It is one of the most Googled questions in fitness, and most of the answers are quietly misleading. The problem is that "average," "impressive," and "healthy" are three different things, and confusing them leaves men chasing the wrong target.
Ask how strong a man should be and you get wildly different answers, because the question hides three: what the typical man lifts, what impresses people in a gym, and what you need to be healthy and capable for decades. The most useful is the last.
Ignore the Average Numbers
You have probably seen the claim that the average man benches around 210 pounds. Strength Level, the database those figures usually come from, currently puts it at 212 pounds, drawn from roughly 48 million logged lifts. Treat that with suspicion. It is populated entirely by people motivated enough to record their training, a self selected group, not a cross section of men, most of whom do not train at all. Judging yourself against it makes a healthy man feel weak for no reason.
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