Health and Safety Test Your Upper Body Fitness With The Pushup Test By Elizabeth Quinn Elizabeth Quinn is an exercise physiologist, sports medicine writer, and fitness consultant for corporate wellness and rehabilitation clinics. Learn about our editorial process Elizabeth Quinn Reviewed by Reviewed by Tara Laferrara, CPT on August 20, 2019 Tara Laferrara is a certified NASM personal trainer, yoga teacher, and fitness coach. She also created her own online training program, the TL Method. Learn about our Review Board Tara Laferrara, CPT Updated on February 19, 2020 Print Justin Lambert / Taxi / Getty Images Pushups are not only a great way to build upper body strength and endurance, but they are a good way to test your upper body strength and muscular endurance. The pushup test is a basic fitness test used by coaches, trainers, and athletes to assess upper body fitness and to monitor progress during strength and fitness training. This simple test helps you compare your own upper body muscular endurance to others of your age and gender and track your fitness program over time. Why Measure Upper Body Strength and Endurance? Strength and endurance in the muscles of the upper body—specifically the chest, shoulders, triceps, and core—is a good indication of overall fitness. This simple exercise engages muscles throughout the entire body, from head to toe, in order to maintain a rigid position. Upper body strength and endurance is essential for athletes such as swimmers, climbers, or golfers who demand strength and power from their arms and shoulders to perform well and avoid injury. But a strong upper body is also important for everyone who wants to perform everyday movements, such as carrying luggage or picking up children, with ease and without risking injury. Primary Muscles Used During the Pushup These are the key muscles that allow you to perform a pushup: Shoulders (anterior and medial deltoids) Chest (pectorals) Back of the upper arm (triceps) How to Perform the Pushup Test While performing pushups, you lift nearly 75% of your total body weight. Using a modified pushup position reduces this amount to about 60% of your total body weight. Standard Pushup Test This version is used for men: Perform a short warmup before performing any fitness testing. Begin in a pushup position on your hands and toes with your hands shoulder-width apart and elbows fully extended. While keeping a straight line from the toes to hips, and to the shoulders, lower your upper body so your elbows bend to 90 degrees. Push back up to the start position. That is one rep. Continue with this form and complete as many repetitions as possible without breaking form. Record the total number of full push-ups completed. Modified Pushup Test A modified version of the pushup test is used for women, who tend to have less relative upper body strength than men. The test is conducted in the same way as above, but uses an "on the knee" pushup position. Perform a short warmup before performing any fitness testing. Begin in a modified pushup position, on the hands and knees, with hands shoulder-width apart and elbows fully extended. Drop the hips and move the hands forward until you create a straight line from the knees to the hips to the shoulders. While keeping a straight position from the knees to the shoulders, lower your upper body so your elbows bend to 90 degrees. Push back up to the start position. That is one rep. Continue with this form and complete as many repetitions as possible without breaking form. Record the total number of full modified pushups completed. How to Score Your Results After your complete the test, compare your results to the norms and recommendations for your age and sex. To assess your training progress, you can do the pushup test every eight to 12 weeks. You will see a variety of charts and scoring, depending on the source the tester uses. This chart is from "Essentials of Exercise Physiology." Pushup Fitness Test Results Men Age: 20-29 Age: 30-39 Age: 40-49 Age: 50-59 Age: 60+ Excellent 54 or more 44 or more 39 or more 34 or more 29 or more Good 45-54 35-44 30-39 25-34 20-29 Average 35-44 24-34 20-29 15-24 10-19 Poor 20-34 15-24 12-19 8-14 5-9 Very Poor 20 or fewer 15 or fewer 12 or fewer 8 or fewer 5 or fewer Women Age: 20-29 Age: 30-39 Age: 40-49 Age: 50-59 Age: 60+ Excellent 48 or more 39 or more 34 or more 29 or more 19 or more Good 34-48 25-39 20-34 15-29 5-19 Average 17-33 12-24 8-19 6-14 3-4 Poor 6-16 4-11 3-7 2-5 1-2 Very Poor 6 or fewer 4 or fewer 3 or fewer 2 or fewer 1 or fewer You can look at other standards with the YMCA's "The Y's Way to Physical Fitness," the National Strength and Conditioning Association's "NSCA's Essentials of Personal Training," and the American College of Sports Medicine's "ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription." Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Get exercise tips to make your workouts less work and more fun. Sign Up You're in! Thank you, {{form.email}}, for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. What are your concerns? Other Inaccurate Hard to Understand Submit Article Sources Verywell Fit uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Tips for Lifting and Carrying Luggage. Reviewed November 2018. Chulvi-medrano I, Martínez-ballester E, Masiá-tortosa L. Comparison of the effects of an eight-week push-up program using stable versus unstable surfaces. Int J Sports Phys Ther. 2012;7(6):586-94. Cooper Institute. How much weight is really lifted during a push-up?. Published Mar 07, 2011. Harvard Medical School. Exercise 101: Don't skip the warm-up or cool-down. Updated Jul 20, 2020. Push-Up. American Council on Exercise. McColl P. Perfecting the Push-up for All Levels. American Council on Exercise. April 2019. McArdle WD, Katch FI, Katch VL. Essentials of Exercise Physiology Fifth, North American Edition. LWW. 2015. Additional Reading American College of Sports Medicine. ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. 2017. Coburn JW, Malek MH, (U.S.) NS. NSCA's Essentials of Personal Training 2nd Edition. Human Kinetics; 2012. McArdle WD, Katch FI, Katch VL. Essentials of Exercise Physiology. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2015.