How many pushups should I be able to do

One of the universal truths is that exercise is an innumerably advantageous, physical activity for every human being, man or woman. There is a plethora of exercising types, modes, medium, categories and tools which each have their own specific advantages. One of such exercising type is pushups. This alone has many benefits for an individual’s body, mind, shape, energy, muscles and spirit.

People do it for different purposes. Some might perform this type of exercise to reduce their weight or some might do it to change their upper body shape but whatsoever is the reason it is a perfect exercise to energize your body, sharpen your mind and shape your body. Using this exercise, you can even check how much balance and endurance your upper body has. It is actually a very basic exercise that helps you rate your physical fitness and strength.

The Advantages of Pushups

Since this is the most conveniently adaptable exercise, people tend to use it in their daily exercising routines more than often. Pushups, if done correctly and regularly, generally bring the following advantages for everyone:

• No equipment or tools are required to perform this form of exercise
• It strengthens your upper body muscles
• You can use diverse positions for different targets
• You don’t have to go to a specific gym or trainer rather you can do it at your home on a clear patch of floor
• It enhances your ability and strength
• It clearly increases your stamina
• You can get your chest, shoulders and arms into a better and lean shape. In fact you can obtain the idealistic cut shape muscles too, if you do pushups everyday
• It enhances your muscles endurance
• It also strengthens your core and balance of the entire body

How Many Daily Pushups are Ideally Correct

To calculate and tell, the right number of pushups for an individual, takes a lot of consideration on differing variables that exist but change with every individual. Some of the basic yet most important things to consider in this regard are:

• Gender
• Height
• Body posture
• Weight
• Age

We admit that it is more achievable when you know a definite number of pushups or have a static target for your routine workout but that is nearly impossible, to declare a certain number to be ideally correct for all because everyone has their own level of endurance and ability which varies as per their stamina to perform a set of pushups in their daily routine.

Generally, for the beginners the numbers stay under 10 which eventually increase with practice and regularity because with regularity, your fitness level improves and you start to endure more which results in more sets of pushups, but you must not fatigue yourself and should learn to determine the right number of pushups in your daily workout.

Determining Your Own Number of Pushups

If you are trying to learn how to determine your own perfect number of pushups that you should start and end with, than follow the basic tips mentioned below:

• Maintain a proper posture: when you are going down in your position, make sure your back is straight and your legs are apart. After you are in the right posture now go for the dip and hold your upper body tight and then count the number you can perform, easily.
• Correct form: while doing pushups make sure you are doing it correctly because if not done right than they might not be as useful as you are expecting them to be, no matter how many you do every day.
• Focus on your goal: to determine the right number of pushups for yourself, you need to reevaluate your goal and then focus on it because for different goals you need different results. Your motivation, your pushups number, your form and ability, everything will differ depending on your goal. For instance – you could be doing these to reduce your weight, mould your body shape, to stay fit or you could be taking part in some competition but whatever your target is, it will require your strength and power and only then you could push your limits and stamina to a higher number with each day passing.

The key to gain success in your set target is to determine your limits and then gather how to push past them through consistency and regular workout or daily practice. You can begin by giving yourself very small targets because they also help in boosting your confidence and motivation to keep pushing for more. This way you can determine your own pushups number but remember to not linger on the same number for long.

Standard Push Ups

One thing that you’ll always hear people say a lot about pushups is the correct form because that in itself is quite a challenge and you can even end up with an injury or a spasm in your muscles if they are not done correctly. Here is how you can execute your pushups without fearing of an injury or a cramp:

• To begin, get on your fours and take position with your arms and feet straight on the floor with the same distance of your shoulders.
• Now shift your body weight down to your hands by bending your arms outward while keeping the plank position.
• Then push yourself up again and follow the same pattern till exhaustion.

For beginners, take 10–15 seconds break in between few consecutive pushups.

Change Your Workout Routine

To acquire a higher number of pushups, you can change your routine with every other week, to try different forms of push ups. There are so many forms of pushups that you can bring in your workout to attain to different muscles in your body and push your endurance and strength to a higher number. For instance you can use the following forms on alternate weeks:

• One form is the usual pushup; your body is familiar with.
• You can swap it with the close hands pushups which increase the difficulty level and thus are more result oriented especially for your biceps and triceps.
• Another form is the wide arm position to work on your shoulders and chest in a more vigorous manner.
• You can make it even harder by attempting one arm pushups which work on your overall body balance, your shoulders, arm, core, abdominal muscles and your stomach.

When you will try to use these diverse styles of pushups, you will actually force your body to show results quickly because once your body gets used to one style, it may take longer and more number of pushups to be effective. So it is always advisable to change your routine every now and then and also try to perform whichever style you are doing in its proper and correct form.

Workout variation can include the addition of equipment into the routine as well. To make it more challenging for you to do the push-ups and notice results faster especially when it comes to muscle strengthening and muscle mass increase, you should put on a weighted vest that evidently increases exercise routine difficulty through the extra weight it adds into the mix and helps you stay on track as you get challenged in your goals.

Answers By Various Experts

When people generally ask what is the correct number of pushups or how many they should be able to do every day, the answer can differ depending on who you are asking it from, as various experts have different opinions based on diverse goals and fitness levels. You are generally advised to do as many repetitions as your body can allow but that is not the correct answer to our question.

Our research says that women generally can perform a lesser number than men but both the genders can do their best in between the age of 30–39. We have also observed that the people who are fitness freaks or are more into gym and workouts can naturally do more than the overweight and normal people because of the difference in the stamina.

Answer by a Professor

In an attempt to correctly answer our question, a professor for physical fitness Dr. Lawrence A. Golding suggests that 13-30 pushups a day could be an ideal number for the age of 20-40. But that again is a very wide range and thus makes the answer very vague.

Answer by Fitness Experts

Different fitness experts, organizations and coaches have different measuring tools and patterns to conclude what could be the best number of pushups for differing ages but they give out a genuine answer as per their years of observation and experience.

They have tested numerous age groups and genders to see the maximum ability and strength and then made three categories as “Good,” “Needs Improvement” or “Excellent”. Their tests were controlled as they allowed the resting time as per the individual’s progress and endurance.

Below are the generic results as published in ‘Live Strong’ which is a fitness and health oriented web portal:

• 24-29 pushups for ages 20-29
• 19-23 pushups for ages 30-39
• 13-18 pushups for ages 40-49
• 10-13 pushups for ages 50-59
• 9-10 pushups for ages 60-69

Though these numbers have been presented by the coaches and experts on the basis of the tests they themselves have conducted but still they don’t suggest that these numbers of pushups are ideally universal. They think that the individual’s own physical state, fitness, motivation and goal plays major role in his or her performance.

Answer by Forces

When you seek the answer of how many pushups one should be able to do by forces, you will get an unexpectedly high number because of the high fitness demand of the soldiers who are trained in so many ways and thus need to attain the high number of pushups in their daily workout. Following are the answers obtained by different forces for both genders:

• To pass the training and get selected, men need to do 45 pushups to pass the test whereas women need to perform only 27 pushups
• In Army, one needs to perform the very basic set of 31-35 pushups for the ages 17-26, as for females, their must to do number is 11-13 pushups
• As for Coast Guard the level is tougher and stricter with 29 pushups for men and 15 for women and that too within a minute
• To get selected in the Navy, you have to perform fast and higher number of 46 consecutive pushups in only 2 minutes
• For Navy Seals BUD/S the minimum number is 42 pushups in two minutes which doesn’t seem a hard call because most of the trained men can do the double of it in the same time without a fall or a break

Conclusion

To sum it up, your body has the best answer to the question of how many pushups you should be doing because if you have settled a reasonable goal for yourself then your motivation will keep you on track and you will naturally increase your ability and endurance to do more with every passing day. No one can tell you a better number that you must pursue for fitness. You can only do as many as your body can sustain without dropping on the floor and with a perfect posture and form.

We advise you to do the following to help you increase the number of pushups in a natural way:

• First thing first, you need to eat a proper and healthy meal
• Work more on your stamina through an easy cardio
• Follow the proper technique
• Have a proper rest. Both at night and in between the reps

In short, the body shape, weight and age of an individual can also be the variables that affect the number of push ups he can perform.

Do you think that a number can help you push your ability to do better? Then you can pick any of those mentioned above that are realistically possible for you to attain, just remember, regularity and consistency are the only factors that can help you exceed your limits.