225 for Reps: Chump Pump, Chest Thump, or Real Performance Predictor?

Cade Collenback—the best long snapper in college football—just smoked 37 reps at 225 under Josh’s watch.

by Josh Bryant and Joe Giandonato

Summer’s winding down—beach towels turning into gym towels, poolside tans fading like a broke influencer. But don’t get sentimental—football’s back. Pads are poppin’, grills are lit, and the weekend’s once again reserved for lifting, liver abuse, and linebackers.

Football season rolls back around and with it comes a flood of strength programs—some solid, most just check-the-box fluff, and plenty that miss the mark like a drunk kicker. The goal? Build real on-field horsepower. The reality? A lotta wasted whistle-blowing.

And with the return of strength and conditioning comes the ritualistic dog and pony show that is the sacred-but-pointless 225-pound bench test.

The centerpiece of the NFL Combine and pre-draft pro days, the 225-lb bench press test is exalted as the holy grail of strength testing by smartphone toting and social media toggling sportswriters who are apt to post some nonsensical story that discredits a prospect’s ability due to an piss poor  bench press performance. 

Like registering blistering times on a course of closed skill agility drills, pumping out a number of reps that would challenge the cortices of a second grader to count may not equate to success on the gridiron. 

The owner of the fastest pro agility recorded in NFL Combine history ended up as a journeyman special teamer bouncing around the league and multiple training camp stints over an eight-year career. 

And one of the most prolific Combine benchers, a widely heralded defensive end whose draft stock summarily soared after notching 37 reps, found himself unemployed after three disappointing [and sack-less] seasons. 

Ready to bench like a madman on a mission? Join my 8‑Week Extreme Bench Press Overload and push past plateaus → HERE.

Evaluating the merits of the 225-lb Bench Press Test

For a test to be effective, it should be valid, reliable, and objective.

Validity

Validity means the test actually measures what it’s supposed to—not just a sweaty participation ribbon. It falls into four buckets:

Content validity means the test targets the right ability. A 1RM bench? That’s upper body pushing strength. No mystery meat.

Criterion validity says the test lines up with an established standard. Like push-ups and bench press reps—there’s a correlation there (Alizadeh et al., 2020), so both hold weight when you’re training for or assessing muscular endurance.

Construct validity means the test measures the quality you’re chasing. Want to assess upper body pushing strength? A 1RM bench press checks that box.

Face validity is how it looks to the athlete and coach. If it looks legit, they’ll buy in. If it looks like fluff, expect effort to match. Optics matter when the goal is performance.

Is the 225-lb Bench Press Test Valid?

Using 225 pounds for reps in the bench does measure strength, but what kind of strength is being measured?

If the NFL player can bench press 450 pounds, then it sure as hell is not limit strength, starting strength or explosive strength (all important qualities for football) that is being measured.

Ironically, the 225-lb pound bench press trial is a staple strength test in NFL combines for 350-plus-pound linemen. In a nutshell, this testing protocol needs an overhaul to become valid.

On average, an NFL play lasts four seconds; a strong athlete will be able to do reps with 225 lbs. for 45 seconds in the bench press, on average.

This is a test of upper body strength endurance, at best a party trick and at worst a waste of time, energy and is dangerous.

Reliability

Reliability refers to the degree of consistency of repeatability of a test and can be accounted for over time, or test-retest reliability, across items (internal consistency), and across different testers (inter-rater reliability).

Does performance on the 225 bench test hold steady over time, reflect actual training progress, and tie into upper body pushing strength and joint durability? Or are we just racking up reps on a glorified ego checklist?

If numbers jump all over the place, odds are the test itself—or how it’s run—is the problem. Inconsistent range of motion, sloppy setup, or rep-counting charity can make the whole thing about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

If the data’s got weird outliers, that’s a red flag for shaky internal consistency. Most of the time that’s due to poor tracking or half-baked protocols. And the more tests you stack, the easier it is for weak data collection to bury the truth.

Are there issues which affect performance that could potentially be linked to different testers? The way a test is administered and measured, specifically the 225 lb-bench press test, may vary widely amongst different strength and conditioning coaches. A torrent of bench reps performed under the watchful eye of the fiery and enigmatic John Lott, who for years, presided over spotting the 225-lb bench press test at the NFL Combine may result in a different number than those performed with “new age, don’t exceed 90 degrees of shoulder and elbow flexion” technique under the tutelage of nerd who collects acronyms like stamps or forced reps performed with the body locked into something found in a Kamasutra for Dummies paperback. 

Objectivity

Lastly—is the test objective? Meaning: is it run by the book, or is it a free-for-all with Coach Hypebeast yelling like he’s at a monster truck pull?

A legit test means same setup, same rules, every time. No favoritism, no flair, and definitely no spotter doing a mixed-grip upright row to squeeze out bonus reps after failure. 

The testing environment should be clean, controlled, and calm—not a circus of screaming, chest-bumping, and backslapping that turns a strength test into a pep rally. Save that energy for game day.

Bottom line: unless you’re handing off or helping re-rack, keep your hands off the bar. Anything more than that, and you’re not measuring strength—you’re measuring how good your spotter’s deadlift is.

Final Thoughts

Validity, reliability, and objectivity are all closely related.

If there is no objectivity during the testing process, the test cannot be considered reliable. If a test is not reliable, it clearly is not valid.

However, a test can be reliable and objective and still not be valid. 

So, we can keep covering semantics here but the bottom line is, we do not feel this test reflects the physiological demands of the game or measures the most important qualities.

However, our job is not to be martyrs against the NFL Combine, it is to help you do more reps at 225 lbs in the bench press. In the next installment in this series, we will cover just that.

Subscribe to Texas‑Sized Strength Arsenal, where I pack six elite programs for power, size, grit, and tactical readiness into one mean-ass vault → HERE.

References

Alizadeh, S., Rayner, M., Ibrahim, M., & Behm, D.G. (2020). Push-ups vs. bench press differences in repetitions and muscle activation between sexes. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 19(2), 289-297. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7196742/