The push-up is used by the Army as a physical test to measure a soldier's upper-body strength. The rigors of soldiering, such as ruck marching, combat, parachuting and heavy lifting, require that soldiers have strong upper bodies. As part of the Army's physical fitness standards, there are minimum and maximum levels of push-ups a soldier must be able to do to meet Army fitness requirements.
Push-up Standards
The Army maintains physical-fitness standards for all its testing categories in the Army Physical Fitness Test, including the push-up event. Minimum and maximum scores vary by age group and gender. For ages 17-21, the maximum number of push-ups scored for men is 71, and 42 for women. For ages 22-26, 75 is the max for men and 46 for women. Men and women ages 27-31 are required to perform 77 and 50 push-ups, respectively, to score 100 percent in the event. See Resources for page to check the requirements for older ages.
Basic Training Minimum Push-up Standards
The Army maintains two minimum standards for the APFT in the push-up category. First, there are the minimum standards set at Basic Training. These differ from the Army-wide standard. At Basic Training, males and females between the ages of 17 and 21 are required to do at least 35 and 13 push-ups, respectively. Males and females between the ages of 22 and 26 are required to perform at least 31 and 11 push-ups, respectively. Once soldiers graduate from Basic Training and attend Advanced Individual Training, they will be held to the Army's normal standard.
Army-Wide Standard
To graduate from Advanced Individual Training, soldiers must perform to the Army-wide standard of physical fitness. The Army requires that soldiers score at least 180 points out of 300 on the APFT. It also requires that soldiers score at least 60 points in each event. This means males must perform 42 push-ups and females must perform 19 push-ups if they are between 17 and 21 years old. If they are between 22 and 26 years old, males must complete 40 push-ups and females must complete 17 push-ups.
Increasing Push-up Strength
The best way to get better at push-ups is to do more push-ups. If you are weak at push-ups from the start, do sets of 10 and work toward 100, 150 or 200 push-ups total in a day. Once your chest and arms get stronger, you can increase the amount of reps in a set. To vary your workout and the muscles used, you can change the type of push-up from standard to wide-set to diamond to knuckle push-ups. Note that the Army Physical Fitness Test will require you do standard push-ups with your arms shoulder-width apart.
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