How Many Push-ups Should You Be Able to Do?
I recently started doing push-ups with my brother. We started small and have worked our out way up to about 40 consecutive push-ups everyday. We are even increasing by 5 more push-ups every other day now so hopefully by the end of the month we will be at 100 consecutive push-ups or more. Push-ups really work your pectoral muscles and triceps, with added benefits to the deltoids, serratus anterior, coracobrachialis and the midsection as a whole. You have to keep every muscle tight to complete a rep and for that reason push-ups are one of the best all around exercises. I was a little curious to see how many push-ups I should be able to do for my age, weight, and height. More than an overall curiosity this is also a good estimate of how healthy I am, in terms of muscular endurance and strength. The U.S. Military relies heavily on push-ups as a basic exercise for their troops and I found military resources (as well as wikipedia) to be an excellent sources of info for this topic. This is what I found.
U.S. ARMY MEN
Pushups in 2 minutes
Age 16-21: 42 to pass basic training, 71 for 99th percentile.
Age 22-26: 40 to pass basic training, 75 for 99th percentile.
Age 27-31: 39 to pass basic training, 76 for 99th percentile.
Age 32-36: 36 to pass basic training, 75 for 99th percentile.
U.S. ARMY WOMEN
Push-ups in 2 minutes
Age 16-21: 8-9 to pass basic training, 42 for 99th percentile.
Age 22-26: 11 to pass basic training, 46 for 99th percentile.
Age 27-31: 10 to pass basic training, 50 for 99th percentile.
Age 32-36: 9 to pass basic training, 45 for 99th percentile.U.S. NAVY MEN
Age 17-19: 42 is probationary, 51-68 is good, 86-92 is outstanding.
Age 20-24: 37 is probationary, 47-64 is good, 81-87 is outstanding.
Age 25-29: 34 is probationary, 44-60 is good, 77-84 is outstanding.
Age 30-34: 31 is probationary, 41-57 is good, 74-80 is outstanding.U.S. NAVY WOMEN ???
-no info?
U.S. AIRFORCE MEN
Age 17-24: 19 is probationary, 33 is good, 57 is excellent.
Age 25-29: 17 is probationary, 30 is good, 52 is excellent.
Age 30-34: 15 is probationary, 27 is good, 46 is excellent.
Age 35-39: 13 is probationary, 24 is good, 41 is excellent.U.S. AIRFORCE WOMEN
Age 17-24: 9 is probationary, 18 is good, 37 is outstanding.
Age 25-29: 8 is probationary, 16 is good, 35 is outstanding.
Age 30-34: 7 is probationary, N/A is good, N/A is outstanding.
Age 35-39: 5 is probationary, 11 is good, 18 is outstanding.Extra Tidbit: The world record for push-ups is held by Paddy Doyle who did 1,500,230 in one year! That’s approximately 4,110 push-ups a day!!
One Comment, Comment or Ping
Lisa lambert
I am 50 going on 51 in December. I can do about 20 military style push ups
Nov 2nd, 2008
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