Ugh...last time I did I did 5....but hey, at least I'm not fat.
And I own my class in sit-ups.

I can do about 10 - 20 push ups without stopping .. My record was at 25 .. How about you ?

I've never really practiced push ups but I can do between 30-40 in 1 minute, which I'm pretty sure is above average. I work out a lot so I'm pretty naturally strong and fit.

@trirune I noticed you said rule of thumb to do more push ups is to be able to bench 10 lb more than you weigh, but push ups and bench press actually work different muscles. They work a lot of the same muscles sure. But I often see people comparing the two saying they are similar and I just highly disagree. I think push ups and bench press are 2 pretty different work outs.

The best way to do more push ups is to work out doing push ups!

I can't do pushups very well. Heck, I suck at them, but when I have to do them for my Advanced Health class, I can do about 30 of them, which is my all-time high. Yeah, I'm no fitness expert.

LegolasJJH : I think you're spot-on with that. If you want to do more of anything, just keep doing that something and you'll get better. There's nothing more comparable to working a muscle group for the activity you wish to perform than performing that activity directly. Now that's not always practical of course, but for something like push-ups, it's easy enough to just do them if you want to improve.

Do as many as you can on a daily basis and you'll find that number gradually increasing over time. You can even do multiple sessions throughout the day to gain progress a bit faster.

Crazy Li : You cannot forget to REST!!! If you did that every day and your muscles started to get sore and you just continued doing push ups with sore muscles you would actually be over training and this is BAD for your body. I would say it would be better to do as many push ups as you could in a single day. I've done this before and did like a total of 330 push ups in 1 day. I did 8 sets of 25 push ups then finished with a set of as many as I could possibly handle (after being sore from doing 300 push ups already that day! ) and managed 30 more. I was sore the next day so working out again would have been a bad idea so I rested that day.

This was at a time when I had actually broken my bench press I had at the time because it was one of those junky ones lol and I tryed putting too much weight on the bar (only 170 lb) which actually managed to make the bar bend (cheapo 5-10 lb bench press bar) I didn't have the funds to buy a new bench so I had started using push ups as a sort of 'filler' work out while I saved for a new olympic styled bench. I now have 2 olympic styled bench presses, both which have squat racks incorporated in them, something like 300-450 lbs in weight, 4 dumbbells, and a curl bar. Needless to say, I've been neglecting the push up work out.

Last time i counted i could do about 50 push ups in one or two minutes, By now i bet i could do about 80 push ups. I'm so well fitted.

LegolasJJH : Sorry, did I forget to note resting? Though you can probably handle something small like 10 a day... but when you work your way up to high numbers, you want days off.

In general, I like exercise routines every other day... 4 days on, 3 days off.

Here I must utterly and completely embarrass myself.  Despite my hard efforts to get back into shape this summer, I still can only hardly do one push up.  I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or what!  It's so embarrassing!  I even started doing chair dips every day so that I would increase my arm strength, but I STILL can't do them!!!!

Singelli : Were you breathing??

Push ups... probably around 80 

Well since i was pumping iron yesterday i think i could reach about 60 push ups and a bout a minute or so i probably can't do that much but i could probably get around there 

I will be lucky to be able to do 10 push ups. Without cheating and actually doing them properly.



My highest record though somehow was 48 push ups at one point though! I was constantly pressured to just keep going and keep going. I know I could probably do more if I tried hard enough. I just quit far too easily. I'm not fit but I am far from being fat... just scrawny...

marcus911 :  *blushes* 
Of course I was!  Maybe I just do them wrong?  Maybe I hold my arms too close to my body or something?  About how far apart should my arms be?  How far do you have to go down to consider it a push up?

I can do about ten to twenty. But they're the girly push-ups. I'm not strong enough to do the actually push-ups.

Singelli : Ok just checking because, a lot of athletic performance can be improved just by proper breathing and relaxation. Generally the wider you place your hands the more the exercise becomes chest-orientated. My opinion is its a push up when your chest touches the ground.

If it bothers you and you want to be able to do more pushups you should do them often. Start on your knees and focus on quality! Strengthening your shoulders/triceps/lats/chest muscles will help. As will cardio! And diet. But honestly the more push ups you attempt, the better you will become!

marcus911 : Well it seems you know more about the topic than I do, and for that I'm glad!  LOL  For example, I didn't know it became more chest oriented the further your arms go out.  Your post was very insightful.

Push ups on my knees always seem to be so easy, but maybe I just haven't done them recently enough or something.

And yeah, going own until my chest hits the ground and then coming up is what makes them seem so impossible!  LOL

I didn't know I was SO out of shape though!  That's terrible!

Singelli : It doesn't mean you're out of shape at all!! Push ups, you just have to practice and get used to them over time!! (pst... they dont really matter :-) what matters more is how fit YOU feel!!)