Better summary "if you can do a push-up sprint and complete 41 pushups in less than 33 seconds without pausing you're in pretty good shape and btw you're 96% less likely to get heart disease in the next 10 years than someone that can't keep that pace up for even 10 pushups."<p>The most important sentence.<p>"For push-ups, the firefighter was instructed to begin push-ups in time with a metronome set at 80 beats per minute. Clinic staff counted the number of push-ups completed until the participant reached 80, missed 3 or more beats of the metronome, or stopped owing to exhaustion or other symptoms (dizziness, lightheadedness, chest pain, or shortness of breath)."<p>This was a combined strength/cardiovascular test. You had to book it. Only the firefighters that
99% of people who can't do 40 push-ups are going to fail because they don't have the strength. Firefighters are probably one of the only demographics where you are going to get a non-trivial percentage who have the strength but not the cardiovascular health required.
Participants in the highest pushups-completed group were younger, weighed less, had lower blood pressure, and were likely to be non-smoking compared to the two lowest groups.<p>For a person who is 5ft10in, the BMI comparison in pounds would be 187lbs avg for the highest group vs 231 lbs, 211 lbs avg for the two lowest groups.<p>Look at the details from Table 1 in the Study (go to <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2724778" rel="nofollow">https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...</a>, on the right hand side, click on 'Figures and Tables', then click on the 'View Large' link for Table 1):<p>BMI = Body Mass Index, BP = blood pressure, SD = Standard Deviation<p>Mean Avg Values for the two lowest groups of pushups (0-10, 11-20):<p><pre><code> Age: 48.4 (SD=10.1), 45.1 (SD=8.6)
BMI: 33.1 (SD=5.8) , 30.3 (SD=4.9)
BP: 136.9/89.4 , 129.96/86.5
Smokers (Prev & Current): 54.7%, 58.8%
</code></pre>
Value for the highest group of pushups (41+):<p><pre><code> Age: 35.1 (SD=7.1)
BMI: 26.8 (SD=2.9)
BP: 125.2/84
Smokers (Prev & Current): 30.9%
</code></pre>
from <a href="https://www.bmi3d.com/table.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.bmi3d.com/table.html</a><p><pre><code> BMI: 25-29.9: - overweight, >= 30: obese
</code></pre>
from <a href="https://www.heart.org/-/media/data-import/downloadables/pe-abh-what-is-high-blood-pressure-ucm_300310.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.heart.org/-/media/data-import/downloadables/pe-a...</a><p><pre><code> BP: high blood pressure = 1st number >= 130 or 2nd number >= 80</code></pre>
Isn't it generally more likely for someone who can do 40 push ups to be also living a more active life?<p>I mean the ability to complete 40 push ups could be a result of exercising in general.
I don't have training to make a formal argument, but this has got to be bullshit.<p>They take the few people that had some form of heart disease (37 out of 1104 over ten years) and noted that none of them <i>except one</i> could do 40 pushups. By some magic, this is translated into a 96% reduction in chance of a heart attack.<p>If that's really the reasoning, could I not just pick <i>any</i> metric (i.e. words typed per minute over 120, or IQ over 130) which is likely to eliminate almost all of the participants and conclude that it is reducing risk of heart disease?<p>Am I missing something? Is this kind of reasoning <i>not</i> complete bogus?
This study smells funny to me. Why did they divide pushup numbers into groups of 10 and test there, rather than use a continuous measure? I sense multiple comparisons/researcher degrees of freedom problems.
I'd expect that 40 push-ups are a proxy for good cardiovascular health rather than a cause of it. I.e. practicing push-ups in isolation is unlikely to improve cardiovascular health by itself.
I bet they could say the same about 20+ pull-ups (which is more difficult than 40 push-ups based on anecdotal evidence). Not too interesting of a study in that sense.
Most firefighters in the US face a significant physical
test to become a firefighter - example: <a href="https://nationaltestingnetwork.com/publicsafetyjobs/cpat_info.cfm" rel="nofollow">https://nationaltestingnetwork.com/publicsafetyjobs/cpat_inf...</a>
I think the type of oil we consume also makes a difference <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola_oil#Comparison_to_other_vegetable_oils" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola_oil#Comparison_to_other...</a> in <a href="https://lifeinthefastlane.com/ccc/cardiovascular-performance-assessment/" rel="nofollow">https://lifeinthefastlane.com/ccc/cardiovascular-performance...</a>