An Association Between Doing Push-ups and Cardiovascular Disease!

On February 15, 2019, an article published in the JAMA Open Network by Dr. Yang and others discussed the outcome of the number of push-ups an individual could do related to cardiovascular risk. The title of the article was the “Association Between Push-up Exercise Capacity and Future Cardiovascular Events Among Active Men.” It received a high level of media attention.

The study tracked 1,107 firefighters for 10-years from 2000 through 2010. During this time frame there were 37 CVD incidents.

• Firefighters who did 40 or more push-ups had a 96% reduction in the events of CVD incidents compared to those who did 0-10 push-ups after correcting for age and body mass index (BMI).
• There was also a statistically significant reduction in the events of CVD for those who did 21-30 push-ups compared to those who did 0-10 push-ups.

The authors went on to say that push-up capacity is a no-cost, simple and quick assessment for cardiovascular disease risk and functional capacity. The authors do state before generalizing to the overall population, more research needs to be done.

The data certainly supports their position on the use of push-ups to measure CVD risk but I am not in agreement with their conclusion. For the most part, firefighters are active individuals and work to maintain the muscular strength. Asking a firefighter to do push-ups to capacity is relatively safe. In today’s sedentary society, doing a push-up to capacity would be very risky and unsafe for most individuals.

• I believe the major finding for this study is that it demonstrates the critical importance muscular strength plays in cardiovascular disease prevention.
• In order to perform a number of push-ups greater than 10, a person must have good overall muscular strength especially in the shoulder region and be able to hold a full body plank while doing the push-up.

When selecting a wellness or risk strength assessment, safety must be a high priority.  Selecting a tool for no cost or simplicity when administering the strength test might be putting the participant at risk for injury or even a cardiovascular incident. Assessing strength in the workplace should be a priority especially as the workforce ages.

This research also supports the many research studies published over the past 10 years showing the strong connection between muscular strength with disease and injury prevention.