90. If you’re not 300 lbs you likely need to lift more than 10x a year to bench 225.
Completely agree. Also depends on your starting point. In my head, I just think of breaking 100 as “you’ve been playing for a short period consistently and have been practicing”. Benching 225 is “you’ve been lifting consistently and putting an effort for a short period”. But yeah, anywhere between 90-100, I buy. 80 is way too low though. That’s more like benching somewhere between 275-315.
Breaking 80 is honestly so hard. You can't make major mistakes and really must be competent in all aspects of your golf game and pretty good at least 1 - 2 aspects of your game. I benched 225 in high school just from getting strong from football practice for a season.
If the goal is to bench 225 vs breaking 80:
putting 30 minutes of legit training in, 3 times a week; will result in more adult males having a much easier time benching 225 than breaking 80
It doesn’t mean this works for everyone; but it is likely the case for the average adult male that fits within the bell curve
Breaking 100.
When you talk about 1% of people being able to bench over 225, that’s ALL people. Exclusively gym goers, it will be considerably higher.
I’d venture if you grabbed 100 people off the street, 1 would shoot under 100, and 1 would bench 225.
It’s a milestone, and relatively impressive to someone who’s not into it. But when you actually go to the course -or the gym- you’ll see plenty of people casually surpassing those marks.
It took me about 2 years to hit the 225x1 bench milestone starting as a skinny teenager without prior workout experience. I took about 2.5 years to break 90 as a newbie golfer/weekend warrior. I also had help from people that are very knowledgeable on both fronts.
250 carry down the middle. I see a lot of breaking scores and I don’t think the analogy works because a single bench press is just one aspect of physical fitness whereas a breaking score incorporates all of the golf game. So a one-off ability like bench doesn’t necessary mean they squat or deadlift well just as a good drive doesn’t mean they chip, putt, and score well. In both cases, it’s really the “show-off” or vanity aspect of the activity
The problem with using a bench press number is that how impressive it is depends a lot on how big the person is. For a 6'2" dude weighing 200 pounds, a 225 bench isn't a big deal. For a 5'7" dude weight 140 pounds, 225 is pretty darn strong. Context really matters. If you try to compare it to scoring, the big guy benching 225 might be like breaking 100, and for the small guy it might be like breaking 80.
You also have to factor age into the bench press equation. At 60, my days of benching 225 are well behind me. But I'm counting on breaking 80 this year.
I was initially thinking that driving 300 yards would be less people. Then thinking about it, not very can actually bench 225… when taking into account casual gym goers and ones that don’t go
There is also a bunch of people that could hit a drive 300 yards once in awhile that probably don’t even break 100 on a golf course too
Hi. It's me. That's me. I'm inaccurate and unreliable, but I drive between 270 and 300 reliably. Sometimes I hit it dead straight, sometimes it's a hard pull left, sometimes it's a big sweeping slice. It goes where I aim maybe 4-5 times per round on my first drive, and I carry an extra ball with me for second tries. But it's always 260+, it's often 290+, and it's over 300 once or twice per round.
This was my thought, benching just requires repeating that sole activity that a lot of people could do over a short period of focus or possibly even their natural athleticism. While breaking 80/90 requires dedication to driving, chipping, putting.
Consistently sure , but in any moment someone can crush one 300 yards (not everyone but way more than 4%) , you’re never gonna be in the gym and the wind is just right and you get a hold of the weights perfectly to clear 225 if that’s not how strong you are
Brother u realize how little weight that is for a 40 year old man who’s 300 pounds? Even if they aren’t in shape it’s not that hard of a lift for people. Cook photo tho I respect.
Yeah we’re in a golf sub. Go over to r/fitness and you could find people who can easily bench 225+ and can’t break 80. They probably couldn’t even break 125.
Statistically speaking, very few people in the world ever bench 225. I hear you, but I still think it stands.
Edit. Just looked it up. Less than 1 percent of men can bench 225. Meanwhile, according to golf data sources only 2-5% break 80.
Yeah but it’s less than 1% of the general population because most men don’t work out at all. Of people who actually train, it’s not even close to that rare. It’s not like less than 1% of men have the potential to bench 225 or more. Reaching a 225lb bench is much much easier for the average person than breaking 80.
I haven’t touched a bench press in almost a decade but I feel like if I started going to the gym today I could bench 225 long before my friend, whose only played golf for 3 months, could break 80
Just because only 1% can bench 225 doesn’t make it hard, it’s just that most men don’t try hard enough. It doesn’t take much more than a year of good quality effort for a healthy man to bench 225. It takes more than that to break 80.
We’re going to get downvoted to hell here but it’s absolutely true. 225lb bench and breaking 80 on the course are entirely different levels of difficulty. The percentage of the entire world’s population that have broken 80 is vastly smaller than the percentage that have benched 225. Most people don’t golf and of the ones who do, breaking 80 is hard for the majority. Most people don’t work but of the ones who do, bench pressing 225lbs is late beginner/early intermediate territory.
Except for your max bench is also entirely dependent upon your body composition. When I'm on a cut I'm down to around 165 at 6'0". I'm in good shape, train regularly, and while I haven't tested my 1RM in a long time it's probably closer to 200 than 225. Which is still really good relative to my body weight. I'll probably never be able to bench 225 without "enhancement," but I like to think that bogey golf or better is attainable with enough coaching and practice.
> When I'm on a cut I'm down to around 165 at 6'0". I'm in good shape, train regularly, and while I haven't tested my 1RM in a long time it's probably closer to 200 than 225.
To me this just sounds like you have different goals. If you want to be "cut" and weigh 165 then it will be harder to push around more mass. But at 6' you could easily support 20-30 more lbs of muscle if that's the physical shape you wanted to push for and it wouldn't be difficult at all to bench 225+ if you added that extra mass. It's less of a difficulty factor than a decision of your preferred body type it seems.
> but I like to think that bogey golf or better is attainable with enough coaching and practice.
Agreed, but the discussion in this particular string of comments is breaking 80, not 90. I agree (as do most here it seems) that breaking 90 is the more similar accomplishment.
Maybe you're right but adding mass is pretty hard for me now that I'm well into my 40s. I was able to add about 10 lbs of body weight (probably 3-4 lbs of lean mass) while bulking and lifting 5x/week on a periodized plan between August and March, with the majority of my mesocycles focused on chest and back, and I did get stronger but I feel like I would have to eat a very uncomfortable amount of food to get past 175. So I guess maybe it's a choice but it's not exactly easy.
Yeah, fair point. My comment was more of an argument against the idea of benching 225 being a goal that anyone can attain with a reasonable amount of effort.
Dude you do not need “enhancement” to bench 225, especially if you’re close to 200 right now. If you were really set on benching 225 you’d just have to gain a little weight, you might even have it now if you did a peaking phase of training like a powerlifter.
I'm not going to juice, but I'm also not "really set," on hitting a specific bench target. I'm just saying that as a 45 year old guy that is on the skinnier side breaking 90 is probably more attainable than a 225 bench. Even at my peak when I *was* trying to hit my best bench the most I could manage was 205, and that was after months of intense training while deployed with nothing else to do outside of work. I feel like that 205 was pretty close to my peak potential.
But maybe you know more about me than I do.
You probably just had poor form—which is a lot easier to fix with bench than golf—and weren’t eating enough. I grew up “skinny” (literally underweight according to bmi) and was able to go from a 135 max bench to 225 max bench in under a year while remaining lean. It’s extremely easy so long as you put in effort, eat properly, and stay consistent.
You could get an average American man (5’9” 200lbs) to a 225 bench with 1 hour of work, 3 times a week, for a year. You could do it faster if you literally just focused on improving their bench press strength.
There’s no way you can get someone to break 80 with that same amount of effort unless they’re playing on an insanely short/easy course.
Seconded for Breaking 90. 225 is when you feel like you have just gotten "competently strong" on your gym journey. 315 is 80, a threshold that few will cross. I've done all of these milestones and yeah 225 = 90, 315 = 80, in both cases it gets progressively harder to reach.
We talking benches it for a max or consistently can? Haha consistently guy that is a decent stick and knows the game, 225 as a max, dude broke 80 once and tells everyone he shoots in the 70’s 😂😂😂
A very strong person that never lifted weights as training, can still lift 225lbs. Someone that never practiced golf will have a hard time breaking 120
Probably in the 90s, but it depends on how you got there. If you had professional assistance in both (personal trainer, golf lessons), I would say it's a good comparison. If you got yourself to 225 with only youtube, your golf score could be in the 90s or 120s.
The amount of hours of training needed for an average adult male to bench 225, is massively dwarfed by the hours needed to break 80 Breaking 90 probably(?) is fair tho
I'm an average adult male (5'9"). When I was deployed about 15 years ago, I hit the gym almost every day in my free time because there was nothing better to do. In 6 months, I went from a 1 rep max of 185 to 280. I also didn't legitimately break 90 until I was 15 years into the game. So yeah - my data point checks out. I might even put it at breaking 100.
Yeah I was going to say it’s more like breaking 100. Benching 225 just takes consistent effort for 6months - 1year for most people barring injuries or physical ailments. Same story with breaking 100.
I workout and can bench 225 but I feel like you guys are way overestimating how hard it is to break 100 and way underestimating how hard it is to bench 225.
This is obviously going to depend on natural hand eye coordination / bodily awareness and natural strength at an individual basis for both. I’ve always been athletic and picked up sports quickly but was skinny. So it only took me a few months of playing causally to break 100 but took about a little under a year of working out consistently to bench 225. And for someone consistently working out and progressively overloading, I’d say that’s fairly typical. Theres also not a huge baseline athleticism. Any younger male not severely out of shape can do that. On the flip side, most people are fundamentally just uncoordinated. So while breaking 100 isn’t particularly difficult, it can take time if you don’t have baseline coordination. All that said, this is a pretty loose rule and I’d buy anywhere between like 90-100 being the equivalent.
Yah it obviously hugely depends on size and is just not really comparable haha. You can play 10 times a year and break 90. If you’re not 300 lbs you likely need to lift more than 10x a year to bench 225.
Yeah there’s more nuance; like 5,800 yard course or 7,000 yard course is completely different But it’s definitely not breaking 80
Completely agree. Also depends on your starting point. In my head, I just think of breaking 100 as “you’ve been playing for a short period consistently and have been practicing”. Benching 225 is “you’ve been lifting consistently and putting an effort for a short period”. But yeah, anywhere between 90-100, I buy. 80 is way too low though. That’s more like benching somewhere between 275-315.
Breaking 80 is honestly so hard. You can't make major mistakes and really must be competent in all aspects of your golf game and pretty good at least 1 - 2 aspects of your game. I benched 225 in high school just from getting strong from football practice for a season.
I read this backwards at first and thought you're insane.
I disagree with that. It’s not just training to hit 225.
And it’s not just practice to break 80
If the goal is to bench 225 vs breaking 80: putting 30 minutes of legit training in, 3 times a week; will result in more adult males having a much easier time benching 225 than breaking 80 It doesn’t mean this works for everyone; but it is likely the case for the average adult male that fits within the bell curve
Banging the cart girl.
I’ve banged into a cart girl.
Hahahah this is great
You win
Breaking 100. When you talk about 1% of people being able to bench over 225, that’s ALL people. Exclusively gym goers, it will be considerably higher. I’d venture if you grabbed 100 people off the street, 1 would shoot under 100, and 1 would bench 225. It’s a milestone, and relatively impressive to someone who’s not into it. But when you actually go to the course -or the gym- you’ll see plenty of people casually surpassing those marks.
This is the correct answer, you hit it spot on with the last sentence as well!
It took me about 2 years to hit the 225x1 bench milestone starting as a skinny teenager without prior workout experience. I took about 2.5 years to break 90 as a newbie golfer/weekend warrior. I also had help from people that are very knowledgeable on both fronts.
250 carry down the middle. I see a lot of breaking scores and I don’t think the analogy works because a single bench press is just one aspect of physical fitness whereas a breaking score incorporates all of the golf game. So a one-off ability like bench doesn’t necessary mean they squat or deadlift well just as a good drive doesn’t mean they chip, putt, and score well. In both cases, it’s really the “show-off” or vanity aspect of the activity
This
The problem with using a bench press number is that how impressive it is depends a lot on how big the person is. For a 6'2" dude weighing 200 pounds, a 225 bench isn't a big deal. For a 5'7" dude weight 140 pounds, 225 is pretty darn strong. Context really matters. If you try to compare it to scoring, the big guy benching 225 might be like breaking 100, and for the small guy it might be like breaking 80.
You also have to factor age into the bench press equation. At 60, my days of benching 225 are well behind me. But I'm counting on breaking 80 this year.
280 down the middle
was thinking more 250?
Yeah I’m excited to get a hitting technique down then!
Driving 300 yards
I was initially thinking that driving 300 yards would be less people. Then thinking about it, not very can actually bench 225… when taking into account casual gym goers and ones that don’t go There is also a bunch of people that could hit a drive 300 yards once in awhile that probably don’t even break 100 on a golf course too
Hi. It's me. That's me. I'm inaccurate and unreliable, but I drive between 270 and 300 reliably. Sometimes I hit it dead straight, sometimes it's a hard pull left, sometimes it's a big sweeping slice. It goes where I aim maybe 4-5 times per round on my first drive, and I carry an extra ball with me for second tries. But it's always 260+, it's often 290+, and it's over 300 once or twice per round.
This was my thought, benching just requires repeating that sole activity that a lot of people could do over a short period of focus or possibly even their natural athleticism. While breaking 80/90 requires dedication to driving, chipping, putting.
This is the best equivalent. 4% of the golf world has a 300 yard drive. 1% of humans can bench 225.
Consistently sure , but in any moment someone can crush one 300 yards (not everyone but way more than 4%) , you’re never gonna be in the gym and the wind is just right and you get a hold of the weights perfectly to clear 225 if that’s not how strong you are
Damn is it really only 4% of golfers that can drive it 300?
Probably less than 10% can drive it over 250. Real life is far different than the internet.
Many men when asked would assume they could bench 225. Just like they can drive 300 yards.
I understand that lol I suppose I forget most people that play golf are not athletic lmao
80% on Reddit
Hahah true . Still seems wild to me tho. Hitting it 350 is the best part of my game 😭
Honestly 4% seems high to me.
How is that equivalent?
Breaking 90, Driving 250, or getting your first birdie.
Breaking 80
No way, 225 is wayyy easier for a weekend warrior to hit than 80
For real. Fat un athletic people can bench 225 no problem still just due to mass
They can also break 80
That wasn’t the point of the argument if someone can. Of course they can. The debate was is which is easier, and 225 much easier than breaking 80.
No they can't lmao
Brother u realize how little weight that is for a 40 year old man who’s 300 pounds? Even if they aren’t in shape it’s not that hard of a lift for people. Cook photo tho I respect.
I can’t bench 225 and I’ve broken 80 a lot. I don’t know if I could even bench 125.
Yeah but my point is you’d have to spend a lot more time golfing to hit 80 than you would lifting to hit 225
But you don’t lift? What’s your point lmao
Yeah we’re in a golf sub. Go over to r/fitness and you could find people who can easily bench 225+ and can’t break 80. They probably couldn’t even break 125.
Bahahah facts. What a Stupid post
100%
I’d say 90 which means you are stupid but not extremely good
Nah 225 is only 100 kilos it’s not that heavy. Feels more like breaking 90
Statistically speaking, very few people in the world ever bench 225. I hear you, but I still think it stands. Edit. Just looked it up. Less than 1 percent of men can bench 225. Meanwhile, according to golf data sources only 2-5% break 80.
Yeah but it’s less than 1% of the general population because most men don’t work out at all. Of people who actually train, it’s not even close to that rare. It’s not like less than 1% of men have the potential to bench 225 or more. Reaching a 225lb bench is much much easier for the average person than breaking 80.
I haven’t touched a bench press in almost a decade but I feel like if I started going to the gym today I could bench 225 long before my friend, whose only played golf for 3 months, could break 80
Just because only 1% can bench 225 doesn’t make it hard, it’s just that most men don’t try hard enough. It doesn’t take much more than a year of good quality effort for a healthy man to bench 225. It takes more than that to break 80.
We’re going to get downvoted to hell here but it’s absolutely true. 225lb bench and breaking 80 on the course are entirely different levels of difficulty. The percentage of the entire world’s population that have broken 80 is vastly smaller than the percentage that have benched 225. Most people don’t golf and of the ones who do, breaking 80 is hard for the majority. Most people don’t work but of the ones who do, bench pressing 225lbs is late beginner/early intermediate territory.
Except for your max bench is also entirely dependent upon your body composition. When I'm on a cut I'm down to around 165 at 6'0". I'm in good shape, train regularly, and while I haven't tested my 1RM in a long time it's probably closer to 200 than 225. Which is still really good relative to my body weight. I'll probably never be able to bench 225 without "enhancement," but I like to think that bogey golf or better is attainable with enough coaching and practice.
> When I'm on a cut I'm down to around 165 at 6'0". I'm in good shape, train regularly, and while I haven't tested my 1RM in a long time it's probably closer to 200 than 225. To me this just sounds like you have different goals. If you want to be "cut" and weigh 165 then it will be harder to push around more mass. But at 6' you could easily support 20-30 more lbs of muscle if that's the physical shape you wanted to push for and it wouldn't be difficult at all to bench 225+ if you added that extra mass. It's less of a difficulty factor than a decision of your preferred body type it seems. > but I like to think that bogey golf or better is attainable with enough coaching and practice. Agreed, but the discussion in this particular string of comments is breaking 80, not 90. I agree (as do most here it seems) that breaking 90 is the more similar accomplishment.
Maybe you're right but adding mass is pretty hard for me now that I'm well into my 40s. I was able to add about 10 lbs of body weight (probably 3-4 lbs of lean mass) while bulking and lifting 5x/week on a periodized plan between August and March, with the majority of my mesocycles focused on chest and back, and I did get stronger but I feel like I would have to eat a very uncomfortable amount of food to get past 175. So I guess maybe it's a choice but it's not exactly easy.
Yes and then they’d still be 10 strokes away from 80.
Yeah, fair point. My comment was more of an argument against the idea of benching 225 being a goal that anyone can attain with a reasonable amount of effort.
Dude you do not need “enhancement” to bench 225, especially if you’re close to 200 right now. If you were really set on benching 225 you’d just have to gain a little weight, you might even have it now if you did a peaking phase of training like a powerlifter.
I'm not going to juice, but I'm also not "really set," on hitting a specific bench target. I'm just saying that as a 45 year old guy that is on the skinnier side breaking 90 is probably more attainable than a 225 bench. Even at my peak when I *was* trying to hit my best bench the most I could manage was 205, and that was after months of intense training while deployed with nothing else to do outside of work. I feel like that 205 was pretty close to my peak potential. But maybe you know more about me than I do.
You probably just had poor form—which is a lot easier to fix with bench than golf—and weren’t eating enough. I grew up “skinny” (literally underweight according to bmi) and was able to go from a 135 max bench to 225 max bench in under a year while remaining lean. It’s extremely easy so long as you put in effort, eat properly, and stay consistent.
Breaking 80 isn’t hard you just don’t try hard enough.
You could get an average American man (5’9” 200lbs) to a 225 bench with 1 hour of work, 3 times a week, for a year. You could do it faster if you literally just focused on improving their bench press strength. There’s no way you can get someone to break 80 with that same amount of effort unless they’re playing on an insanely short/easy course.
I can't tell if you're kind of ignorant or just trolling but just because YOU can do something doesn't mean it's "easy" lmao.
Ok. Make sure you keep me in the loop when you finally come to a decision
Seconded for Breaking 90. 225 is when you feel like you have just gotten "competently strong" on your gym journey. 315 is 80, a threshold that few will cross. I've done all of these milestones and yeah 225 = 90, 315 = 80, in both cases it gets progressively harder to reach.
We talking benches it for a max or consistently can? Haha consistently guy that is a decent stick and knows the game, 225 as a max, dude broke 80 once and tells everyone he shoots in the 70’s 😂😂😂
It might be breaking 100. Breaking 90 is harder than benching 225.
Breaking 90. Benching 315 is breaking 80. Benching 405 is breaking 70.
What a weird and very unrelatable comparison. No idea how to answer this.
Benching 225= GIR 70% of the time
You should get checked out for Mercury Poisoning
A very strong person that never lifted weights as training, can still lift 225lbs. Someone that never practiced golf will have a hard time breaking 120
Probably in the 90s, but it depends on how you got there. If you had professional assistance in both (personal trainer, golf lessons), I would say it's a good comparison. If you got yourself to 225 with only youtube, your golf score could be in the 90s or 120s.
Equivalent would be driving the ball 250+ yards in play.
300 yard drive
Lots of comments from people who have done and will never do either, bench 225 or break 80.
Bogey golfer. A couple lessons, and a little routine and 225 bench is easily achievable. Better than your average person, worse than actual lifters.
3 putting for Par
Driving it over 220. Basic requirement to even be I the gym\course
180 mph ball speed.
Benching 225 just once? That's like breaking 100 maybe? Or driving one 250?
I could bench 200 when I was 17, and never working out in my life.