The short answer
A healthy man between 20 and 29 is in the good range with 22 to 28 clean push-ups in a row, and in the excellent range from 36. For women, the common tables use knee push-ups as the standard; between 20 and 29, 15 to 20 is good and from 30 excellent. Values drop with each decade of life – if you can still do 20 at 50, you are far ahead of your age group.
More important than the classification is what you do with it: the number is a starting point, not a verdict. Below you'll find the full table, the test rules that make your result comparable, and a way to improve from any level.
Benchmark table: consecutive push-ups by age
The most widely used benchmarks come from the fitness test of the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP), which the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) also uses in its guidelines. Clean repetitions are counted without a break until your technique fails. Men do the test on their toes, women in the original version on their knees.
Men (classic push-ups)
| Age | Excellent | Very good | Good | Fair | Needs improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20–29 | 36+ | 29–35 | 22–28 | 17–21 | up to 16 |
| 30–39 | 30+ | 22–29 | 17–21 | 12–16 | up to 11 |
| 40–49 | 25+ | 17–24 | 13–16 | 10–12 | up to 9 |
| 50–59 | 21+ | 13–20 | 10–12 | 7–9 | up to 6 |
| 60–69 | 18+ | 11–17 | 8–10 | 5–7 | up to 4 |
Women (knee push-ups)
| Age | Excellent | Very good | Good | Fair | Needs improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20–29 | 30+ | 21–29 | 15–20 | 10–14 | up to 9 |
| 30–39 | 27+ | 20–26 | 13–19 | 8–12 | up to 7 |
| 40–49 | 24+ | 15–23 | 11–14 | 5–10 | up to 4 |
| 50–59 | 21+ | 11–20 | 7–10 | 2–6 | up to 1 |
| 60–69 | 17+ | 12–16 | 5–11 | 2–4 | up to 1 |
Keep two things in mind when reading. First, the tables describe a general population, not trained people – "good" here means "better than most", not "goal reached". Second, the split by gender is a testing convention: many women manage classic push-ups, and anyone who does them on their toes may measure themselves against the men's table. Why women often progress faster on their knees at first is covered in the article Push-ups for Women.
How to do the test properly
Benchmarks are only comparable if the test runs the same way. Stick to these rules:
- Warm up: Two minutes of easy movement and five light push-ups. Tested cold, you will manage fewer.
- Starting position: Hands about shoulder-width apart, body in one line from head to heel (or knee), arms extended.
- Depth: Your chest comes down to within a fist's width of the floor. Half repetitions don't count.
- No rest: Count until you have to stop in the top position or your hips sag. If you catch your breath at the top, the test is over.
- Same conditions: Repeat the test every four to six weeks at the same time of day and rested, not after a workout.
The most common reasons numbers look too good are missing depth and sagging hips. How to recognize clean repetitions is shown in the article on the seven most common mistakes.
The 40-rep mark: what the Harvard study shows
In 2019, a team around Justin Yang published data in JAMA Network Open on more than 1,100 male firefighters who were followed for ten years. Those who could do more than 40 push-ups at the start had a 96 percent lower risk of cardiovascular events during the observation period than participants who could do fewer than ten.
That sounds like a magic threshold, but it is an observation in a very specific group: active middle-aged men, no women, no older people. Push-ups don't make the heart healthy – people who can do many are usually fitter overall. As a goal, 40 is still a good one, because it demands strength, endurance and body tension at once. What the study measures and what it doesn't is covered in detail in our post on the Harvard study.
From your number to the next level
Which strategy fits depends on where you start:
- 0 to 5 repetitions: Train the easier variations first – incline push-ups on a table or wall and knee push-ups – and practice the lowering phase slowly. After three to four weeks, your first clean repetitions are realistic.
- 6 to 20: Several sets just below your maximum, three to four days per week. In this range the number grows fastest, often by two to three repetitions per week.
- 20 to 40: Now volume spread across the day helps most: several small sets instead of one big one. Add harder variations so the stimulus doesn't flatten out.
- Over 40: More repetitions become a question of endurance. If you want to get stronger, switch to harder variations instead of even longer sets.
The most important factor is the same at every level: train regularly and keep track of your progress. If you write down your numbers, you'll see in black and white after four weeks that something is happening – and you'll stay on track.