Test Your Upper Body Fitness With The Pushup Test

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."