If you’re looking for a free, fast way to measure your risk of cardiovascular risk, just do some pushups. A new study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has found that physically active men who can do at least 40 pushups may have a lower risk of cardiovascular diseases compared to physically active men who can’t.
The study on cardiovascular risk
The team of researchers looked at the health data from 1,104 male firefighters from the years 200 to 2010. The men had a mean age of 39.6 and a mean body mass index of 28.7.
The men completed medical questionnaires, completed submaximal treadmill exercise tolerance tests, did pushups and shared the results of yearly physical exams.
The findings
Of all the men, 37 experienced cardiovascular disease-related events and all but one of these events happened in firefighters who couldn’t do more than 40 pushups at the beginning of the study.
Crunching the numbers, the research team determined that the men who could do more than 40 pushups at the start of the study had a 96% lower cardiovascular risk than the men who could do a maximum of 10 pushups.
“Our findings provide evidence that pushup capacity could be an easy, no-cost method to help assess cardiovascular disease risk in almost any settings,” says Justin Yang, M.D., a lead author of the study. “Surprisingly, pushup capacity was more strongly associated with cardiovascular disease risk than the results of submaximal treadmill tests.”
Some caveats
Although the results of the study are vital in showing the correlation between cardiovascular health and exercise, it’s important to note that this study was only done on active men in their 30s and 40s. Another study—on older men, younger men, less physically active men or women—may produce different results.
Still, for active men in this age group, pushups seem to be a good determinant of whether or not you’re at a higher risk.
