How Many Push-Ups Should You Do a Day?

The short answer: do about half of your max in one set, three to five times spread through the day, every day. If your max is 10, do 5s. If your max is 40, do 20s. Add reps every week. That single rule beats every “do 100 a day” headline, because it scales to you and it survives the week you’re tired.

Here’s the longer answer, with actual numbers.

First, find your max

Do as many good push-ups as you can in one go: chest to a fist’s height off the floor, body straight, full lockout, no resting at the top for more than a second. Stop when the form breaks. That number is your max. Everything below keys off it.

If your max is zero, that’s fine and very common — jump to the “starting from zero” section below.

How many push-ups a day, by level

Two things to notice. The daily total is roughly 2–4× your max, and no set is a max effort. Grinding out a maximum set every day is how people stall by week two; submaximal sets done daily are how people go from 10 to 40.

How many push-ups a day by age

There’s no medically “correct” number for an age. What changes is recovery. Under 30, most people can push a daily total up every week for a couple of months. Over 40, you’ll do better adding reps every two weeks and taking one lighter day (half volume) each week. Over 60, the incline push-up (hands on a counter or bench) is a perfectly good default; the movement is the same, just with less of your body weight.

For reference, “average” one-set maxes for people who don’t train are roughly:

Treat these as a mirror, not a target. If you’re at the average now and do half-max sets daily for a month, you’ll be well above it.

Starting from zero

If you can’t do one full push-up yet, don’t do knee push-ups forever — do incline push-ups and lower the incline over time. Hands on a wall → kitchen counter → sturdy chair → low step → floor. Each step down is a rep goal:

1. Wall push-ups: 3 sets of 15 daily until easy.
2. Counter push-ups: 3 sets of 12.
3. Chair or bench: 3 sets of 10.
4. Low step: 3 sets of 8.
5. Floor: 3 sets of as many as you can with good form (even 1–2 counts).

Most people go from zero to five floor push-ups in three to five weeks doing this every day.

Is it OK to do push-ups every day?

Yes, at these volumes. Push-ups are a low-load movement and the muscles involved (chest, front shoulders, triceps, core) recover fast. Two rules keep it safe:

• Nothing to failure. Leave two or three reps in the tank on every set.
• One easy day a week. Do half your usual total. If your wrists, elbows or front shoulders start nagging, take that day as a rest instead.

If you’re doing more than 150 a day, or you’re pushing sets to failure, then every day is too much and you’ll benefit more from alternating hard days and easy days.

Making it stick: the daily number

Pick a daily total from the table, then write it down and count it. Not “I did some push-ups” — the number. People who count reps add reps; people who “do some” plateau, because there’s nothing to add to.

Any method works: a notebook by the bed, a tally on the fridge, a note on your phone. I built RepTrend because I kept losing the paper — it’s a one-tap counter with a daily goal and a streak, and there’s a widget so you can log a set without opening the app. Whatever you use, the rule is the same: the number goes up a little each week and the streak doesn’t break.

A four-week plan (max of 10)

Here’s the rule turned into a plan for someone with a max of ten. Adjust up or down proportionally.

Then keep going. Or move to the 30-day push-up challenge, which is this same idea with the numbers already filled in for a month.