Cooper Institute (2013 Monograph)
About this reference
Percentile norm charts published by The Cooper Institute (Dallas, TX) in the 2013 monograph Physical Fitness Assessments and Norms for Adults and Law Enforcement. The monograph is a reference collection, not one cohort or a single mandatory test battery. Each chart must be read with its own footer and sample row. The six charts used on this site are: 1-minute sit-ups and Universal DVR bench press from Cooper Clinic patients; the 1.5-mile cardiorespiratory table from Cooper Clinic patients, updated in 2013; male 1-minute push-ups from 2,397 employee wellness-program members; female full-body push-ups from more than 1,000 female US Army soldiers tested in the 1990s; and vertical jump and 300m run from unspecified Law Enforcement Studies data. The displayed 20+ sit-up cells total 5,270 people, the displayed 20+ bench-press cells total 7,180, and the 1.5-mile age cells total 69,569. The vertical-jump and 300m charts do not disclose sample sizes, and the female push-up chart gives only a lower bound. This is an institutional monograph rather than a peer-reviewed journal article and has no DOI. Cooper Institute guidance explicitly distinguishes descriptive age/sex norms from job standards: a percentile rank does not establish the minimum fitness needed to perform a job.
Known limitations
- Institutional monograph with no DOI, not peer-reviewed
- Sample reporting varies by table: exact age-cell counts are published for 1.5-mile run, sit-ups, bench press, and male push-ups; female push-ups give only a lower bound; vertical jump and 300m disclose no n
- Mixed source populations must not be collapsed into one cohort. The push-up tables use different male and female populations, and the Law Enforcement Studies charts do not identify one academy or sampling frame
- The Cooper Clinic, employee wellness, Army, and law-enforcement sources are not probability samples of the general adult population
- The under-20 age column covers an undefined age range and is excluded from all metric tables
- Collection dates are not reported for most tables; the female Army push-up data are explicitly from the 1990s and the cardiorespiratory table is labelled as updated in 2013
- These are age- and sex-specific descriptive norms, not evidence-based minimum job-performance standards