How embarrassing is it if you can't bench 135?*
An actual answer to the question.
The workout:
EMOM (every minute, on the minute) for 15 minutes:
30% of your max pressups
The kit: None
I honestly thought I’d be able to let this one go.
So if you don’t keep up with this sort of thing (why would you?), the big news from the New York mayoral race is that frontrunner Zohran Mamdani recently failed to bench 135 pounds for even a single rep at the annual Men’s Day open streets event in Brooklyn Saturday — after which current mayor Eric Adams hot-footed it over to the same location, did some spotter-assisted half-reps of his own with the same weight, and posted:
64 vs. 33. A lifetime of hard work vs. a silver spoon. The results speak for themselves.
A couple of things here:
Firstly, none of these reps count. If the spotter touches the bar at all, the rep doesn’t count: it doesn’t matter if he’s ‘barely touching it bro’ as on the left, or upright-rowing it as he is on the right. You can pretty much curl an Olympic barbell with your pinkie fingers: any assistance at all makes it impossible to tell how much weight the lifter is lifting.
Secondly, none of these reps are reps. In Adams’ own video, not one rep touches his chest, which is the actual standard for doing a bench press (his arms just about straighten, which is the other standard, but only barely). Maybe Adams has shoulder impingement issues that mean he can’t bench properly — which wouldn’t make him a worse mayor! — but if you can’t actually bench 135, maybe you shouldn’t try to shame another guy for not being able to bench 135.
So with all that said, how embarrassing is it if you can’t bench 135 for at least one rep, full depth, no spotter? It depends on who you ask. A gentleman styling himself as “The Older Millennial”, for instance, insists that every man of Mamdani’s age should be able to bench 135 easily, but I would probably argue that making statements like that also opens you up to other physical-capability counter-claims, like whether you can climb four flights of stairs without breathing hard, run 5k without stopping, outpace every 6-year-old you meet in a footrace or effortlessly traverse a set of monkey bars. We can all claim that things we’re good at should be baseline physical standards for everyone, bro, that’s why I tell everyone who’ll listen that people who can overhead squat their own bodyweight are smarter and more attractive than everybody else. The question is: is there anything about benching 135 (or not) that genuinely marks you out as a more capable man in other ways?
As a politician, I don’t think so. I’m sure we’ve all got our favourite examples of political figures who are extremely physically capable but incompetent or insane, physically unfit but excellent at their jobs, or some other combination of those things. One could perhaps make the argument that a willingness to put yourself through difficult things (like a rigorous bench-pressing programme) builds or displays character, but I’m not sure that’s particularly true: plenty of very high-level sportsmen are terrible people.
Okay but how embarrassing is it if you can’t bench 135 for at least one rep, you ask, and here’s the actual answer, assuming that 135 is more or less 75% of your bodyweight, as it is for me and Zohran Mamdani and maybe Eric Adams (The Older Millennial looks heavier, and so should set himself a higher baseline)*:
It is moderately embarrassing.
Firstly, let’s consider that the bench press isn’t exactly an essential exercise. Back in the 1900s, strongmen were still pressing while lying on the floor, and it was only the invention of adjustable benches and racks in the 1940s that made it a popular exercise among everyone else. It wasn’t until the 50s that the bench press replaced the (standing) military press as the go-to test of upper-body strength, and I’m still not convinced that it’s better. What is it good for? Pushing strength sure, but you’re still going to use your legs in most pushing-related situations. Punching strength maybe — and I’m semi-convinced that this is why dudes value it — but I’ve met people who can’t bench 135 who can hit hard enough to absolutely ruin your day, and people who bench 315 who can barely punch at all. It’s the least important of the three powerlifting exercises, and I’m not just saying that because it’s my worst one (my PBs, since you ask, are a 242lb bench, 342lb squat, and 467lb deadlift). Also, what does it say about you if your favourite exercise is the one where you lie down on a padded cushion? Come on, man.
Secondly, it’s worth noting that you get better on the bench just by doing a bit of benching. Although it looks simple, good bench technique isn’t super-intuitive, and I’m pretty confident in saying that any average non-gymgoing man could put 10kg on his first ever bench in basically no time just by learning to bench properly (tear the bar, set your shoulders properly, brace everything, learn how to actually take it out of the rack). Ten minutes with a competent trainer and maybe Mamdani would have got that rep, but he wouldn’t have been a better/worse politician.
So why is Mamdani’s performance moderately embarrassing? Well, firstly because showing off with gym moves is like being a lawyer asking questions in a courtroom: you don’t do it unless you already know what the result is going to be. Not having any idea about your own strength and also not realising that a bad performance is going to be political fodder for your adversaries is, I would argue, a better indicator of political incompetence than not being able to lift a big barbell, whichever side you’re on.
But it’s also moderately embarrassing because, honestly, the haters are right: 135 is not all that much weight. I haven’t worked out in a gym for six months and I haven’t benched for longer than that, and I’m basically certain that I could still get 135 for 10+ clean reps, no warmup or spotter, because…it’s not a lot of weight. If you can do 10 good-form press-ups with your own bodyweight then you can probably get 135lb for at least one rep, and probably more with a bit of coaching (see above). And you should probably be able to do 10 press-ups, because press-ups are great: you can do them anywhere, they work out your entire body, and they’re probably better for your shoulders than benching.
Which brings us to today’s workout. This one is nice because it’s self-calibrating: if you can barely do any press-ups, you just do one or two a minute to the best of your ability, if you’re pretty good at press-ups you end up doing a lot of press-ups. I did 15 x 15 on this (so 225 total), and that’s quite a lot of press-ups for one day. Being able to do a lot of press-ups, I should note, also does not make you a good politician, but it does make your life more fun than bench press: martial arts classes are easier, you can impress your kids by letting them sit on your back, and you can use them to mog Gaston at Disneyworld.
*All of this assumes you’re a man, because women have very different upper-body muscle distribution and average muscle percentages. I don’t actually have a good equivalent number for women, but maybe someone can suggest one in the comments. Dan John says that a ‘game changing’ bench press for athletic men is 15 reps with bodyweight or JUST ONE rep with bodyweight for women, if that gives you an idea of the difference.