The short answer: the 1-minute test and the push-ups-in-a-row test have different rules, but the chart that usually comes with the 1-minute test is almost the same one PushPower uses, the ACSM norm. What changes is what ends the test: the clock in one, your form in the other. If your form gave out before the minute was up, both tests ended in much the same way. If the clock stopped you, your number may be lower than what you would do in a row.
How the 1-minute test works
This protocol is common in fitness courses and assessments in Brazil, where it usually goes by Pollock and Wilmore's name: the one-minute count and its chart come from their book Exercise in Health and Disease. A review of upper-body strength tests describes the test like this (Marinho and Marins, 2012):
- Position: face down, hands on the floor with fingers pointing forward, 10 to 20 cm from the shoulder line, with trunk and legs in line.
- Men and women: the only difference is that women do it with their knees on the floor. The rest of the test is the same.
- What counts: the most correct reps in one minute.
- When it stops: the test ends if you do a rep wrong or don't fully bend and straighten your elbows.
How the PushPower test works
The PushPower test uses the ACSM norm, which rates a different protocol: you do as many push-ups as you can in a row, without resting between reps and with no time limit, and stop when you can no longer keep good form. Men do standard push-ups and women do them from the knees, as in the 1-minute test.
The chart is almost the same
The chart credited to Pollock in that review lists almost the same ranges as the ACSM norm for each age and sex, from 20 to 69. You can compare it with the push-up chart by age, where the levels go by other names. In other words, people who did the 1-minute test and people who did push-ups in a row are usually rated by the same numbers.
Where the two tests differ
In the 1-minute test the clock ends the test, so anyone who could keep going gets cut off by time. In the push-ups-in-a-row test there is no clock: what ends it is your form.
So the clock on its own can only take reps away, never add them. We found no study that measured how many reps it takes away, so this guide has no conversion formula.
Which test to use
- Your course, gym or assessment uses the 1-minute test: do it the way they ask and use the chart they use.
- You want your level on the ACSM norm: it's best to do push-ups in a row, untimed, with the PushPower test. If you only have your 1-minute number, you can use it too, knowing that if the clock stopped you, your level may come out below what you would do untimed.
- You want to track your progress: pick one of the two and always repeat the same one, the same way. Switching tests along the way mixes numbers done under different rules.
How to make the test fair
- Warm up first, but don't tire your arms: keep practice reps to a few, because they can wear you out and lower your score.
- Keep the same form from start to finish: only full reps count, and in the 1-minute test a bad rep ends it.
- Have someone count your reps and, for the 1-minute test, keep time.
- To compare with an earlier test, repeat the same conditions: same test, same position and a similar time of day.
To work out how much to train after the test, see how many push-ups to do a day.