Is a 100 kg overhead press good? Strict-press, sorted by bodyweight.

Yes — 100 kg / 220 lb is elite for an adult-male lifter at 60–70 kg of bodyweight, advanced at 75–90 kg, intermediate at 95–110 kg, and slides into novice past 120 kg. The OHP is the lift where the “is X kg good” question changes the most by bodyweight, because the band ladder runs lower than every other barbell lift. A 100 kg overhead press at 70 kg of bodyweight is a 1.43× ratio — past elite. The same load at 110 kg of bodyweight is 0.91× — comfortably intermediate, not advanced. Same bar, very different lift.

One caveat does most of the work in this article: the engine assumes strict press. A push press at 100 kg is a different lift — typically 110–130% of strict for the same lifter — and 100 kg with leg drive is not the same lift as 100 kg strict. The engine doesn't make this distinction, so you have to. The cross-lift framing is also useful: 100 kg overhead at 90 kg of bodyweight is 1.11×, which lands the lifter at advanced on the OHP ladder. The same 1.11× ratio off a bench press lands at intermediate, and off a squat or deadlift would barely reach untrained — the multiplier ladders are per-lift for a reason.

What the band ladder says at 100 kg OHP

The adult-male OHP bands run untrained 0.4× → novice 0.55× → intermediate 0.85× → advanced 1.1× → elite 1.4× of bodyweight. Plug 100 kg into the numerator and walk the bodyweight axis from 60 kg (a small competitive lifter) to 120 kg (a heavier general-population lifter). The band the engine returns is what changes:

ExRx-aligned StrengthMath methodology. Adult-male OHP thresholds: untrained ≥ 0.4×, novice ≥ 0.55×, intermediate ≥ 0.85×, advanced ≥ 1.1×, elite ≥ 1.4× of bodyweight. Engine output verified by lib/strength/strengthStandards.test.ts.

The 90 kg row sits exactly on the advanced band line — 100 ÷ 90 = 1.11×, just over the 1.1× threshold the engine uses for advanced. The 70 kg row sits essentially on the elite line at 1.43×. Two clean inversions are worth naming: a 100 kg OHP pressed by a 71 kg lifter is the elite band line, and a 100 kg OHP pressed by a 91 kg lifter is the advanced band line. If your 100 kg OHP is at 90 kg of bodyweight, you're advanced — that's a serious press, not a typical-lifter number. To pin against the full adult-male and adult-female OHP tables, see the cluster anchor at overhead press standards by age and bodyweight.

100 kg OHP vs 100 kg bench at the same bodyweight

The overhead press recruits less muscle and works through a longer stroke than the bench. The shoulders, triceps, upper chest, and the full bracing chain (lats, abs, glutes) all contribute, but the prime movers are smaller than in a bench press, and there's no bench to drive against. That structural difference shows up in the band ladders: bench elite is 2.5×, OHP elite is 1.4× — bench bands run almost 80% higher across the board. So the same absolute load lands in different bands across the two lifts.

For a 90 kg adult-male lifter, 100 kg lands like this on each lift:

Adult-male thresholds per ExRx-aligned StrengthMath methodology. Same ratio, different bands — the multiplier ladder is per-lift, and OHP is the lift where 1.11× actually means something.

The directional take I'd push: 100 kg overhead is the more notable number than 100 kg bench at any common bodyweight. A 90 kg lifter benching 100 kg is on the lower edge of intermediate; a 90 kg lifter strict-pressing 100 kg is at advanced. The instinct to treat a three-plate bench as “real strength” and a hundred-kilo press as a less-impressive number is exactly backwards on the band ladder. For the typical OHP-to-bench ratio across natural lifters, see overhead press to bench ratio: what's typical.

Strict press or push press? They aren't the same lift.

The single biggest source of confusion when someone says “I pressed 100 kg” is whether they mean strict or push. They're two different lifts with different mechanics, and they read very differently against the band ladder. The engine on this site assumes strict — heels planted, no dip-and-drive, the bar moving from a clean rack to lockout under shoulder, triceps, and upper-back power alone. A push press uses a hip-and-knee dip and a sharp leg drive to launch the bar past the sticking point at eye level, then locks out overhead. The legs do real work; the press only finishes the job.

For a trained pressing lifter, a push press typically runs 110–130% of the strict press at the same effort. The exact ratio depends on how strong the legs are relative to the press and how clean the dip mechanic is, but the directional rule is consistent across coaching references: push press > strict press, by 10–30%. Which means a 100 kg push press for a 90 kg adult-male lifter probably maps to a 75–90 kg strict press for the same lifter. On the band ladder, that re-bands the lift from advanced (1.11× strict) down to intermediate (0.83–1.00× strict) — same person, same plates, but the strict-only ladder reads it as a band lower.

The take I'd hold the line on: 100 kg with leg drive is not the same lift as 100 kg strict, and the engine doesn't make this distinction so you have to. If your 100 kg figure is from a push press, label it that way and use the strict-press conversion to place yourself on the ladder. For the full strict-vs-push-press-vs-jerk variant differential plus the seated-OHP correction, the variant guide goes deeper at overhead press variants: strength differentials.

OPL context: limited applicability for the strict press

The OpenPowerlifting reframe that works for a 200 kg squat or a 200 kg deadlift doesn't map cleanly to the strict overhead press, because the strict press isn't a current powerlifting competition lift. Modern IPF and USAPL meets contest squat, bench, and deadlift only — the strict press hasn't been part of Olympic weightlifting since the press-out rule got abolished in 1972, and contemporary powerlifting hasn't adopted it. So openpowerlifting.org doesn't maintain a strict-press dataset the way it does for the three competition lifts.

Where the strict press still gets contested: strongman events (log press, axle press, dumbbell press for max), old-school strict-press federations and meets (USAWA, NABF strict-curl-and-press circuits), some USA Weightlifting masters formats, and the press-out at the top of a clean and jerk in Olympic weightlifting. None of those produce a clean “here's the OPL percentile” lookup the way USAPL or IPF results do for squat/bench/deadlift. The cleanest available reference for adult OHP context is the multiplier ladder the engine uses, not a competitive percentile.

The straight take: I wouldn't try to backfill OHP context from competitive strongman log-press numbers — the implement, grip (neutral, with thicker shaft), and start position (clean from the floor or hang) all change the lift enough that the absolute number isn't comparable to a barbell strict press. Use the band ladder for OHP, use OPL for the three competition lifts, and don't conflate them. The cluster anchor at overhead press standards by age and bodyweight is the upstream reference for the per-bodyweight tables.

100 kg OHP for an adult female lifter

The adult-female OHP ladder runs lower across the board: untrained 0.25× → novice 0.35× → intermediate 0.55× → advanced 0.7× → elite 0.9× of bodyweight. That puts the female elite ceiling at 0.9× — roughly 65% of the male elite (1.4×). A 100 kg strict press at any realistic adult-female bodyweight clears elite by a wide margin: at 70 kg of bodyweight the ratio is 1.43× (about 60% above the female elite line); at 80 kg of bodyweight it is 1.25× (still 39% above elite). The engine returns “elite” for any adult-female lifter strict-pressing 100 kg.

The realistic context: an adult-female lifter strict-pressing 100 kg is a top-tier strongwoman, weightlifter, or pressing specialist — not a training-population sample. The 1.4× ratio at 70 kg of bodyweight is competitive at the international strongman level, not a band-ladder reading. The ladder isn't wrong; it's being used at the edge of where the training-population synthesis applies, which is why the realistic reframe is “this is a competitor, look at strongwoman event results for context” rather than “the engine returned elite, ladder closed.” 100 kg female pressers exist, and they're elite-tier competitive lifters when they do.

Common questions

Is a 100 kg overhead press elite?

It is at light bodyweights for an adult-male lifter. The ExRx-aligned adult-male OHP elite multiplier is 1.4× of bodyweight, so 100 kg clears elite at any bodyweight up to 71 kg (100 ÷ 71 = 1.41×). At 75–90 kg the lift sits in the advanced band (1.10–1.33×). From 95 kg through about 110 kg of bodyweight it is intermediate (0.91–1.05×), and past 120 kg it drops into novice (≤0.83×). The headline label depends on the bodyweight pairing — 100 kg by itself does not carry a fixed band.

Does the 100 kg figure assume strict press or push press?

Strict press, with no leg drive. The ExRx-aligned multiplier ladder and the StrengthMath engine both assume a strict standing barbell press: heels planted, no dip and drive, the bar moving from a clean rack position to lockout under shoulder/triceps power alone. A push press uses a dip-and-drive to launch the bar past the sticking point and typically runs 110–130% of strict press for the same lifter. If your 100 kg figure is from a push press, the strict-press equivalent is roughly 75–90 kg — which re-bands a 90 kg adult-male lifter from advanced to intermediate, not advanced.

Is the strict overhead press an IPF or USAPL competition lift?

No. Modern IPF and USAPL powerlifting is squat, bench, deadlift only — the strict press hasn't been part of Olympic weightlifting since 1972 and isn't part of contemporary powerlifting. The lift still gets contested in strongman events (log press, axle press), in old-school strict-press federations, and as the press-out at the top of a clean and jerk in weightlifting. So OPL-style competitive context is limited for OHP — there isn't a deep meet-results dataset to query the way there is for squat/bench/deadlift. The multiplier ladder on this site is the cleanest available reference for adult OHP.

How does a 100 kg overhead press compare to a 100 kg bench press at the same bodyweight?

Same ratio, different bands — because the multiplier ladders are different. For a 90 kg adult-male lifter, 100 kg ÷ 90 kg = 1.11×. On the OHP ladder (advanced 1.1×, elite 1.4×) that clears advanced. On the bench-press ladder (advanced 2.0×, elite 2.5×) it sits at intermediate (≥1.5×, but well below advanced). 100 kg overhead is the harder lift to perform at any given bodyweight, which is why the band ladder runs lower — and why a 100 kg OHP is a more notable number for most lifters than a 100 kg bench at the same bodyweight.

What about 100 kg overhead press for an adult female lifter?

Well above elite at any realistic bodyweight. The adult-female OHP elite multiplier is 0.9× of bodyweight, so 100 kg clears female elite at any bodyweight up to 111 kg (100 ÷ 111 = 0.90×). At 70 kg of bodyweight the ratio is 1.43× — about 60% above the female elite line and into international-level competitive territory. Realistically, an adult-female lifter strict-pressing 100 kg is a top-tier strongwoman or weightlifter, not a training-population sample. The ladder isn't wrong; it's being used at the edge of where training-population framing applies.

What's the next milestone past a 100 kg strict press?

Depends on which band the 100 kg landed in. For a 90 kg lifter at advanced (1.11×), the elite line at 1.4× is the next target — 126 kg at the same bodyweight, which usually means two to four years of structured pressing plus some bodyweight management. For a 100 kg lifter at intermediate (1.00×), the advanced line at 1.1× is 110 kg at the same bodyweight — a meaningful but achievable jump. For a 120 kg lifter just under intermediate (0.83×), the immediate target is 0.85× of bodyweight, which clears intermediate — 102 kg, basically a few kilos away. The OHP rewards patience: it tends to climb more slowly than bench at every band.

Where to next

The natural next question after “is 100 kg OHP good for me” is “how does my press track against my bench” — the OHP-to-bench ratio is the cleanest single signal for whether a lifter is press-balanced or bench-dominant. For most natural lifters the strict press lands somewhere around 60–70% of bench; if your 100 kg OHP is paired with a 130 kg bench, you're press-strong relative to typical, and that's informative for programming. See overhead press to bench ratio: what's typical for the per-lifter framing. For the same Q&A structure on the other two cluster lifts, see is a 200 kg squat good and is a 200 kg deadlift good at 18. For the strict-vs-push-press-vs-jerk variant differentials in detail, the dedicated page is overhead press variants: strength differentials. And if your 100 kg figure came from a submax-rep set rather than a tested 1RM, run it through the 1RM calculator first — for OHP, all four common formulas track within about 3% of each other, so the formula choice is less load-bearing than the reliability band, as detailed in the best-formula comparison.