
Doing more than 40 push-ups shows you’re 96% less likely to get a heart attack - kiddz
https://www.studyfinds.org/men-more-than-40-push-ups-heart-disease/
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solarmist
Better summary "if you can do a push-up sprint and complete 41 pushups in less
than 33 seconds without pausing you're in pretty good shape and btw you're 96%
less likely to get heart disease in the next 10 years than someone that can't
keep that pace up for even 10 pushups."

The most important sentence.

"For push-ups, the firefighter was instructed to begin push-ups in time with a
metronome set at 80 beats per minute. Clinic staff counted the number of push-
ups completed until the participant reached 80, missed 3 or more beats of the
metronome, or stopped owing to exhaustion or other symptoms (dizziness,
lightheadedness, chest pain, or shortness of breath)."

This was a combined strength/cardiovascular test. You had to book it. Only the
firefighters that

~~~
solarmist
"metronome set at 80 beats per minute ... until the participant reached 80,
missed 3 or more beats of the metronome, or stopped"

This is literally a push-up sprint.

For comparison the US Army requires 42 pushups over 2 minutes (120 seconds)
with any amount of pauses (to meet minimum standards) and maxes out at 71 push
ups in 2 minutes.

The people I knew who were maxing out their PT tests weren't hitting anywhere
near this pace and I suspect only a handful of them could.

~~~
tgb
The other detail is what they counted as a pushup. My understanding is the
military is pretty strict and most gym-goers aren't. Having your arms out
perpendicular to torso is noticeably easier than tucking then in towards your
chest and there's a range of places one might stop at. At that pace, I think
you'd be doing doing fairly shallow pushups.

Or maybe I'm just making excuses for not being able to do this.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
I wonder about this too. During all of my PE classes in elementary and high
school a pushup didn't count unless your nose touched the ground and you came
all the way back up. Pushups I see all over the place now, from tv shows to
YouTube videos to folks in the gym are incredibly shallow, often only dipping
down a few inches from the top position.

Just as pullups and chin-ups are different things, perhaps these shallow
pushups should have a different name to distinguish them from "to the floor"
pushups.

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Alex3917
99% of people who can't do 40 push-ups are going to fail because they don't
have the strength. Firefighters are probably one of the only demographics
where you are going to get a non-trivial percentage who have the strength but
not the cardiovascular health required.

~~~
leobabauta
But the study also measured cardiovascular fitness via treadmill and didn't
find the same correlation.

~~~
Alex3917
I mean it's not surprising that, in firefighters, pushups would be a better
predictor of cardiovascular health than a VO2 max estimation. For the
treadmill test, they cut participants off at 85% of their _predicted_ max
heart rate. Whereas with 40 push-ups you're pretty much guaranteed to be at
your actual max heart rate after the first 10 or 15.

In other words, push-ups are probably a better measure of cardiovascular
fitness than the treadmill test, but only for the tiny percentage of the
population who isn't limited by strength.

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daniel5678
Participants in the highest pushups-completed group were younger, weighed
less, had lower blood pressure, and were likely to be non-smoking compared to
the two lowest groups.

For a person who is 5ft10in, the BMI comparison in pounds would be 187lbs avg
for the highest group vs 231 lbs, 211 lbs avg for the two lowest groups.

Look at the details from Table 1 in the Study (go to
[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2724778),
on the right hand side, click on 'Figures and Tables', then click on the 'View
Large' link for Table 1):

BMI = Body Mass Index, BP = blood pressure, SD = Standard Deviation

Mean Avg Values for the two lowest groups of pushups (0-10, 11-20):

    
    
      Age: 48.4 (SD=10.1), 45.1 (SD=8.6)
      BMI: 33.1 (SD=5.8) , 30.3 (SD=4.9)
      BP:  136.9/89.4    , 129.96/86.5
      Smokers (Prev & Current): 54.7%, 58.8%
    

Value for the highest group of pushups (41+):

    
    
      Age: 35.1 (SD=7.1)
      BMI: 26.8 (SD=2.9)
      BP:  125.2/84
      Smokers (Prev & Current): 30.9%
    

from [https://www.bmi3d.com/table.html](https://www.bmi3d.com/table.html)

    
    
      BMI: 25-29.9: - overweight, >= 30: obese
    

from [https://www.heart.org/-/media/data-
import/downloadables/pe-a...](https://www.heart.org/-/media/data-
import/downloadables/pe-abh-what-is-high-blood-pressure-ucm_300310.pdf)

    
    
      BP: high blood pressure = 1st number >= 130 or 2nd number >= 80

~~~
groestl
Wait, this means that all groups had high blood pressure? (2nd number >= 80)

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kyriakos
Isn't it generally more likely for someone who can do 40 push ups to be also
living a more active life?

I mean the ability to complete 40 push ups could be a result of exercising in
general.

~~~
solarmist
"metronome set at 80 beats per minute ... until the participant reached 80,
missed 3 or more beats of the metronome, or stopped"

To hit this top group that gives you less than 33 seconds to hit 41. You're
not gonna hit those numbers just by exercising in general.

~~~
kyriakos
But someone with such a good performance in push ups is more likely to be more
active in general.

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zeroname
I don't have training to make a formal argument, but this has got to be
bullshit.

They take the few people that had some form of heart disease (37 out of 1104
over ten years) and noted that none of them _except one_ could do 40 pushups.
By some magic, this is translated into a 96% reduction in chance of a heart
attack.

If that's really the reasoning, could I not just pick _any_ metric (i.e. words
typed per minute over 120, or IQ over 130) which is likely to eliminate almost
all of the participants and conclude that it is reducing risk of heart
disease?

Am I missing something? Is this kind of reasoning _not_ complete bogus?

~~~
maxander
That's not how this sort of analysis is done. They separated people by push-up
capacity, and compared the rate of heart disease in the low-capacity group
versus the high-capacity group; those rates were 36 "cardiovascular events"
for the 948 low-capacity guys (so, 3.7% of them), and 1 for the 155 high-
capacity guys (0.6% of them.) I know which group I'd rather be in.

It is true that, with the small number of events, the precise "96% reduction"
number shouldn't be taken too seriously- the study notes that the 95%
confidence interval is 99% to 64%; essentially, there's a one-in-twenty chance
that it's a 99% reduction, or likewise that it's only a 64% reduction. Science
never grants absolute uncertainties- but sadly, that part never makes it into
the news story.

~~~
zeroname
Thank you for the explanation, that makes a lot more sense.

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paultopia
This study smells funny to me. Why did they divide pushup numbers into groups
of 10 and test there, rather than use a continuous measure? I sense multiple
comparisons/researcher degrees of freedom problems.

~~~
solarmist
Considering how the test was actually run I feel like it's a nearly
meaningless test. The bar they set was extremely high once you read the
details.

I used to be able to do 40+ push ups, but at no where near the pace that the
researchers required.

~~~
yosito
I find I can easily bust out 40 pushups at that rate, but if I try to go
slower, it's harder to reach 40.

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skookumchuck
I'd expect that 40 push-ups are a proxy for good cardiovascular health rather
than a cause of it. I.e. practicing push-ups in isolation is unlikely to
improve cardiovascular health by itself.

~~~
keithnz
hard to tell from the description of the study, it was done on firefighters, I
would have though most would have reasonable cardio, I'm not sure if they did
anything to isolate an overall lack of fitness from pushups

~~~
Alex3917
> I would have though most would have reasonable cardio

I don't know if there are any national standards. But I'm under the impression
that at most places there is some baseline cardio component to the fitness
test, but that the upper body strength standards are much more demanding.

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foobaw
I bet they could say the same about 20+ pull-ups (which is more difficult than
40 push-ups based on anecdotal evidence). Not too interesting of a study in
that sense.

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dmckeon
Most firefighters in the US face a significant physical test to become a
firefighter - example:
[https://nationaltestingnetwork.com/publicsafetyjobs/cpat_inf...](https://nationaltestingnetwork.com/publicsafetyjobs/cpat_info.cfm)

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known
I think the type of oil we consume also makes a difference
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola_oil#Comparison_to_other...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola_oil#Comparison_to_other_vegetable_oils)
in [https://lifeinthefastlane.com/ccc/cardiovascular-
performance...](https://lifeinthefastlane.com/ccc/cardiovascular-performance-
assessment/)

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kerng
Worth mentioning that all participants were firefighters - so not randomly
selected individuals with variety of jobs.

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audiometry
Got to thirty-eight before I got total lactic burn in my biceps and deltoids.
Then I got three more ticks and failed.

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groestl
You probably mean triceps?

~~~
audiometry
Strangely, no. Was the biceps, not triceps.

