The test
Press-ups
Upper body pushing strength and trunk control, measured by counting. Your number is recorded and shown. It is not scored into your Index, and this page is mostly about why.
What you need. Floor space, or a bench, counter or wall if the floor is too hard.
How to do it
Doing it properly
- Pick the position you can hold with good form: on the floor, or with your hands on a bench, counter or wall.
- Record which one you used. It decides which set of percentiles your count is read against.
- Perform as many as you can without stopping.
- Stop when your form breaks, not when it hurts.
What counts
Chest to within a fist of the surface, arms straight at the top, body in a straight line. A repetition with a sagging back does not count.
What most people get wrong
- Not going deep enough.
- Letting the hips drop.
- Changing position partway — start again in the one you can hold.
The evidence
What it actually shows
A repetition counts when your chest comes within a fist of the surface, your arms are straight at the top, and your body stays in a straight line throughout. A repetition with a sagging back does not count.
The test is cheap, needs nothing, and is a reasonable measure of what it claims to measure. Counting is not the problem.
There is no published percentile table for press-ups that covers both sexes across the adult age range, which is what scoring would require. The band table this test used to carry was extrapolated from a study of 1,104 men rather than measured, and it has been withdrawn. An unverified figure sitting beside verified ones is the specific thing this product is trying not to do.
So your count is recorded and displayed, and contributes nothing to your Index. Nothing about your score changes whether you do this test or skip it.
Percentiles for both sexes are being built from the Evolution cohort. When they exist, this test will be scored, and this page will say so.
No external reference in use. Internal percentiles pending.
The next step
One test is one test.
This measures one thing. The Evolution Index measures nine, across the three domains that decide how long you stay useful, and reports your weakest rather than your average — a strong heart does not buy you out of a floor you cannot get up from.
Every score is published with the error around it, because a change smaller than the measurement error is not a change.