Middle-Age Men Who Can Do 40+ Push-Ups Have Lower Heart Disease Risk, Study Finds (cbslocal.com)

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.

Comments

From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department

[nwaack]

Soooo...people who are healthier have less diseases. Well done!

Re:From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department

[AvitarX]

I think the fact that it's a better measure of cardiovascular health than a treadmill is pretty relevant, and not actually intuitive.

Re:From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department

[belthize]

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.

Re: From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department

[mnemotronic]

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?"

Re:From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department

[Geoffrey.landis]

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, here: https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/am... )

Re:From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department

[Luthair]

I wonder whether push-ups happen to reflect overall fitness, or if one were to train specifically to do push-ups whether that would break the correlation.

Re:From the 'No sh*t, Sherlock' department

[TimothyHollins]

It was a thorough study. The all-female research team had to personally watch 1,100 firefighters undress and do 40 push-ups.

So I should be good until

[Snotnose]

ohh, noonish. Maybe mid-afternoon bagel if I don't exert myself.

I can do 40 pushups

[rsilvergun]

a year. Does that count?

What if we do yoga daily for 30 minutes?

[WillAffleckUW]

Asking for a friend ...

Re:What if we do yoga daily for 30 minutes?

[fortythirteen]

Not the same. Muscle mass plays heavily into these results. More muscle => higher metabolism => better heart health. These types of studies, usually done by people who aren't fitness experts, omit key correlations, such as the dietary habits of someone who cares to be able to do more than 40 pushups, and how that helps heart health as well.

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.

Re:What if we do yoga daily for 30 minutes?

[mfnickster]

Additional work from martial arts tae kwon do forms.

Yeah, that's why I gave up martial arts. I couldn't stand all the paperwork. :-P

silly harvard studies...

[js290]

In the Harvard "more push-ups = less heart disease" study, the group that could do 31-40 push-ups had a HIGHER rate of heart disease than the group that could do 21-30 push-ups, even though the 21-30 guys were older and heavier. Anyone still think this study is meaningful?

— Tom Naughton (@TomDNaughton) February 19, 2019

Pushups And Heart Attacks: The Usual Harvard Nonsense

Middle-age or Middle-aged?

[fat man's underwear]

I'm pretty sure the fact that a man in the 1300s could do push ups has little to do with my health?

A fairly high bar...

[Jamori]

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.

Badly done analysis

[Geoffrey.landis]

^^^^^

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.

Re:Clickbait Science

[viperidaenz]

Also, from the article:

The results do not support push-up capacity as an independent predictor of CVD risk