Is 20 Push-Ups Good? Ratings by Age for Men and Women

Push-up test norms by age and sex, on one page

Twenty push-ups is Fair for a man of 25 and Excellent for a man of 65. Same twenty reps, two ratings, because the chart behind almost every push-up test moves its bands with age. This calculator holds that chart, the one published by the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) for ages 15 to 69, and places one set of push-ups in it: your rating, the band it falls in, how many reps the next band needs, and how the same count reads at every other age.

36+

Excellent, men 20-29, standard

30+

Excellent, women 20-29, knee

5 bands

from Needs improvement to Excellent

Doing the test and entering the count

Push-up type - standard (on your toes) or from the knees. The chart scores men on standard push-ups and women on knee push-ups; the other combinations are handled with a note.
Sex - picks the men's or the women's column of the chart.
Age - whole years from 15 to 69. The chart works in ten-year groups, except the first, which is 15-19.
Push-ups - full repetitions in one set without resting: hands under the shoulders, body straight, chest down to a fist or a rolled towel, arms straight at the top. Stop when two reps in a row lose that form.
Read the result - the rating and its band, the reps to the next band, the five bands of your age group and your count across all six age groups.

What the push-up test measures, and whose chart this is

The test measures upper body endurance: how many times the chest, shoulders and triceps can lower and press your body before form breaks. It is not a strength test in the one-rep sense. Someone who benches heavy and someone with a light frame can land on the same count for different reasons.

The bands come from the CSEP Physical Activity Training for Health manual, where the test is scored as a health benefit rating. The American Council on Exercise reprints the same table in its push-up assessment protocol, which is where the figures on this page were read. The protocol is strict about form and loose about speed: there is no time limit, only the rule that the set ends when two consecutive reps fall apart.

The men's and women's columns measure different exercises. Men do standard push-ups, women do the modified version from the knees, which puts less of the body's weight through the hands. That is why the women's numbers in the second table look close to the men's: they are counts of an easier movement, so the two columns cannot be compared rep for rep.

Men's push-up chart (standard push-ups)

Number of full push-ups in one set, by age group, as printed in the CSEP chart.

Age	Excellent	Very good	Good	Fair	Needs improvement
15-19	39+	29-38	23-28	18-22	0-17
20-29	36+	29-35	22-28	17-21	0-16
30-39	30+	22-29	17-21	12-16	0-11
40-49	25+	17-24	13-16	10-12	0-9
50-59	21+	13-20	10-12	7-9	0-6
60-69	18+	11-17	8-10	5-7	0-4

Women's push-up chart (knee push-ups)

The same five ratings for push-ups from the knees. A woman who tests on her toes is placed in this table too, and the result says that the rating then errs on the low side.

Age	Excellent	Very good	Good	Fair	Needs improvement
15-19	33+	25-32	18-24	12-17	0-11
20-29	30+	21-29	15-20	10-14	0-9
30-39	27+	20-26	13-19	8-12	0-7
40-49	24+	15-23	11-14	5-10	0-4
50-59	21+	11-20	7-10	2-6	0-1
60-69	17+	12-16	5-11	2-4	0-1

What the two charts reveal when you read across them

The top band falls by about half over five decades. Excellent starts at 39 push-ups for men aged 15-19 and at 18 for men aged 60-69, a drop of 21 reps. For women the same threshold goes from 33 to 17. A man who keeps a steady 25 push-ups from his twenties onward climbs from Good to Excellent without doing a single extra rep, simply by moving into the 40-49 group.

Some bands are three reps wide. For men aged 50-59, Fair is 7-9 and Good is 10-12. A rep or two decides the rating there, so one sloppy set can move it. At 15-19 the Very good band spans ten reps, 29-38, and the same slip changes nothing.

After 50, the women's chart starts almost at zero. Needs improvement is 0-1 knee push-ups for women aged 50-59 and 60-69, so 2 push-ups already reads as Fair. For a woman of 64, Good begins at 5.

Men and women do not share a scale. Thirty reps are Excellent in both columns at 20-29 for women and at 30-39 for men, but one count is from the knees and the other from the toes. The chart compares you with people of your own sex doing the same version, never across the two columns.

Eight results, and what the next band asks for

Each row was run through the calculator. The last column is the number of extra reps that would move the rating up one band.

Test	Push-ups	Rating (band)	To next band
Man, 17, standard	25	Good (23-28)	+4
Man, 25, standard	30	Very good (29-35)	+6
Man, 35, standard	15	Fair (12-16)	+2
Man, 52, standard	22	Excellent (21+)	top band
Woman, 22, knee	18	Good (15-20)	+3
Woman, 45, knee	9	Fair (5-10)	+2
Woman, 64, knee	3	Fair (2-4)	+2
Woman, 33, standard	14	Good (13-19), low side	+6

A man who tests on his knees gets no rating, only the count and a prompt to retest on his toes: the men's chart has no knee column. For men there is one extra line under the result. In a 10-year study of 1,104 male firefighters (Yang and colleagues, JAMA Network Open), those who managed more than 40 push-ups had a far lower rate of cardiovascular events than those under 10. That test kept time with a metronome at 80 beats per minute, so it is a different protocol, and the rating here does not depend on it.

Push-up test questions

How many push-ups should I be able to do for my age?

The chart's middle rating, Good, is a fair answer. For men it starts at 23 (15-19), 22 (20-29), 17 (30-39), 13 (40-49), 10 (50-59) and 8 (60-69) standard push-ups. For women doing knee push-ups it starts at 18, 15, 13, 11, 7 and 5 in the same age groups.

Is 20 push-ups good?

For a man it depends on the decade: Fair at 15-19 and 20-29, Good at 30-39, Very good at 40-49 and 50-59, Excellent at 60-69. For a woman doing them from the knees, 20 is Good at 15-29, Very good at 30-59 and Excellent at 60-69.

Do knee push-ups count?

For women, yes: the women's column was built on them. For men, no: the men's column was built on standard push-ups, and a knee push-up moves less of your weight, so the calculator shows the count without a rating.

Can I take a break during the set?

No. The protocol counts consecutive repetitions without resting, and the set ends when you cannot complete a rep or when two reps in a row lose form. Pausing at the top and starting again is a second set, which the chart does not score.

Why is there no rating under 15 or over 69?

The chart stops there. Rather than stretch the nearest age group to cover a 13-year-old or a 72-year-old, the calculator says the age is outside the range and gives no rating.

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Is 20 push-ups in one set good for your age?

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