What you are about to read is a call to arms — and shoulders and pecs and abs, a guide to why almost all of us should be doing more push-ups and how to do them well.
No more ‘girl’ push-ups
Girls and women often are encouraged to do modified push-ups, starting from their knees, instead of the full-body version that is standard for boys and men.
May 10, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
But push-ups can be surprisingly political, a harbinger of vestigial sexism in sports. People who identify as girls or women typically are encouraged to do modified push-ups, often called “girl” push-ups, starting from their knees, instead of the full-body version that is standard for anyone who identifies as a boy or man.
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), which provides guidelines for exercise testing by fitness and medical professionals, still uses the modified push-up to assess women’s upper-body strength, according to its latest exercise testing textbook, published in 2021. Men are assessed using the full push-up.
But most healthy women are capable of performing full push-ups, said Melanie Adams, a professor of exercise science at Keene State College in New Hampshire, who led a 2022 study of female college students and push-ups. The study, meant to provide data to help revise push-up standards, found that some female college students could perform more than 20 full push-ups without stopping, a total many men can’t match.
Others, though, couldn’t complete one, which opens the opportunity for them, as for so many of the rest of us, to start from scratch and soon double, triple or vigintuple (to increase by 20-fold; I looked it up) our push-up abilities.
Pushing back on knee push-ups
Push-ups are portable, simple and indicate how healthy our muscles are.
“Push-ups are great,” because they strengthen shoulders so well, said Kelly Starrett, an expert on mobility and training and author of the 2023 bestseller “Built to Move.” They are a “root exercise,” he said, a way of moving that helps with many other exercises and activities.
To perform a full push-up, according to the ACSM standards, start facedown on the ground, with your hands situated about shoulder-width apart near the top of your chest, palms pointing forward. Plant your feet slightly apart, toes on the floor.
- Push up until your elbows are straight. Keep your back and hips level. Clench your buttocks to activate the muscles in your lower back and core.
- Breathe. Then lower your body until your chin and chest almost touch the ground and your elbows are bent to about 90 degrees.
- Repeat. To increase your shoulders’ range of motion, try slightly twisting your hands outward during each push-up.
- You also can start from the lifted position and lower yourself first, if that movement feels more comfortable, although most fitness tests, in which you see how many push-ups you can do before your noodly arms give out, require you start on the floor.
Can’t do a push-up? Use the wall
If a single push-up seems too daunting at the moment, there are options, Starrett said.
You can deploy a handy wall for standing push-ups. Stand far enough from the wall that your arms are straight when your palms are flat against the wall. Lean toward the wall, with your back straight and buttocks clenched, until your nose nearly touches, then push yourself back upright.
The wall push-up is a good starter move for people with sore wrists or little experience with standard push-ups, Starrett said. But your goal should be to progress to full push-ups on the ground, since they load and strengthen more muscles and improve your shoulders’ range of motion better.
Those benefits also are a compelling reason to avoid the “girlie” modified push-up, he said. “Hardly anyone” who starts with the half push-up progresses to the full version, he said, meaning they miss out on some of the exercise’s signal effects.
Another option is what he calls the “worm push-up,” in which you position yourself on the floor, as in a regular push-up, and rise as far as you can. Then worm and wiggle the rest of the way. Your form won’t look pretty, Starrett said, but the move will build the strength you need to begin completing the more-conventional version soon. “This is how kids do push-ups,” he pointed out.
New support for the ungendered push-up
“I’ve been strength training since middle school,” said Elizabeth Winsor, an undergraduate student studying exercise science at Keene State College. “I’ve always trained with the full push-up.”
It was “discouraging,” she said, to learn at college that she and other female students would need to do the “girl” push-up during strength testing. So, she eagerly joined the team at Keene State studying full push-ups for female students.
During the study, she and her co-authors counted repetitions, on separate days, of full and the modified, “girl” push-ups by 72 female students of varying body types and fitness levels. In general, the more “girl” push-ups someone could complete, the more full push-ups they also could do, with the mean being 17 “girl” and 9 full push-ups.
The scientists then applied a formula by co-author and mathematics professor Caitlyn Parmelee to develop a new scale for assessing push-ups by women. In the current ACSM testing, 15 to 20 “girl” push-ups are considered “good” among women aged 20 to 29, while in the Keene College group’s study, 8 to 11 full push-ups would get the same grade for that age group.
For young men, 22 to 29 full push-ups are considered “good,” using the ACSM scale.
The push-up is the rare exercise that has “a double gender binary,” lead author Adams said. In exercise testing and many exercise classes, the number of push-ups considered “good” — or poor or excellent — differs by gender, and so does the type of push-up itself.
“We’d like to see that changed,” Adams said.
Contacted for a comment, Cemal Ozemek, director of the Doctor of Clinical Exercise Physiology program at the University of Illinois in Chicago and senior editor of ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription, 12th edition, said the group will look into whether its push-up standards can be updated, with an aim to start using full push-ups for both women and men. The current assessments refer to data that were published more than 30 years ago, he said.
But the ACSM needs a greater volume of push-up data for women that includes all age groups before making any changes, he said. The group is hopeful the next edition of the exercise testing and prescription guidelines, scheduled to publish in 2026, can feature new push-up standards, he said.
For now, “It was great to see” how some of the female students responded after managing even a few full push-ups during the Keene State College study, Winsor said. They surprised themselves, she said, blossoming when they realized “how strong they can be.”
About this story
Photo editing by Maya Valentine. Video by Alexa Juliana Ard. Photography by Marvin Joseph. Models: Micaela Calderon and Cesar Mora.
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