How the counting works

The camera counts what it recognises. It says so when it cannot.

No video ever leaves your phone to be counted. The pose model runs on the device, reads the position of your joints, and the rules decide whether a rep closes. Here is exactly what that means, and where it stops.

Three moments

Framing, counting, verification.

Framing comes first

Before the clock starts, the app checks that your whole body is in frame and says what is missing: step back, your feet are not visible. It declares you ready on its own, because nobody stands up to press a button while in push-up position.

A rep closes on amplitude

A push-up counts when the elbow bends past its threshold and the arms come back straight. A movement that stops halfway does not count, and a return held for less than eighty milliseconds does not close the rep either: that guard is what stops a shake from counting.

The server verifies

Your phone proposes, the server decides. It rechecks visibility and elapsed time, and a duel whose proof is missing is announced unranked rather than credited blind.

What suspends the count

It stops, and it tells you.

This is the part most apps hide. A pose model does not see through a wall, through a shadow, or through a body that leaves the frame. When the points it needs disappear, ViralHit suspends counting rather than guessing.

You leave the frame Counting stops and the screen says so during the effort, never after the fact.

A joint is hidden A rep whose amplitude cannot be read is not counted. It is not lost: it was never proven.

The phone is too close The app asks you to step back before starting, rather than counting a body it only half sees.

Tracking drops for too long The attempt is played but leaves unranked, and earns nothing. The screen announces it during the duel.

What has been measured

Three exercises have been checked on real recordings. Four have not.

A test bench replays the real model on real recordings and writes down the raw points, with no rule applied. Here is what it gave, and we publish it rather than a promise.

Exercise	Seen by the model on a real body	Available today
Push-ups	Yes, six recordings	Yes
Knee push-ups	Yes, included in the bench	Yes
Plank	Yes, one recording	Yes
Squats	No recording of any person	Coming
Jumping jacks	No recording of any person	Coming
Burpees	No recording of any person	Coming
Hip thrust	No recording of any person	Coming

On the six push-up recordings, at the frame rates the app actually uses, the gap between what the bench counted and what a human counted stays within two reps. That gap is published because a count without a margin is a claim, not a measurement.

The four exercises without recordings are a different matter. Their rules count correctly on fabricated poses, but nobody knows yet whether the model sees the joints it needs on a real body standing up. Until that is filmed and measured, they stay announced and not offered.

What enters the ranking

Only comparable scores.

A ranking mixing a thirty-second run with a five-minute one would not mean anything. So a ranking always names its exercise, its variant and its duration, and only verified scores in that exact format compare with each other.

A duel played outside a ranked format still gets played, and still gets a result. It simply does not enter a table where it would not have a place.

Join the beta Push-ups in detail