Middle-Age Men Who Can Do 40+ Push-Ups Have Lower Heart Disease Risk, Study Finds (cbslocal.com) 217
A new study finds that active middle aged men who can do more than 40 push-ups at a time have a significantly lower risk of heart disease. From a report: Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health followed more than 1,100 middle-aged male firefighters over a decade. They looked at two specific measures: how many push-ups they could do and their exercise tolerance on a treadmill. They found that men who could do more than 40 push-ups had a 96-percent lower risk of heart disease than those who could do no more than 10 and their ability to do push-ups was a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than their stamina on a treadmill test.
From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department (Score:5, Funny)
Re:From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the fact that it's a better measure of cardiovascular health than a treadmill is pretty relevant, and not actually intuitive.
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How is it 'a better measure of cardiovascular health' than measuring actual endurance?
Read my other comment: https://science.slashdot.org/c... [slashdot.org]
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That's how I read the summary, thought what's health and what's disease could be arguable (like high endurance athletes may have healthier systems that are more prone to failure).
their ability to do push-ups was a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than their stamina on a treadmill test.
Re: From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department (Score:2)
Why should someone substantiate your claims? That is your job, douche bag.
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I have found an article in the Sydney Morning Herald [smh.com.au] that covers a lot of ground.
Allow me to quote some parts of a well-written story:
Cardiologist Andre La Gerche, a marathon runner, is conducting long-term research into endurance sport and heart health, says "endurance athletes are somewhere between 2 per cent and 5 per cent more likely than the general population to develop heart problems. Yet there is no evidence that years of endurance exercise will shorten your life." He wants to reconcile such finding
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For example, if they tracked hair or eye color for al
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It's not comparing leg lifts to push-ups though, it's comparing sustained running which for me has always been a lot harder than push-ups (though I've never been in great shape and only do sets of 25 push-ups).
My limitation in running is overall though, not my legs giving out. and it certainly feels like it gets my heart beating a lot more.
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And as an strength athlete (cycling) I can confirm that the daily 1 hour cycling session (~25km through not so flat terrain) does get my heart pumping quite a bit.
I also do my 50 push-ups in the morning to get my circulatory system running. This is exhausting and gets my heart beating at a higher rate than cycling. But this happens only during the short time of perhaps 2 minutes.
The f
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That's likely why it's a better indicator of cardiovascular problems. Short duration high intensity exertion requires the same of your heart. Lower intensity cardio requires your heart to work at less than its maximum, but over a longer period of time.
A maximum effort treadmill test might do as well. Just turn up the speed until the subject goes flying off.
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Much less exciting. Also not as high intensity as pushups to exhaustion.
Re:From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department (Score:5, Informative)
is it though? all it shows us is that upper body strength and potentially having less fat around upper body strength is a better indicator of health then lower body/leg strength.
No, all it shows is that older people have more cardiovascular events than younger ones.
The ones who could do fewer push-ups were older. By 13 years.
(see the first row in table 1 of the article [jamanetwork.com], here: https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/am... [jamanetwork.com] )
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Yeah they say in the 'Association of Push-ups and CVD-Related Outcomes' section of the results that even after adjusting for age, push-up capacity was associated with lower risk for CVD events, but go on to say that the results in table 3 were only significant for one of the groups (21-30 push-ups vs 0-10 pushups). So basically once they adjust for age, their effect seems to mostly go away. My data analysis skills aren't what they once were, but they're data doesn't seem to support the claim they're making
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is it though? all it shows us is that upper body strength and potentially having less fat around upper body strength is a better indicator of health then lower body/leg strength.
No, all it shows is that older people have more cardiovascular events than younger ones.
No, it shows that the ability to do push-ups was a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than their stamina on a treadmill test. That's what the article says, and the table you linked to does nothing to contradict it.
Age is the easiest thing in the world to control for.
Nearly impossible to correct. (Score:3)
No, all it shows is that older people have more cardiovascular events than younger ones.
No, it shows that the ability to do push-ups was a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than their stamina on a treadmill test.
No. It shows that ability to do push-ups is a good predictor of... age.
That's what the article says, and the table you linked to does nothing to contradict it. Age is the easiest thing in the world to control for.
Age is very hard to correct for in cardiovascular studies, and when you "correct" two groups that are pretty much non overlapping (the difference in means is larger than the standard deviations), it is effectively impossible. Cardiovascular events are very highly nonlinear with age, and the age they happen to use here is one where the many-push-ups groups is of an age where cardiovascular events are very very rare. Most of the events
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Says the AC who likely doesn't do any of the above.
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Enjoy that thought while it lasts! All will soon be revealed.
You know, religious zealots have been going on like that for forever. How you long do you plan on maintaining this ideology, given the complete lack of demonstrable evidence?
Re:From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department (Score:5, Insightful)
And every day the ability of slashdot readers to make it past the headline before delivering their knee jerk response grows less and less.
The study involved 1100 firefighters and showed that number of push ups was a better indicator than standard treadmill tests. The advantage is that it's a trivial test anyone can do and requires no special equipment.
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Perhaps the results would be more generally applicable if the pool included professions _other_ than firefighters (which is a self-selected cohort for the most part).
Re:From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department (Score:4)
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Soooo...people who are healthier have less diseases. Well done!
I outsource my push-up doing . . . does that count . . . ?
Re:From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department (Score:5, Funny)
It was a thorough study. The all-female research team had to personally watch 1,100 firefighters undress and do 40 push-ups.
Re: From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department (Score:4, Insightful)
Just forty...
I can do 1 or 2. Maybe 10 girlie pushups. Most of the ladies in my "core fitness" class at the gym kick my flabby ass on pushups and situps. I got 'em beat on farting and smelling like an old man though ...
"Hey sweetheart! Wanna grab an espresso or energy shake after class? Maybe go back to my place? I'm pretty good at massages. Huh? Yea, ok, No problem. Maybe next week, ok?"
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I'm almost 44, I can't imaging not being able to do at least 40 push up barring some major injury or illness. At one point I hadn't been to a gym in 10 years and I could still do 50 push ups and 7 pull ups. I guessing there are a bunch of city kids looking shocked and saying "How many?"
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So I should be good until (Score:4, Funny)
I can do 40 pushups (Score:5, Funny)
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Surely you can match my 5 weeks and 5 days.
What if we do yoga daily for 30 minutes? (Score:5, Funny)
Asking for a friend ...
Re:What if we do yoga daily for 30 minutes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Note: this doesn't mean that more muscle is automatically good, but you have to get into bodybuilder/powerlifter territory before it starts having a negative impact.
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I do 60 alternate toe touches, balance on each leg for 10 minutes at a time, and live in a house with three flights of stairs and walk briskly to/from bus routes 10-15 minutes each way, I think I'm good. Additional work from martial arts tae kwon do forms.
Re:What if we do yoga daily for 30 minutes? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, that's why I gave up martial arts. I couldn't stand all the paperwork. :-P
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Katas are fun. And mindless. If combined with zen, they're even meditation.
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Exercising with a bunch of fit 20-something year old women in form fitting, skin tight clothes is totally gay. You should do something manly like wrestling, where you roll around on the ground with sweaty, half naked men.
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No, I did that back when I was a gymnastics regional champ. Fun thing about gymnastics is you get seriously injured and unable to continue at some point. martial arts and yoga are far more long duration, like marathon running, and both have way more young women in them.
silly harvard studies... (Score:5, Informative)
Pushups And Heart Attacks: The Usual Harvard Nonsense [fathead-movie.com]
Badly done analysis (Score:4, Informative)
^^^^^
Somebody mod this up.
Yes, the firefighters who could do the fewest push-ups were older (average age 48.4, compared to 35.1 for the ones who could do 41+ pushups) and were more likely to be smokers.
At the end of the 10 year study period, the firefighters who could to 41 or more pushups were still younger than the ones who could do less than 10 had been at the start of the study.
Older people have more cardiovascular events.
40 is not a lot (Score:2, Insightful)
"People who are somewhat physically fit are healthier than fatty ding dongs"
This is sure to trigger the Healthy At Any SIze crowd.
Proxy for obesity? (Score:3)
Wouldn't this just be a proxy for obesity? It's generally much easier for small guys to do more pushups.
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Wouldn't this just be a proxy for obesity? It's generally much easier for small guys to do more pushups.
Why? There's less distance for the obese people to push!
Middle-age or Middle-aged? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty sure the fact that a man in the 1300s could do push ups has little to do with my health?
I can't even do 10 but I'm healthy as a horse (Score:2)
Same thing (Score:3)
Bike riding is leg pushups so you are fine.
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Somewhat agree. I believe that the 40+ push-up group is a proxy for people who are very physically active.
It is relatively easy for a sedentary person to develop a treadmill habit. With minimal effort, it is possible to build up an hours-long treadmill endurance. Treadmill is the fast food of exercises.
On the other hand, doing a lot of push-ups requires significant upper body strength. Building and maintaining strength is hard work; it reflects a dedicated fitness program or regular physical labor.
If the an
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Are you trying to provide evidence that your level of scientific understanding is lacking? If so... Well done!
Look, the study is shows that push-ups are a better predictor of heart disease than their stamina on a treadmill. That's it. All these other factors that you are bringing in are completely beside the point as the study isn't addressing them in any way. Despite your preconceptions, push-ups clearly aren't meaningless.
The study also doesn't claim that push-ups are a perfect predictor, just a bette
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Yeah well I disagree and I haven't heard or read anything to change my mind.
"Are you trying to provide evidence that your level of scientific understanding is lacking? If so... Well done! "
Screw you, buddy.
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Gosh I know correlation is not causation, but for any article on health there's a strong correlation with people misunderstand the article and telling the world's how they're a special case.
Pushups are a better predictor of cardiovascular health than treadmill endurance. That means you take a random guy, and guess whether they'll get heart disease based on those two measures. You'll be right more often if you use the pushup one.
Don't like it? I don't really know what to say. It doesn't really depend on your
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The data shows a bigger correlation between existing CVD risk factors - smoking, age, blood sugar and BMI. So take this article with a grain of salt.
If you're a fat, old, smoker with high blood sugar, you have a higher risk of CVD and a high risk of a low number of push ups.
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Amateur-level or not, I am an actual athlete with 10+ years experience training and competing, I know what is and what is not 'physically fit' and 'healthy', and 'studies' like this one are stupid, misleading, and I really wish they wouldn't bother releasing them to the public like this, it just mucks up the works.
It's almost impossible as-is to get people to do ANY
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You misunderstood. The study didn't say that 40+ pushups are positively correlated with being an "actual athlete". It says 40+ pushups are negatively correlated with heart disease.
BTW, being an actual athlete and heart disease are in turn negatively correlated - but it is not a perfect negative correlation. So the above 2 statements between which you conflated are not in effect identical.
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and 'studies' like this one are stupid, misleading, and I really wish they wouldn't bother releasing them to the public like this, it just mucks up the works.
It's not stupid, it's only mileading if you don't understand statistics. The solution though is to have scientists censor what tey tell each other in case some rando reads what they say then misinterprets it. Are you advocating for non open access so scientists can speak freely to each other without the risk of being overheard and misunderstood?
It's a
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That's actually not that impressive. A reasonably fit rider on a 10 speed bike should be able to pull off 25 mph.
Yeah, for about 15 seconds on flat ground with no wind. Are you sure you're not conflating a reasonably fit rider on a racing bicycle with a middle aged guy on the bicycle a middle aged guy probably has in his garage? When was the last time you rode a bicycle?
BTW they're called road bikes now, and I haven't seen a bicycle with a 5 speed cassette in more years than I'd like to admit!
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It's been a couple of years. I used to go off road on a mountain bike pretty regularly, but I got rid of the bike when I moved across the country and haven't replaced it.
This was probably my favorite ride:
https://www.singletracks.com/b... [singletracks.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I used to spend a lot of time cycling off trail on a hardtail while towing a trailer packed with 80 lbs of child and 120 lbs of camping gear pretty regularly. That'll make you puke your guts out if you're not ready for it.
I find racing bik
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'Correlation is not causation' is a two-way street. I can't even do 10 pushups, but I can ride a bike 100 miles in under 6 hours, no problem, but you're going to tell me I'm at higher risk of heart disease? Nonsense. I have low bodyfat percentage, high HDLs, low LDLs, high endurance, high leg strength, and lots of muscular endurance where I need it most (below the waist). Doing pushups is meaningless, overall health and fitness is everything.
That's actually not that impressive. A reasonably fit rider on a 10 speed bike should be able to pull off 25 mph.
Yeah, so, very few cycling enthusiasts can break an hour riding solo over a 40km course (just under 25 miles). Just because you can do a 50-yard dash in 10s doesn't mean you can run a 2-hour marathon.
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There is 'aerobic endurance' which is your all-day intensity, then there's 'muscular endurance at anaerobic threshold', which is being able to sustain a high pace for an extended period of time (up to 60 minutes for the most fit riders), then there's 'anaerobic' intensity, like when you're sprinting -- or some average fitness person on a bike riding at 25mph for 10-15 seconds, before they star
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I can't remember ever finding it challenging keeping up with 50 kph traffic on flat ground on a hardtail mountain bike. I feel reasonably confident that I could chew through a hundred miles in 4 hours on a decent bike. But, hey, 60% of the north american continent are overweight or obese... feel free to be proud of yourself.
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You have to go back: http://boards.4chan.org/b/ [4chan.org]
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Analysis of Factors (Score:3)
There are two factors here:
I have a feeling most men reading this will focus on the first part, but I have a feeling the second part is the more important. If you are overweight, it becomes much harder to do a push up, regardless of how strong your arms and chest are. The correlation between obesity and heart disease is well documented. So this isn't really anything new.
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Assuming you can actually do a pushup, muscle strength doesn't really factor in.
Your ability to run for a long time on a treadmill is mostly limited by energy availability and motivation. Your ability to do a a bunch of pushups in a single set is mostly limited by how fast your circulatory system can supply blood to your muscles.
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Doing pushups is mostly anaerobic, so depends more on muscle mass than oxygen/energy flow.
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Just so happens there is a clear trend in BMI and the number of pushups too.
Also a clear trend in age.
Also a clear trend in being a current smoker.
Study: https://jamanetwork.com/journa... [jamanetwork.com]
My take from it is firefighters who are old, fat and smoke are more likely to have a heart attack.
Their lower limit was only 10?? (Score:2)
...men who could do more than 40 push-ups had a 96-percent lower risk of heart disease than those who could do no more than 10...
Duh? Anyone that can't do 10 pushups is pretty fscking out of shape, so that's like saying, "people that can do 40 pushups have 96% less risk than people that are already about to have a heart attack."
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Their lower limit of 10 was also in a test group of 1100 firefighters.
37 of those 1,104 people had a cardiovascular issue.
Globally, 31% of all deaths are CVD related, so it's entirely possible that even those in this 1,104 people who couldn't do 10 push ups were at a generally lower risk anyway.
The 96% figure comes from 36 of those couldn't do more than 40, one of them could.
The article doesn't say how many of those 36 could do more than 10.
The median age was nearly 40 years old.
Not only that, there is a cl
Breaking News (Score:2)
Healthy people able to lots of things better than sick or weakened people.
Researchers at ... (Score:2)
... the Harvard T.H. Chad School of Public Health
FTFY.
If I have to (Score:2)
I can do 40 pushups if I'm absolutely required to (I just tried after seeing this article), but I wasn't at all happy about doing them. In fact, I had to quickly drink a pint and a shot to recover. Does anyone know if you have to be able to do 40 pushups cheerfully to be healthy?
However, I can do the plank for 2 minutes without complaining. Especially after a pint and a shot. I actually think the plank is overall a healthier exercise than pushups, unless you're looking to grow big bodybuilder tits.
In ca
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unless you're looking to grow big bodybuilder tits
Do you pushups with your elbows at your side. That makes the shoulders and triceps do all the work, leaving your man tits out of the equation almost completely.
It's also much harder, as you've removed an entire muscle group from the exercise.
A fairly high bar... (Score:5, Informative)
40 unbroken, consecutive, full-range (chest touches the floor) pushups is really a fairly high bar athletically, probably on the order of top ~1% of the total population
The study indicates this corresponds to the top ~10% of firefighters, a group who on a whole are already known to be in vastly better shape than most of the population. This corresponds with my own anecdotal observations -- at my local crossfit gym, we test for max pushups once a year or so, mostly for fun. 40+ unbroken pushups easily corresponds to the top ~5% of that self-selected high fitness crowd as well.
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Very true. Even when I was much younger (I'm 66 now) I could never do more than about 28 press-ups in one continuous session. Today I think I'm doing well if I can manage 25 and I do press-ups (to failure level) as part of my regular exercise regimen every second day. I'm not overweight but some of us just aren't push-up people.
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40 unbroken, consecutive, full-range (chest touches the floor) pushups is really a fairly high bar athletically, probably on the order of top ~1% of the total population
The study indicates this corresponds to the top ~10% of firefighters, a group who on a whole are already known to be in vastly better shape than most of the population. This corresponds with my own anecdotal observations -- at my local crossfit gym, we test for max pushups once a year or so, mostly for fun. 40+ unbroken pushups easily corresponds to the top ~5% of that self-selected high fitness crowd as well.
I don't think it's that exclusive. Though variations on technique do matter a lot, your crossfit group might use an unusually difficult variant.
According to a 39 year old who does 40 push ups is just on the border of excellent [topendsports.com]. And the US Marine Fitness standards [marines.mil] don't even go below 67 [marines.mil]. And despite the reputation the standards aren't that demanding, any reasonably fit guy in the 20-40 age range can probably get well under the minimum of 3 miles in 25 minutes with a little training [marines.mil] so I suspect the push up s
No Way (Score:2)
It's not just 40 pushups (Score:2)
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Actually, if we read the blurb for the article we find it was for middle-aged firefighters. Who are at higher risk factors both if not fit (accidents, injuries, heart attacks) and have a smoke inhalation risk factor that's quite high.
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If you read the summary, it says "at a time", which implies it is consecutive pushups - no rest between each one.
Isn't is harder to do push ups slowly? It's generally a measure of anaerobic fitness. Unless you are so fit that you can sustain the effort through aerobic metabolism, time is also a critical factor in number of reps.
People that fit are those who won't see a difference between 40 and 100 pushups.
Why is this shit on Slashdot? (Score:2)
msmash could at least find on-topic space filler.
You'll still get paid by Dice if you don't shit generic news posts all over the place, but you won't change or do anything different.
How about some Kardashian posts?
Even more impressive if you can do 100 (Score:2)
Better mental health (Score:3)
What's a good alternative? (Score:2)
Since the study notes that a treadmill doesn't seem to be as good a predictor as pushups, do we have any idea what other exercise would be the equivalent of pushups?
I used to do pushups every day, but stopped after I started developing wrist pain.
Weird (Score:2)
being able to do 40 push up at a time doesn't require much effort from your heart, does it?
Isn't that getting in to the anaerobic performance of your upper body muscles?
From an abstract point of view, with no qualifications to back it up, this seems to me like it happens to be that people who can do this, also do a lot more other stuff.
So is the correlation between heart disease and push ups really a correlation between heart disease and X, where there is also a correlation between X and push ups?
Where X is
Not news for nerds! (Score:2)
Once again, we're getting news items that lack any technology, nerdiness, or anything Slashdot users care about. Who green lighted this story? UGH.
Start counting (Score:2)
when it hurts.
and love sit ups, crunches, push-up, standing squats, star jumps and skipping.
Yes! (Score:2)
Can't do 1 (Score:2)
guess I'm already dead. I do work in the public sector so that's 2 strikes right?
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Unless you're very old or female, you should be able to do at least a couple of proper pushups. Unless of course you have some physical disability (obesity would count as a disability here)
Assuming that's the case (your disability is obesity rather than something irreversable like paraplegia), you should really make an effort to improve your fitness to the point where you can at least do a couple. Start by doing some knee pushups every day. If you can't even do a knee pushup, try inclined ones. Gradually in
In other news a rash of heart attacks today (Score:2)
In a strange coincidence it appears most of them were doing push-ups at the time of the attack.
Confirming other observations: strength is healthy (Score:2)
It is nice to see more confirmation in this direction. Almost all research in the past decades was focussed on the health benefits of endurance training, however strength seems to be a better indicator for health than endurance, e.g. as noted in this longterm study [nih.gov], even when equating for lifestyle choices like smoking (so it's not that stronger people just make better decisions).
Grip strength seems also to be a good (and easy to measure) indicator. Also the stand-sit test which has become common practice
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Yeah. I can only do the latter and was in a different Army than this one.
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I'm always entertained by how much people here take personal offence at any article on health.
You're not morally defective if you can't do 40 pushups and no one is saying you are.
They are not even saying you're guaranteed to die of a heart attack or anything that silly. And they're not saying that doing more pushups will improve your health.
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I took no offense.
At least not because of my health (or lack of it).
If anything, took offesnse at the silly "research". Hope those guys get an igNoble prize next year.
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And risk looking like a chronical masturbator?! No way! ;-)
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Nah, happy being a sysadmin, and scubadiving every now and then.
Re:Clickbait Science (Score:4)
Also, from the article:
The results do not support push-up capacity as an independent predictor of CVD risk
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At a rate of 80 push ups per minute. That's 3/4 of a second each, until you miss 3