How Many Push-Ups Should I Be Able to Do? Standards by Age and Fitness Level

Last updated: October 2026

How Many Push-Ups Should I Be Able to Do?

For men aged 20–29, the widely used Canadian (CSEP) push-up norms — also reprinted in ACSM’s exercise testing guidelines — define “good” as 22–28 push-ups and “excellent” as 36+. For women in the same age range, “good” is 15–20 reps (traditionally using a modified bent-knee position, though modern standards increasingly use full form). These numbers assume strict form — chest nearly touching the floor, body in a straight line from head to heels, elbows at roughly 45°, and arms fully extended at the top of each rep. A partial rep doesn’t count.

Push-Up Standards by Age and Sex

The benchmarks below are drawn from the CSEP push-up norms (reprinted in ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription), a standard reference for fitness professionals for decades. They represent performance in a single unbroken set with strict form.

Age	Men — Good	Men — Excellent	Women — Good	Women — Excellent
20–29	22–28	36+	15–20	30+
30–39	17–21	30+	13–19	27+
40–49	13–16	25+	11–14	24+
50–59	10–12	21+	7–10	21+
60–69	8–10	18+	5–11	17+

Women’s benchmarks in these norms use a modified bent-knee position. Military fitness tests, by contrast, use full push-ups for everyone. If you are testing against modern military or athletic standards, use the same full-form benchmarks regardless of sex.

Push-Up Standards by Fitness Level

A more useful way to assess your push-up performance is by fitness level rather than a single “pass/fail” score. The table below uses population data from community strength records and fitness research to define what each level looks like for men aged 20–39 doing full push-ups with strict form.

Level	Men (20–39)	Women (20–39, full form)	What It Reflects
Beginner	0–10	0–5	New to upper-body training or returning after a long break
Average	11–20	6–13	Healthy sedentary adult; basic functional fitness
Good	22–28	15–20	Regularly active; meets the CSEP “good” benchmark for age group
Excellent	30–40	22–30	Consistent strength training; above-average upper body endurance
Elite	40+	30+	Athlete or calisthenics specialist; military-fit standard

At the excellent level and above, push-ups stop being an optimal muscle-building stimulus for most people — the load is too light to produce further hypertrophy at high rep counts. The focus shifts to harder progressions (elevated feet, weighted vest, decline push-ups) rather than more reps of the same movement.

Why Push-Up Capacity Matters Beyond the Gym

The most significant study connecting push-ups to health was published in JAMA Network Open in 2019. Researchers followed 1,104 male firefighters for 10 years and found that those who could do 40 or more push-ups had a 96% lower risk of cardiovascular events compared to those who could do 10 or fewer. (Yang et al. 2019 [1])

This finding doesn’t mean push-ups prevent heart disease by themselves — it reflects the fact that high push-up capacity is a reliable proxy for overall fitness, body composition, and musculoskeletal health. A person who can do 40 strict push-ups almost certainly has strong relative upper-body strength, low excess body weight, and an active lifestyle. The push-up count captures all of those factors in a single number.

Push-up capacity also reflects functional strength that transfers directly to daily life. Getting up from the floor, stabilising a fall, pushing heavy doors, lifting objects overhead — these all require the same chest, shoulder, tricep, and core activation that push-ups build.

5 Factors That Determine Your Push-Up Count

Bodyweight. A standard push-up requires lifting approximately 65% of your body weight. This means two people with identical strength training backgrounds will produce very different rep counts if they differ significantly in body weight. A 220 lb man and a 160 lb man doing the same total load per rep are not doing the same exercise in practice — the heavier man is moving roughly 40 more pounds every rep.

Sex. Men generally produce more push-ups than women at matched training ages because men carry more upper-body muscle mass relative to total bodyweight and a lower percentage of essential body fat. The muscles that drive the push-up — pectorals, anterior deltoids, triceps — are naturally larger and stronger in men at every fitness level.

Age. Muscle mass and recovery capacity both decline gradually from the early 30s onward, with more pronounced drops after 50. The decline is not inevitable or irreversible — regular resistance training significantly blunts this progression — but it does mean that a 50-year-old with 30 push-ups is demonstrating relative fitness that is arguably more impressive than a 25-year-old with the same count.

Training history. Push-ups require a specific neuromuscular pattern. Someone who has trained consistently using bench press, dumbbell press, and cable flyes may have strong pecs and triceps but still struggle with push-ups if they have never practiced the specific stabilisation and coordination demands of the movement. Form in a push-up — maintaining a rigid plank while lowering and pressing — is a skill that improves with repetition of that exact movement.

Arm length and limb proportions. Longer arms increase the range of motion of each rep and the effective moment arm the shoulder joint must work through. This doesn’t make push-ups impossible for tall people — but it does mean that a 6’3″ person with long limbs is doing more mechanical work per rep than a 5’6″ person with shorter arms at the same rep count.

Military Push-Up Standards

Military fitness tests are another common benchmark, but their push-up standards change often. The US Army, for example, replaced the APFT with the ACFT (which uses hand-release push-ups) and then with the Army Fitness Test in 2025, and the Marine Corps scores push-ups on a different points scale from pull-ups. If you want to test yourself against a military standard, check the branch’s current official scoring tables. One long-standing reference point: the Navy SEAL (BUD/S) physical screening test requires a minimum of 50 push-ups in 2 minutes, with candidates commonly advised to aim for 80–100.

How to Improve Your Push-Up Count

The most effective way to do more push-ups is to do push-ups — not substitute exercises. While bench press and cable flyes build the same muscles, push-up performance is tied to a specific movement skill and stabilisation pattern that only improves with practice of the exact exercise.

Can’t do any yet: Start with incline push-ups (hands on a bench, counter, or step). Lower the surface height each week. Once you can do 3 sets of 10 from the floor with knees down, transition to full push-ups.

1–10 push-ups: Train 3 times per week. Do 3 sets of as many full reps as you can with perfect form, then finish each set with knee push-ups. Try to add one rep per set every week. Most people move out of this range within 4–6 weeks with consistent practice.

11–25 push-ups: Prioritise volume over intensity. Three to four sets of 60–80% of your maximum per session, two to three times per week. Rest 90 seconds between sets. Supplement with plank holds, dumbbell chest press, and tricep extensions.

25+ push-ups: Standard push-ups are approaching the upper limit of their usefulness as a strength stimulus at this rep range. Introduce harder progressions: decline push-ups (feet elevated), diamond push-ups for tricep emphasis, or a weighted vest. This keeps progressive overload working without requiring endless reps.

Sources: [1] Yang J, et al. Association between push-up exercise capacity and future cardiovascular events among active adult men. JAMA Netw Open. 2019.