Push-ups are an excellent exercise for boosting upper body endurance and strength. Plus, they’re a bodyweight exercise you can do with no equipment. All you need is a mat and a little determination. Plus, there’s a push-up variation for all levels. If you lack upper body strength when you start out, you can always do a modified push-up on your knees rather than on your toes. Doing it from this position scales back the difficulty of the exercise by 30%. If that version is too hard, there are always wall push-ups–do the exercise with your hands placed against a wall. Over time, you’ll develop greater upper body strength and endurance and can graduate to standard push-ups.
What does the ability to do push-ups say about your level of health and fitness? If you can do a number of push-ups, it means you have a certain degree of upper body strength and endurance. If not, you can develop enough strength and endurance to do full push-ups if you keep at it. Many people can only do a few push-ups when they start out but are pleased to discover how many they can do after several months of practice. Now, a study suggests that the ability to do push-ups may say something about heart health too.
Push-Ups and What They Say about Heart Health
For the study, researchers recruited 1562 adult male firefighters and asked them to take part in a study. For the study, they asked the participants to engage in measurements of physical capacity and exercise tolerance. One study was a test of push-up capacity, how many push-ups they could do before exhaustion set in. What they found was the men who were able to do over 40 push-ups before tiring out were less likely to develop cardiovascular disease over the next 10 years compared to guys who could only do 10 push-ups.
How can we explain these findings? The ability to do push-ups is a marker of upper body strength and endurance. That’s one reason we do them–to build upper body endurance and strength, right? But there’s more to it than that. Muscle strength is correlated with a lower risk of cardiovascular events and poor metabolic health. Other studies link muscle strength with a reduced risk of insulin resistance, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Stronger is better for heart health! However, this study didn’t look at push-up capacity in women. Therefore, it’s not clear whether the same holds for females, but it would seem likely that the results would be similar.
Could Push-Up Capacity Be a Simple Screening Test for Heart Health?
One of the most common ways of measuring cardiovascular health is with treadmill testing. The ability to walk on a treadmill as the incline goes up is a measure of endurance and cardiovascular fitness. In the firefighter study, the ability to do push-ups outperformed treadmill testing as a predictor of future cardiovascular events. It’s easier to ask someone to do push-ups than to monitor them on a treadmill and, based on this study, a push-up test could be a better predictor of future heart health than more expensive and time-consuming tests.
Since the study is observational, you can’t draw firm conclusions, but the link between push-up capacity and heart health is intriguing. Other research also links strength with better heart health. One study looked at grip strength as a marker of cardiovascular health. After measuring the handgrip strength of almost 140,000 people and following their health for 4 years, they found an interesting association. Each 11-pound rise in grip strength correlated with a 16% lower risk of early mortality, a 17% reduced risk of heart disease, and a 9% lower risk of stroke. Who wouldn’t want to reduce their risk of these health problems?
In fact, grip strength was a better marker of cardiovascular risk than blood pressure. Simple tests, like grip strength and push-up capacity, could be simple tests doctors could use to assess cardiovascular risk and these tests are more cost-effective than treadmill testing.
It’s not clear why the ability to do more push-ups and a stronger grip suggests better heart health. However, it is an indicator of overall strength and fitness, and we know that fitter people are at a lower risk of heart disease and dying early.
What Does This Mean?
What is your push-up performance leaves something to be desired? Strength matters and the best thing you can do to maximize strength is to work your muscles against resistance. It’s a myth that you have a go to a gym or use expensive equipment to build strength. Dumbbells, resistance bands, and working against your own bodyweight forces your muscles to adapt and become stronger. Plus, you build functional strength that helps you stay fit and active as you age.
Although aerobic exercise gets the most fanfare for being heart-healthy, resistance training may improve heart health too and it does so in several ways. For one, research shows resistance training using lighter weights may modestly lower blood pressure. When you work your muscles against resistance and build up muscle size, it also improves insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control. Insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes are risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Plus, all forms of exercise reduce stress, and less stress is healthier for your heart.
The Bottom Line
The push-up test could be a simple way to measure heart health, however, this test only looked at men. It’s not clear how many push-ups a woman with good heart health should be able to do. However, more is better! If you aren’t a push-up pro yet, keep working at it. You’ll gradually build up the upper body strength and endurance to make yourself proud!
References:
- com. “Why Men Who Can Do 40 Pushups May Have Better Heart Health”
- Yang J, Christophi CA, Farioli A, et al. Association Between Push-up Exercise Capacity and Future Cardiovascular Events Among Active Adult Men. JAMA Netw Open. 2019;2(2):e188341. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.8341.
- Harvard Health Publishing. “Grip strength may provide clues to heart health”
- Medical News Today. “Strength training tied to better heart health than aerobic”
Related Articles By Cathe:
History of Push-Ups: They’ve Been Around Longer Than You Think!
Is a Push-Up the Ultimate Measure of Physical Fitness?
Which Push-Up Variation is Toughest?
5 Ways to Make Bodyweight Exercises More Effective
Related Cathe Friedrich Workout DVDs:
STS Strength 90 Day Workout Program
All of Cathe’s Strength & Toning Workout DVDs
Total Body Workouts
Upper Body Workouts