More research is now needed to examine the link between pushup ability and heart disease in the general population, including among women and less-active men, the researchers noted in their paper. "This study emphasizes the importance of physical fitness on health and why clinicians should assess fitness" during doctors' visits, study senior author Stefanos Kales, a professor in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. But, in general, pushup capacity could be an indicator of overall fitness, the researchers said. Such factors could include a person's age, body mass index (BMI) and aerobic fitness level. That is, there may be other factors tied to heart disease risk that are also related to how many pushups an individual can do.
However, the researchers cautioned that pushup capacity is not necessarily an "independent predictor" of heart disease risk. And men who could do more than 40 pushups had the largest reduction in risk. Those who could do 11 or more pushups had a lower risk of cardiovascular events, compared with those who could do 10 or fewer, the study found. The participants were then followed for a decade to see if they experienced a cardiovascular event, such as a diagnosis of coronary artery disease, heart failure or cardiac arrest.ĭuring the study period, 37 cardiovascular events were found among the study participants, but only one cardiovascular event occurred among the men who completed more than 40 pushups. To find out, researchers examined records from more than 1,100 Indiana firefighters (with an average age of 39) who underwent a pushup test at the beginning of the study. The new study tested whether a simple exercise like a pushup could provide clues to heart health. But the tests are time-consuming and require expensive equipment, so they aren't done routinely. In these evaluations, people run on a treadmill until their heart rate reaches a certain level. Doctors sometimes use "treadmill tests" to evaluate a person's fitness level. But it can be difficult for doctors to accurately assess a person's fitness level during a routine visit.
Physicians know that being physically fit is linked with better heart health.