How Many Push-Ups Should You Be Able to Do at Your Age?
There is no official UK standard for push-ups by age, so treat any chart you find online as a rough guide rather than a pass mark. As a practical coaching benchmark, a reasonably active adult in their 30s or 40s should be able to do 10 to 20 full push-ups with good form, and someone in their 50s or 60s 5 to 15, with wide variation for body weight, sex and training history. If you cannot do one full push-up yet, that is common and very fixable. What matters more than the number is that it is honest, repeatable and moving up over time.
Why the number varies so much
A push-up looks like a simple test of upper-body strength, but several things change the result:
- Body weight. You are pressing a large share of your own weight. Two people with the same strength can score very differently if one is heavier.
- Arm length and build. Longer arms mean a longer range of movement.
- Sex. On average, men carry more upper-body muscle, so most published test tables use different targets for men and women.
- Training history. Someone who has never done push-ups may be strong in other ways and still struggle at first, because the movement is a skill as well as a strength test.
- Standards. A push-up where the chest stops five centimetres from the floor is not the same exercise as a full one. Most impressive numbers on social media are shallow reps.
Rough benchmarks I use with new clients
These are my working coaching targets for full push-ups, based on years of testing adults over 30. They are not official norms or medical thresholds.
| Age | Starting point | Solid | Strong |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30s | Under 10 | 10 to 25 | 25+ |
| 40s | Under 8 | 8 to 20 | 20+ |
| 50s | Under 5 | 5 to 15 | 15+ |
| 60s and over | Incline push-ups | 3 to 10 full | 10+ |
Many women start lower, often with incline or knee push-ups, and that is a perfectly good place to begin. Compare yourself with your own last test, not with the table.
How to test yourself fairly
A test is only useful if you can repeat it the same way in six weeks.
- Warm up. A couple of minutes of arm circles and a few easy incline push-ups against a worktop.
- Set your position. Hands slightly wider than shoulders, fingers forward, body in a straight line from head to heels. Squeeze your glutes and brace your stomach.
- Use a depth marker. A rolled towel or a fist-sized object under your chest. Each rep, the chest touches it.
- Lock out at the top. Arms straight, without the hips sagging.
- Stop when form breaks. The set ends at the first rep where the hips drop, the head pokes forward or you cannot reach the marker. Do not count it.
- Write it down with the date and the version you did.
Retest every four to six weeks. More often than that, and you are mostly measuring how tired you are.
What a low score does and does not tell you
A low push-up count usually means one of three things: the chest, shoulders and triceps need more strength, your trunk is not yet strong enough to hold a plank under load, or you are carrying extra weight relative to your strength. It does not, by itself, tell you anything about your health. Use it as a training marker, not a diagnosis.
It is still worth improving. The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend that adults do muscle-strengthening activity on at least two days a week, alongside regular aerobic activity. You can read the UK physical activity guidelines on gov.uk. Push-ups are one of the easiest ways to tick part of that box at home.
How to raise your number
If you cannot do one yet: start with push-ups against a kitchen worktop or a sturdy table, then progressively lower surfaces such as a bench or a step. Lower the height when you can manage three sets of 10 to 12 controlled reps. Our push-up progression guide sets out each stage.
If you can do a few: do several small sets, stopping two or three reps short of failure each time. Five sets of three with good form beats one ugly set of eight.
If you can do 10 or more: add slow lowering (three seconds down), pauses at the bottom, or more total reps across a session. Train them two or three times a week, not every day. We look at why in doing push-ups every day.
Support work: dumbbell presses, cable presses and rows all help. Pulling work keeps the shoulders balanced.
Common mistakes in the test
- Flaring the elbows straight out to the sides, which is hard on the shoulders.
- Letting the hips sag, which turns the push-up into a back bend.
- Half reps that never get the chest near the floor.
- Testing at the end of a tiring session or after a poor night’s sleep.
- Rushing. Fast reps hide weak points.
A word on safety
Check with your GP first if you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, a shoulder, wrist or elbow injury, are pregnant, or are returning to exercise after a long break. Push-ups are generally safe, but a maximum-effort test is a hard effort, and that is worth clearing if any of those apply.
Testing and coaching in the studio
In 1-1 personal training in Highgate, a push-up test is one of the simple markers I use at the start and retest every few weeks, alongside how you move under a barbell and an InBody body composition scan. Because the studio is booked to you alone, nobody is watching while you find your starting point. You can see how sessions are set out, and the prices, on the personal training page, or find out more about The Highgate House.
Questions we get asked
Are knee push-ups cheating?
No. They are a sensible step towards full push-ups. Just record which version you did so your tests stay comparable.
How quickly can I improve?
Beginners often add a few reps within a month of regular practice, largely from better technique. Steady progress after that depends on strength training and, for some, body weight.
Is 100 push-ups a day a good idea?
For most people it is too much volume for the same joints, done the same way every day. Two or three focused sessions a week tend to work better.
Should women use different standards?
Most published test tables do use different targets for men and women. Your own improvement over time is the most useful comparison.
Book with The Highgate House
Ready to start training properly? Email us at [email protected] with the service and the day that suits you, and we will come back to you with times.
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