A Very Popular Podcast Claims Every Woman Should Be Able To Do 11 Push-Ups, And, Yeah, Sure

According to Katie Gould, the founder of KG Strong, a strength-training gym in Philadelphia, the idea that all women should be able to do 11 push-ups likely comes from a 2019 study of 1,100 male firefighters that found that men who could do more than 40 push-ups had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease compared to men who could do fewer than 10 push-ups.

“So, these findings aren’t really directly … applicable to women,” Gould noted.

Danielle Repetti, the founder and head coach at Iron and Mettle, a women’s strength training gym in San Francisco, agreed and said the 11 push-up number feels arbitrary. 

Gould also questioned how fast people were doing the push-ups, which can make them easier to do, or if they were doing them with resistance, which can make them tougher, and if they even had proper form.

“If you’re doing three super slow push-ups, to me, I would say that that’s an even greater indicator of strength than doing 11 improper form fast push-ups,” Gould said.

“I’ve had clients that can bench press 100, 125 pounds, and they aren’t able to do 11 push-ups on their toes, and that doesn’t mean that they’re not strong, and it doesn’t really mean anything about them as people in a body,” Repetti said.

Both Repetti and Gould said there are many reasons why a fit, strong person can’t do a chest-to-floor push-up. Maybe they just had a baby, have wrist issues, have larger bodies or are older, Repetti said.

“I’m not going to ask them to do a full-range push-up. It doesn’t feel good, it hurts. So that’s not how we’re necessarily going to strengthen their upper body,” said Gould.

“We’re going to do single-arm floor press, or we’re going to do a plank and hold that. There’s so many other exercises that can build your upper body if a full-range hands-on-floor push-up isn’t accessible to you,” Gould noted.

Your strength goals should be personal and should make you feel good.