Push Up Test Norms by Age: Score Your 1-Minute Push-Up Test

This free push-up test calculator scores your 1-minute max push-ups against published push up test norms by age and sex. Enter your age, sex, and rep count to get an instant fitness rating — Excellent, Good, Average, Below average, or Poor — plus a rough percentile estimate and exactly how many more reps you need to reach the next band.

How to use this calculator

First take the test: warm up for 5–10 minutes, then do as many full push-ups as you can in exactly 60 seconds. Keep your body in a straight line from head to heels, lower until your elbows reach roughly 90 degrees, and push back up to full arm extension. Rest in the plank position if you need to — but stop the test if your form breaks down (knees down, sagging hips, half-reps).

Enter your age, sex, and total rep count above. Results update instantly: your fitness rating from the published norms table, a rough percentile interpretation, and exactly how many more reps you need to reach the next band.

To track progress, retest every 4–6 weeks under the same conditions — same surface, same time of day, full form. Pair your result with the one rep max calculator to plan your strength work, the VO2max estimator for a cardio benchmark, and the resting heart rate calculator for recovery trends.

How it works

The 1-minute push-up test is a muscular endurance field test: your score is simply the number of full-form push-ups you complete in 60 seconds. This calculator compares your score to widely published fitness-testing norms (commonly attributed to the American College of Sports Medicine's exercise-testing guidelines, and reproduced by fitness-testing references such as Topend Sports). The norms assume standard full push-ups with strict form — hand-release or knee push-ups use different scales.

Your fitness rating comes from the norm table for your sex and age band. The table below lists the minimum reps for each band: score at or above the Excellent cutoff for Excellent, at or above Good for Good, and so on down through Average, Below average, and Poor. For example, a 30-year-old man lands in the 30–39 male band, where Good starts at 22 reps — so 25 reps rates as Good, and he needs 5 more reps (30 total) to reach Excellent.

The rough percentile is a plain-language estimate from the band, not a measured percentile: Excellent ≈ top 10%, Good ≈ top 25%, Average ≈ middle 50%, Below average ≈ bottom 25%, Poor ≈ bottom 10% of the reference population for your age and sex. The reps to next band is the exact difference between the next band's minimum cutoff and your score.

Push-up norms — men (reps in 60 seconds)

Age	Excellent	Good	Average	Below average	Poor
20–29	≥ 36	29–35	22–28	17–21	< 17
30–39	≥ 30	22–29	17–21	12–16	< 12
40–49	≥ 25	17–24	13–16	10–12	< 10
50–59	≥ 21	13–20	10–12	7–9	< 7
60+	≥ 18	11–17	8–10	5–7	< 5

Push-up norms — women (reps in 60 seconds)

Age	Excellent	Good	Average	Below average	Poor
20–29	≥ 30	21–29	15–20	10–14	< 10
30–39	≥ 27	20–26	13–19	8–12	< 8
40–49	≥ 24	15–23	11–14	5–10	< 5
50–59	≥ 21	11–20	7–10	2–6	< 2
60+	≥ 17	12–16	5–11	1–4	< 1

Important: these are fitness norms for general information, not medical or exercise advice. A maximum-effort push-up test is strenuous — if you have a heart condition, chest pain, a shoulder or wrist injury, or take medication that affects exercise, talk to a doctor or qualified professional before testing.