What's your push-up level?
Do as many good-form push-ups as you can in one set, enter the number below, and find out instantly where you land on a 40-level scale — full or knee push-ups both work.
Enter your push-up count
Do as many good-form push-ups as you can in one set, enter the number, and see where you land on the 40-level scale.
Variant
Enter a number to see your level
How that compares to armed-forces standards
The forces publish their own push-up requirements, banded by age and sex. They are a useful outside benchmark — with the caveat that these are the standards serving personnel keep passing, not entry requirements for joining, and that several forces don't test push-ups at all.
Would you meet the standard?
Every published standard is banded by age and sex, so it needs both to answer. Nothing you type here is sent anywhere — it's worked out in your browser.
Standards column — male or female
The forces publish separate columns; this picks which one to read against.
Enter a rep count and an age to compare
US Navy — Physical Readiness Test (PRT)
Push-ups — as many as possible in 2 minutes
The pass mark is the “probationary” row. Failing any one event fails the whole test, so the minimum is a floor rather than a target.
| Age | Male pass | Female pass | Top score M / F |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17–19 | 42 | 19 | 92 / 51 |
| 20–24 | 37 | 16 | 87 / 48 |
| 25–29 | 34 | 13 | 84 / 46 |
| 30–34 | 31 | 11 | 80 / 44 |
| 35–39 | 27 | 9 | 76 / 43 |
| 40–44 | 24 | 7 | 72 / 41 |
| 45–49 | 21 | 5 | 68 / 40 |
| 50–54 | 19 | 2 | 64 / 38 |
| 55–59 | 10 | 2 | 60 / 30 |
| 60–64 | 8 | 1 | 57 / 22 |
Source: GUIDE-5A Physical Readiness Test, Table 4-1 (altitudes below 5,000 ft) (December 2025).
US Marine Corps — Physical Fitness Test (PFT)
Push-ups — as many as possible in 2 minutes
Push-ups are the alternative to pull-ups, and picking them caps the event at 70 points instead of 100 — the order states that maximum points can only be earned on pull-ups. A Marine who chooses push-ups cannot max the PFT.
| Age | Male pass | Female pass | Top score M / F |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17–20 | 42 | 19 | 82 / 42 |
| 21–25 | 40 | 18 | 87 / 48 |
| 26–30 | 39 | 18 | 84 / 50 |
| 31–35 | 36 | 16 | 80 / 46 |
| 36–40 | 34 | 14 | 76 / 43 |
| 41–45 | 30 | 12 | 72 / 41 |
| 46–50 | 25 | 11 | 68 / 40 |
| 51+ | 20 | 10 | 64 / 38 |
Source: MCO 6100.13A CH-2, Table 2-2 (17 January 2018).
Royal Air Force — RAF Fitness Test (RAFFT)
Press-ups
The RAF marks its minimum as the “Green zone” — the 1.0× health-risk column. Figures below are the bottom of that band.
| Age | Male pass | Female pass | Top score M / F |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17–29 | 20 | 10 | — / — |
| 30–34 | 19 | 9 | — / — |
| 35–39 | 18 | 8 | — / — |
| 40–44 | 17 | 7 | — / — |
| 45–49 | 16 | 6 | — / — |
| 50–54 | 15 | 5 | — / — |
| 55+ | 14 | 4 | — / — |
Source: RAF Fitness Test Standards (current edition, retrieved August 2026).
US Air Force — Physical Fitness Readiness Assessment (PFRA)
Push-ups — 1 minute
Airmen choose either the 1-minute push-up or the 2-minute hand-release version. The figure shown is what earns full marks for the event; the chart does not label a pass mark.
| Age | Male full marks | Female full marks |
|---|---|---|
| Under 25 | 67 | 50 |
| 25–29 | 63 | 47 |
| 30–34 | 60 | 44 |
| 35–39 | 56 | 42 |
| 40–44 | 52 | 39 |
| 45–49 | 49 | 36 |
| 50–54 | 45 | 34 |
| 55–59 | 42 | 31 |
| 60+ | 38 | 28 |
Source: Final USAF PFRA Scoring Charts (effective 1 March 2026).
US Air Force — Physical Fitness Readiness Assessment (PFRA)
Hand-release push-ups — 2 minutes
The hand-release version lifts both hands off the floor at the bottom of every rep, which is why the numbers are lower than the 1-minute push-up for the same score.
| Age | Male full marks | Female full marks |
|---|---|---|
| Under 25 | 52 | 42 |
| 25–29 | 50 | 40 |
| 30–34 | 48 | 38 |
| 35–39 | 46 | 36 |
| 40–44 | 44 | 34 |
| 45–49 | 42 | 32 |
| 50–54 | 40 | 30 |
| 55–59 | 38 | 28 |
| 60+ | 36 | 26 |
Source: Final USAF PFRA Scoring Charts (effective 1 March 2026).
US Army — Army Fitness Test (AFT)
Hand-release push-ups — as many as possible in 2 minutes
The AFT replaced the ACFT on 1 June 2025. Five events, 60 points minimum on each, 300 to pass for most roles and 350 for the 21 combat specialties. Rep counts are scored by age and sex, and we have not obtained the scoring scale, so no number is published here.
Source: goarmy.com / army.mil (test of record since 1 June 2025).
Bundeswehr — Basis-Fitness-Test (BFT)
No push-up eventThe BFT is a 11×10 m shuttle sprint (under 60 seconds), a flexed-arm hang (at least 5 seconds) and a 1,000 m run (under 6:30), all inside 90 minutes. Push-ups are not part of it — upper-body strength is assessed by the hang instead.
Source: bundeswehr.de (checked 19 August 2026).
Standards change. Every figure above was read from the issuing authority's own document on the date shown — check the current version before relying on any of it for a real application. 7 organisations are covered here.
Why push-up capacity is worth tracking
A 2019 study published in JAMA Network Open followed 1,104 occupationally active career male firefighters across 10 Indiana fire departments (mean age 39.6) from baseline exams between 2000 and 2007 through the end of 2010. Over 8,601 person-years of follow-up, there were 37 cardiovascular events in the cohort.
Men who could complete more than 40 push-ups at their baseline exam had a substantially lower rate of cardiovascular events over follow-up than men who could complete fewer than 10 (hazard ratio 0.04, 95% CI 0.01–0.36). It's an association observed in this cohort — not a controlled trial, and the confidence interval is wide given only 37 total events, so it should not be read as a precise percentage of risk reduction.
The authors were explicit about who this applies to: “because the study cohort consisted of middle-aged, occupationally active men, the study results may not be generalizable to women, older or nonactive persons, other occupational groups, or unemployed persons.” Treat this as one data point about push-up capacity in that specific population — not a general-population finding, and not a medical test or diagnosis for anyone.
Where do the study's own thresholds land on the scale above? 10 push-ups is Level 11, and 40 push-ups is Level 24 — you can check either number yourself in the calculator above.
Source: Yang J, Christophi CA, Farioli A, et al. Association Between Push-up Exercise Capacity and Future Cardiovascular Events Among Active Adult Men. JAMA Network Open. 2019;2(2):e188341. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.8341
Does age change what's a “good” number?
Less than you'd think. Training status — how consistently you've actually been doing push-ups or similar upper-body work — predicts your push-up capacity far better than your age does. A trained 50-year-old will typically out-perform an untrained 25-year-old. Rather than publish precise per-age benchmarks we can't rigorously back, the honest guidance is: assess where you are today with the calculator above, and track your own number over time instead of comparing to an age-band chart.
Common questions
How is my push-up level calculated?
Your push-up count is checked against a 40-level scale, where each level maps to a minimum rep count — Level 1 starts at 0 reps and Level 40 tops out at 78 reps. The scale runs in small 1-rep steps early on and wider steps at the elite end, so it stays meaningful across the whole range from beginner to advanced.
What if I can only do knee (modified) push-ups?
Select "Knee push-ups" and enter your count as normal. Knee push-ups load roughly 60% of a full push-up, so we convert your count to a full-push-up equivalent (rounded to the nearest rep) before scoring it on the same 40-level scale. Knee push-ups are a legitimate way to build toward full push-ups, not a lesser exercise.
What's the science behind push-up capacity as a fitness marker?
A 2019 study in JAMA Network Open followed 1,104 male firefighters for up to a decade and found that men who could do more than 40 push-ups at baseline had a substantially lower rate of cardiovascular events over follow-up than men who could do fewer than 10. It's an observational association in a specific occupational cohort, not a medical test — see the evidence section below for the full context and its limits.
Is this a medical test or diagnosis?
No. This is a fitness self-assessment for tracking your own push-up capacity over time, not a medical test, screening tool, or diagnosis. If you have health concerns, talk to a doctor.