How Many Push-Ups Should You Do Per Day?

You should do more push-ups than last time. For example, let’s say in your last workout, you got 13 push-ups in your first set, 11 in your second, and 9 in your third. That’s 33 push-ups. Today, your goal is to do 34 push-ups or more.

If you can do more push-ups than last time, that’s progressive overload. It’s by far the most important part of gaining muscle and strength. It proves you’ve gotten stronger, and it stimulates a new wave of growth. It’s both the sign and signal of muscle growth.

Here’s the catch: to have any hope of getting more push-ups than last time, you need to follow a sensible workout plan, eat a diet that supports muscle growth, and live a good lifestyle. Let’s delve into how to do that.

For Improving Your Technique

If you’re trying to get better at doing push-ups, you can practice every day. However, you shouldn’t work your muscles so hard that you fatigue them. If you do, they won’t recover in time for you to train them properly again the next day.

So, stop your sets well shy of failure. If you can do 5 reps, stop at 2. If you can do 10 reps, stop at 5. If you can do 30 reps, stop at 15. That will let you practice your technique without accumulating fatigue.

The other way to get better at push-ups is to build bigger, stronger pressing muscles. We’ll cover that next.

For Building Muscle

How Many Push-Ups Should You Do Per Set?

You can build muscle equally well with anywhere between 4–40 repetitions per set, but most people prefer doing 6–20 reps per set (research breakdown). If you can’t do at least 4–6 push-ups in a row, raise your hands on a bench, shifting more weight to the floor. If you can do more than 20–40 reps, raise your feet on a bench, shifting more weight onto your hands (study):

• Hands raised on a tall bench (60cm): you lift 40% of your body weight.
• Hands raised on a short bench (30cm): you lift 55% of your body weight.
• Regular push-ups: you lift 65% of your body weight.
• Feet raised on a short bench (30cm): 70% of your body weight.
• Feet raised on a tall bench (60cm): 75% of your body weight.
• Dips: 100% of your body weight.
• Weighted Dips: More than 100% of your body weight.

Do as many push-ups as you can, whether that means doing 6 reps or 27. Do that for 3–5 sets. Write down how many reps you get in each set. Rest for a couple of days, and then try to get more.

How Close to Failure Should You Go?

Most seasoned lifters benefit from stopping 0–2 reps before their muscles give out, especially on bigger exercises (research breakdown). Push-ups are a big exercise, though not nearly as big as squats or deadlifts.

Most new lifters benefit from pushing themselves all the way to muscle failure, at least when it’s safe to do so. It’s safe to take push-ups to failure.

Here’s what I recommend:

• If you’ve been doing push-ups for a long time, stop just shy of failure. You’ll know when that is.
• If you’re still relatively new to doing push-ups, keep going until you can’t do another rep with good form. As you get better at pushing yourself, you’ll learn how to stop just shy of failure.

How Many Sets Should You Do?

It takes around 10–20 sets per muscle per week to maximize your rate of muscle growth (research breakdown). If push-ups are the only exercise you’re doing for your pushing muscles, you can maximize your rate of muscle growth by doing 3–6 sets of push-ups 2–3 days per week.

There’s also a phenomenon called the Repeat Bout Effect (RBE). When you first start doing push-ups, your pushing muscles will be fragile. It won’t take much to stimulate muscle growth. It also won’t take much to tear your muscles to shreds, leaving you with crippling muscle soreness for many days. Extreme muscle soreness can interfere with your next workout, slowing down your rate of progress.

As your muscles get used to doing push-ups, they’ll grow tougher. It will take more sets to stimulate muscle growth. You’ll also be able to handle more stress before succumbing to soreness.

So, start with 3 sets of push-ups 3 times per week. Do as many reps as you can each set. Every week, you can add an extra set. Keep adding sets until you’re doing 6 sets per workout.

The Push-Up Workout Plan

This workout plan may seem simple, especially if you’re desperate to bulk up. But you can only build muscle so fast. If you want to do more than this, add different exercises for different muscle groups instead of simply doing more push-ups.

Day	Sets	Reps Per Set	Total Reps
Monday	3-6 sets	As Many As Possible	More Than Last Time
Wednesday	3-6 sets	As Many As Possible	More Than Last Time
Friday	3-6 sets	As Many As Possible	More Than Last Time

Here’s an article about how to do a proper 30-day push-up challenge, including how to expand it into a 30-day muscle-building challenge or into a 30-day fitness challenge. We also have an article about how to do a complete bodyweight workout at home.

How to Eat a Muscle-Building Diet

You’ll also need to eat enough food to support muscle growth. If you’re overweight, you can get the energy you need from your extra body fat. If you’re thin or lean, you’ll need to get the extra energy by eating extra food. That’s called bulking. Here’s an article explaining how to eat a good bulking diet.

What Next?

I would aim to be able to do 30–40 push-ups in a row. By that point, you’ll have gotten most of the health benefits, and going even higher isn’t a very productive way of exercising. To continue getting fitter, better to do cardio. To continue getting stronger, better to make your push-ups harder and/or switch to hypertrophy training.

If you want to start lifting weights, you could get a pair of adjustable dumbbells, build a barbell home gym, or join a commercial gym. But that’s something you can consider in a few months, after you’ve built a powerful chest, broad shoulders, and thick triceps.

Questions? Ask away. I’ll answer every comment.