By Deb Simpson, NASM Certified Personal Trainer — Deb coaches women over 40 who are building strength from the ground up.
Eleven push-ups is the number floating around as the benchmark for women’s upper body strength. TikTok ran with it. Bustle covered it. And if you saw it and tried a push-up and it didn’t go so well, you probably assumed something was wrong with you, because 11 push-ups sounds so easy.
You’re not alone and nothing is wrong with you. We were never taught this.
I’m close to 50 years old, and I remember the Presidential Fitness Test we took in PE class growing up. We got tested on push-ups and pull-ups, but no one taught us how to study for the test. Not gonna lie, my adult self feels like that’s unreasonable.
Meanwhile during the same era, the fitness industry was busy selling women step aerobics and Jazzercise. Cardio. Choreography. Smaller thighs. Strength training was for men and the occasional woman who didn’t mind being judged hard for having muscles in a time when thin, cardio oriented culture for women was everywhere.
When the 11 push-up trend was happening, I remember being surprised that 11 was the goal. I did the research, and according to the Mayo Clinic, a good fitness result for push-up count at 45 years old is 14 reps. So 11 isn’t the goal. It’s the starting point. The fact that 11 went viral as an achievement tells you that you’re exactly where most women are.
If you want a coach in your corner while you figure all of this out, that’s what I do at Featherweight Fitness. Virtual personal training for women who are ready to stop guessing and start building.
Push-ups demand more than your upper body
If you’ve never practiced doing push-ups, it looks like a chest, shoulders, and arms exercise. Which is accurate, but they’re also a judgment on your core strength. For a lot of women over 40, holding a plank for 30 seconds is a big ask. Using your arms, chest, and shoulders to move at the same time? Impossible.
Your core’s strength and ability to engage is the hidden work that no one tells you is part of a push-up. Without that integrity, your hips drop, your lower back takes the hit, and the movement falls apart.
Most Americans participate in a lot of sitting: too much work, too much driving, too many screens. The downstream effect of all that sitting is that most of us have a weak core. The internal muscles that protect your spine and keep everything stable during movement have quietly atrophied from disuse. That’s not a character flaw. It’s what happens when daily life stops requiring challenging physical work.
If your core is weak — and statistically, it probably is, because that’s just where most people are — that’s expected. That’s the starting point for almost everyone. One of the reasons I recommend push-ups for beginners is that they’re one of the exercises that has a built-in solution for a core that’s fallen asleep. Starting a push-up at an incline like a wall, countertop, or table reduces the core strength requirement — and here’s the important thing: while still building full body strength. When you add some simple core exercises alongside the modified push-ups, you set yourself up to move the needle toward a floor push-up, or 11 of them.
I’ve seen a lot of people do push-ups over the years, and most of the time when I see someone’s form break down, it’s not their chest or their arms giving out first. It’s their core. Which makes sense — there aren’t many things in daily life that train it. If you want to work on that directly, this core and balance workout is beginner-appropriate and pairs well with wherever you are in your push-up progression.
Where to start and what to expect
If you recognized yourself in the last section — a lot of sitting, a core that hasn’t been asked to do much in a while — that’s your starting point, not a barrier. The incline is what makes it workable. Start wherever you can complete 6 to 10 reps with your form intact. That might be a wall. That might be a countertop.
The moment you start training consistently, your body begins adapting — and it does this on two tracks at once. Your nervous system adapts first and fastest. Your brain gets better at sending signals to the muscles you already have, recruiting them more efficiently with every session. You’ll feel it as reps getting slightly easier, the movement feeling less foreign. At the same time, your muscles are responding to the stimulus too — that process just takes longer to show up in a way you can feel. Your first signal that it’s working isn’t a new muscle. It’s a rep that felt impossible last week feeling manageable this week. That’s your body doing exactly what bodies do when you give them a reason to.
How to actually start
Most beginners skip straight to the movement and miss the setup. Get the setup right first and everything else follows.
Hands under your shoulders and slightly wider — not too narrow, or you’ll end up working arm muscles that aren’t quite ready for that challenge. That hand position holds regardless of your angle. Wall, counter, floor — hands under and slightly outside the shoulders every time.
Once your hands are in the right place, find your angle. For wall push-ups, that means stepping closer to or further from the wall until you find the point where 10 reps feel challenging but completable. Not easy. Not impossible. Challenging. Your hands stay in the same position relative to your shoulders no matter how steep or shallow the angle gets.
That’s the day one goal. Hands right. Find the angle that works. Do 3 sets of 10 with 45 seconds between sets. Total time out of your day: about five minutes.
When 10 reps starts feeling manageable — when you can push that to 12 or 15 without form breakdown — move to the next surface down. Counter, then bench, then plyo box if you have one. Make sure whatever surface you’re using is stable and on a non-slip surface before you put weight on it. The same rule applies at every level: when your current surface stops being a challenge, go lower. Your reps tell you when, not the calendar.
A note on knee push-ups: when you’re working through a set of standard floor push-ups and your form starts to break down, dropping to your knees lets your chest and shoulders finish the set without the failed plank becoming the story. That’s the right use for them. As a primary beginner modification though, inclines are more effective. The incline maintains the same body position you’ll need on the floor — the pattern is identical, only the load changes. A knee push-up removes the plank entirely, which means when you eventually move to the floor, your nervous system has to learn a new pattern on top of building strength. More work, less direct transfer. If a wall or counter is available, start there. The push-up modifications guide covers each variation in full.
What changes in six weeks
Most clients who start with incline push-ups and progress consistently — lower the surface as it gets easy, keep the hand position, work the core alongside it — can do at least one standard floor push-up within six weeks. Some get there in the second week if they started with a low enough incline.
I work with clients on push-ups, core strength, and balance together — because those three things are not separate problems. Around the six week mark, I start noticing things they don’t always notice themselves. The hesitation before a movement disappears. They reach for something overhead without the mental calculation that used to come first. They get up off the floor and just stand up.
Their posture changes too. Before a session even starts, I’ll see them standing differently — neutral spine, hips stacked underneath them, ready. That’s not something I coached them on that morning.
At Featherweight Fitness, I work with women through exactly this progression — push-ups, core, and balance, built together from wherever they’re starting. If you want that structure without having to figure it out yourself, that’s where to start.
Push-ups are hard. They’re harder when you’ve never been taught to train for them, and harder still when the core strength that makes them possible has never been addressed. Using an incline builds both — the upper body strength and the neuromuscular connections that a standard push-up requires.
Eleven is the floor. You’re building toward it, not up to it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to do 11 push-ups?
Most beginners who start with incline push-ups and progress consistently can do at least one standard floor push-up within six weeks. Getting to 11 depends on where you started, how consistently you train, and whether you’re progressing your incline as you get stronger. Six weeks is a reasonable target if you’re showing up two to three times a week and moving the surface down when your reps tell you to.
Why can’t I do a push-up?
Usually it’s not your arms or your chest — it’s your core. A push-up requires your entire body to hold a controlled position while your upper body does the work. If your core gives out, the rep fails regardless of how strong your arms are. Start with an incline that reduces the core demand while you build both at the same time.
How do I know when to progress to a lower surface?
When you can push your reps from 10 to 12 or 15 without form breakdown, it’s time to lower the surface. That rule applies at every level. Your reps tell you when, not the calendar.
Should beginners do knee push-ups?
Not as a primary modification. Knee push-ups shorten the lever instead of reducing the load, which means you’re doing a different movement rather than an easier version of the same one. When you eventually move to the floor, your nervous system has to learn a new pattern on top of building strength. Inclines are more effective because the pattern transfers directly. Knee push-ups have one good use: as a release valve at the end of a set of standard floor push-ups when your core gives out and your chest and shoulders still have something left.
How many push-ups should a woman my age be able to do?
According to the Mayo Clinic, a good fitness result for women at 45 is 14 push-ups. At 55, it drops to 10. If 11 went viral as a challenge, that tells you exactly where most women are starting from — and it’s not a personal failure. It’s a starting point.