I am a newbie to weight training, and I am under the impression that this feat is incredibly hard to do.

I would like some discussion with the serious weight training people on this board.

I have heard that if you can bench your own body weight for one full rep, using free weights, that you are stronger than 99% of the people in the world. Is this true?

I was also told that it would probably take me about 1 year of solid weight training(ie in the gym 3 times a week for an hour without fail) to be able to bench my own weight. I honestly think that it will take longer.

For what it's worth, my stats are 6'4.5" 210 13% body fat.