{"id":1316,"date":"2019-07-01T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1316"},"modified":"2025-09-29T03:07:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T03:07:12","slug":"new-study-push-ups-as-measure-of-health-and-longevity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1316","title":{"rendered":"New study: push ups as measure of health and longevity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Push<\/a><\/p>\n

Very interesting article in The Atlantic. Push ups compared to other metrics like body mass index (BMI) treadmill results, etc.  At the end I've put a link to the actual push up study.<\/p>\n

The Power of One Push-Up Several simple ways of measuring a person\u2019s health might matter more than body weight.<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, the profession needed effective screening tests to define fitness for duty. Since firefighters are generally physically fit people, Kales\u2019s lab looked at push-ups. He found that they were an even better predictor of cardiovascular disease than a submaximal treadmill test<\/a>. \u201cThe results show a strong association between push-up capacity and decreased risk of subsequent cardiovascular disease,\u201d Kales says.<\/p>\n

*************<\/p>\n

The push-up study could reasonably extend beyond firefighters. \u201cPush-ups are another marker in a consistent story about whole-body exercise capacity and mortality,\u201d says Michael Joyner, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic whose work focuses on the limits of human performance. \u201cAny form of whole-body engagement becomes predictive of mortality if the population is large enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is to say: Health is not simply about push-ups. There\u2019s also nothing magic about grip strength or walking speed. But these abilities tend to tell us a lot. Firefighters with higher push-up capacity were more likely to have low blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar, and not to smoke. People with the lowest grip strengths were more likely to smoke and have higher waist circumference and body-fat percentage, watch more TV, and eat fewer fruits and vegetables.<\/p>\n

Essentially, these quick metrics serve as surrogates that correlate with all kinds of factors that determine a person\u2019s overall health\u2014which can otherwise be totally impractical, invasive, and expensive to measure directly. If we had to choose a single, simple, universal number to define health, any of these functional metrics might be a better contender than BMI.<\/p>\n

Here's the push up study link<\/a>. The link is also in the article along with other interesting links.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Very interesting article in The Atlantic. Push ups compared to other metrics like body mass index (BMI) treadmill results, etc.  At the end I've put a link to the actual push up study. The Power of One Push-Up Several simple ways of measuring a person\u2019s health might matter more than body weight. Still, the profession […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7625,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions\/7625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}