How Strong Are You Really?

Assess Your Muscular Strength

When I was a kid I could do "man style" push ups at the drop of a hat. I looked forward to the President's Fitness Challenge every year and excelled at it. Over the years though the muscles needed to perform a full push-up have weakened and quite frankly it is rather embarassing that I fall staight to the floor when I attempt to perform one. I can however perform the female version of the excercise and rank in the 'fair' category.

Push-ups are an excellent indicator of your muscular strength. Try performing this Strength Accessment Test to determine your muscular strength.

Men and women will perform this test differently: Men will assume the full-body pushup position, with hands shoulder-width apart, back straight, toes on the ground. Women, meanwhile, will perform a "knees pushup"—identical to the men's in the upper body, but abbreviated below so that their knees are on the ground.

Once the basic set-up is mastered, simply perform as many pushups as possible in two minutes, keeping the back straight and, lowering the body until the chin touches the ground. Don’t let the stomach touch, though. On the way up, be sure to completely straighten the arms—bending them so that only half a pushup is performed is not allowed.

Once the two minutes are up, you’ll want to record your score and see how you’ve done. It’s a bit complex, as age and gender affect the evaluation.




Data Source:U.S. Department of Health and Human Services