We reviewed six peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2025, together covering more than 10,700 tested adults, and pooled their push-up results with the criterion standards used to score the test in U.S. schools. The aim was a single, protocol-aware reference for how many push-ups people typically complete at each age, and for what those counts mean.

A push-up norm is the number of repetitions a person completes in one continuous set, without resting, before form breaks down. The count measures upper-body muscular endurance, and it is unusually sensitive to protocol. The published adult norms test men from the toes and women from the knees, police datasets cap the test at 60 seconds, and school testing uses a fixed cadence of one repetition every three seconds. We normalized these protocols onto a common scale before comparing them, and we flag below wherever a number should not be read across protocols.

The anchor for our model is the Canadian musculoskeletal fitness reference sample of 571 adults aged 15 to 69, which still underpins the most widely reprinted push-up charts. We cross-referenced its age gradient against occupational datasets from U.S. and Brazilian highway police, converted knee push-up counts into standard push-up equivalents using force-plate load data, and mapped the counts onto a 10-year cardiovascular cohort of 1,104 men so that each number carries a health interpretation. In the sections below, we break down typical counts by age, the rating bands we score against, cardiovascular risk by push-up tier, and the healthy minimums for adolescents.

Average Push-Ups by Age and Sex

In the table below, we break down the typical push-up count for each decade of adult life, along with the count that places a person in the top fifth of their age group. The final column is our modeled estimate for women performing the standard push-up from the toes, a figure no single study reports.

The Average Push-Ups by Age and Sex, 2026

Age	Men, standard (typical)	Men, top 20%	Women, knee (typical)	Women, standard (modeled typical)
20 to 29	25	36 or more	18	11
30 to 39	19	30 or more	16	10
40 to 49	15	25 or more	13	8
50 to 59	11	21 or more	9	5
60 to 69	9	18 or more	7	4

• Our model shows a man’s typical count falls by about 22 percent per decade, from 25 push-ups in his 20s to 9 in his 60s.
• Across the studies we reviewed, women’s knee push-up counts held steadier through the 30s (18 to 16) and then declined faster after 40, reaching 7 by the 60s.
• Our aggregated data indicate that the typical adult at every age completes well under 40 push-ups, the top tier in the cardiovascular cohort below, and only men in the top fifth of their 20s come close to it.

Push-Up Rating Bands by Age and Sex

In the table below, we break down the five rating bands we use to score a push-up test, from needs improvement to excellent, for each sex and age group. Men are scored on the standard push-up and women on the knee push-up, matching the reference protocol.

The Push-Up Rating Bands by Age and Sex, 2026

Sex	Age	Needs improvement	Fair	Good	Very good	Excellent
Men	20 to 29	16 or fewer	17 to 21	22 to 28	29 to 35	36 or more
Men	30 to 39	11 or fewer	12 to 16	17 to 21	22 to 29	30 or more
Men	40 to 49	9 or fewer	10 to 12	13 to 16	17 to 24	25 or more
Men	50 to 59	6 or fewer	7 to 9	10 to 12	13 to 20	21 or more
Men	60 to 69	4 or fewer	5 to 7	8 to 10	11 to 17	18 or more
Women	20 to 29	9 or fewer	10 to 14	15 to 20	21 to 29	30 or more
Women	30 to 39	7 or fewer	8 to 12	13 to 19	20 to 26	27 or more
Women	40 to 49	4 or fewer	5 to 10	11 to 14	15 to 23	24 or more
Women	50 to 59	1 or fewer	2 to 6	7 to 10	11 to 20	21 or more
Women	60 to 69	1 or fewer	2 to 4	5 to 11	12 to 16	17 or more

We adopted the Canadian reference bands as our scoring scale because they remain the only adult push-up norms with a documented sample, sex-specific protocols, and age bands spanning 20 to 69. Each band covers roughly one fifth of the reference population, so the midpoint of the Good band is the value we treat as typical in the first table, smoothed across decades to remove sampling noise in the oldest female group. We then tested the bands’ age gradient against occupational data. Among 8,628 Brazilian federal highway police officers tested on a 60-second protocol, push-up performance declined across every age category in both sexes, and U.S. highway patrol datasets showed the same direction, with officers in their 20s outperforming older groups. The same Brazilian dataset found no meaningful sex difference in push-up endurance when men and women performed an identical test, which supports our reading that much of the gap between the two columns reflects the knee and toe protocols rather than a fixed biological ceiling.

To estimate standard push-up counts for women, we scaled knee counts by the load difference measured on a force plate (about 49 percent of body mass on the knees versus 64 percent from the toes) and applied an endurance discount, since repetitions to failure fall faster than load rises. That yields a conversion factor of about 0.6. The occupational literature also tempers how the age bands should be read: an analysis of 518 male officers, summarized in the highway patrol research, found that rising body fat explained more of the decline than age itself. A trained adult can reasonably expect to sit one or two bands higher than age alone predicts, and for adults past 60, upper-body endurance work pairs naturally with the balance training covered in our report on falls and balance.

Push-Up Capacity and Cardiovascular Risk

In the table below, we break down how baseline push-up capacity related to cardiovascular events over 10 years, and where each tier falls on the rating scale for men in their 40s, the age of the cohort studied.

The Push-Up Capacity and Cardiovascular Risk, 2026

Baseline push-ups	Share of CVD events	Relative event rate (0 to 10 = 100)	Rating, men 40 to 49
0 to 10	22%	100	Needs improvement or fair
11 to 20	24%	36	Fair to very good
21 to 30	24%	16	Very good to excellent
31 to 40	27%	25	Excellent
41 or more	3%	4.5	Excellent

The source cohort followed 1,104 active male firefighters, with a mean age of 39.6, for 10 years after a cadence-paced push-up test, during which 37 cardiovascular events occurred. We converted the category-level event counts and person-years into unadjusted event rates, then indexed each tier to the lowest tier at 100 so the gradient reads directly. The pattern is steep: 36 of the 37 events occurred in men who completed 40 or fewer push-ups, and the top tier’s rate sat below one twentieth of the bottom tier’s. The small reversal between the 21 to 30 and 31 to 40 tiers reflects low event counts in each cell rather than a real rise in risk, and the published age- and BMI-adjusted estimate for the top tier carried a wide confidence interval of 0.01 to 0.36.

Mapping the tiers onto the rating bands shows that the protective gradient begins well below 40 push-ups. For a man in his 40s, moving from needs improvement into the good band coincided with a roughly two-thirds lower event rate. The cohort was male, occupationally active, and middle-aged, so we treat these figures as directional for women and for other ages. The finding parallels the mortality evidence we reviewed for grip strength, and it is one reason we treat muscle-strengthening work as a core part of any adult training plan.

Minimum Healthy Push-Up Counts for Ages 10 to 17

In the table below, we break down the minimum push-up counts that U.S. school fitness testing treats as healthy for each age from 10 to 17.

The Minimum Healthy Push-Up Counts for Ages 10 to 17, 2026

Age	Boys	Girls
10	7	7
11	8	7
12	10	7
13	12	7
14	14	7
15	16	7
16	18	7
17	18	7

• Our review found the healthy minimum for boys climbs from 7 push-ups at age 10 to 18 by age 16, tracking the gains in upper-body muscle that come with puberty.
• Across the standards we reviewed, the minimum for girls holds at 7 from age 10 onward, because the thresholds are set at the level linked to adequate health rather than at peer averages.
• Our analysis indicates these counts should not be compared directly with the adult norms above, since school testing uses 90-degree push-ups at a fixed pace of one every three seconds rather than a set to failure.

Request a copy of this report

If you’d like to request a PDF copy of this report or learn more about our company, you can reach out here.