What your push-up count reveals about your longevity

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness.
My name is Rob Maxwell and I'man exercise physiologist and
personal trainer.
I am the owner of Maxwell'sFitness Programs and I've been
in business since 1994.
The purpose of this podcast isto get to the real deal of what
really works and, mostimportantly, why things work.

(00:21):
Hence the name.
There is a method to themadness.
Before I get to today's show, Iwant to thank Jonathan and Lynn
Gildan of the Gildan Group atRealty Pros.
They are committed to providingthe highest level of customer
service in home sales.
Why don't you give them a shoutand figure out what your home
is worth?
386-451-2412.

(00:44):
What's happening, everybody?
This is Rob here and I'm hereto talk about some fitness.
I hope everybody had a goodLabor Day yesterday.
It's Tuesday for me here, notsure when you are listening to
it, but it's the day after LaborDay.
We went over and did a 5k inOcala and yeah, that's a long

(01:08):
way to go for us for a 5kbecause we are in Port Orange,
but you know, took the day offfrom clients and saw that it was
on a Monday and thought oh,that's, you know, kind of unique
.
I'd raced over there before butit was the Ocala Marathon years
ago.
Never traveled that far, Idon't think, to Ocala anyway for

(01:30):
a 5k.
But you know what?
Really glad I did it.
It's a nice drive, a littlestressful on 40, early in the
morning I almost hit a deer.
That's not good.
I would have felt terriblyguilty.
Um, so that didn't happen,thank goodness.
But other than that, it's abeautiful part of florida a lot

(01:50):
of woods, the ocala nationalforest is awesome and, uh, not
sure who put this race on.
I wish I did, because I'd givethem a huge shout out because
they did a really, really goodjob with this 5k.
Like they started on time,which I always appreciate.
You know, um, when you put onevents, I think you got to start
on time.
It's only fair to the peoplethat are prepared and ready and

(02:13):
got there on time.
You know, and, uh, a lot oftimes race companies are
shuffling in more uh entries,you know, at the expense of the
people who were there and moreresponsible.
And then you know they'retrying to get as many people
registered as they can and thosepeople got their like quarter
till.
You know things like that.
I just I always really shake myhead at that.

(02:34):
I just think it's bad business,but they did not do that by any
means.
The course was very well marked.
It was accurate 3.11, which iswhat a 5k is.
Um, good support out on thecourse, nice people, um, you
know, pretty cool t-shirts.
So anyway it was.
It was well worth it.
I would go back, um, after eachrace, me and Ellen and some of

(02:56):
the other people I do a lot of5ks with we always talk about,
you know, is that one we'regoing to spend the money on to
do again?
You know, because I believe invalue.
Like you know, it's not so muchthe price of things I think
often but are you getting goodvalue for it?
And there are just a lot ofraces out there that just
haven't earned the value.
They start late, they run outof t-shirts, they run out of

(03:19):
t-shirt sizes, you know.
They just basically don'treally care.
It seems like whether peopleshow back up or not, you know.
So anyway, that was one wewould definitely do again.
Harpreet went over there, didit and enjoyed it.
Got to see a different part ofFlorida he's never seen before,
being from London and California.

(03:42):
So anyway, that was cool.
So let's talk a little bitabout the push-up Last week or a
week ago maybe it was two weeksago I talked about the three
things that are definitelymetrics we should pay attention
to.
You know, as far as what theresearch says, something that is
easy to measure, something thatyou can measure, and the

(04:04):
metrics that matter, and Italked about how calories does
matter, your body weight doesmatter and pushups matter, and
pushups gets people kind ofconfused because they're like
well, you know what is sospecial about the pushup?
Well, number one, it issomething that is measurable, so

(04:26):
there's a lot of data on.
We have to understand that.
There's a lot of data on thepush-ups because it is
measurable, and there are a lotof different organizations that
test for those things, whetherit be the military, whether it
be good wellness centers andthere are a lot of good wellness
centers out there that aredoing different types of
wellness screening on people,and one of them will be the

(04:49):
American College of SportsMedicine's modified push-up test
for women or the AmericanCollege of Sports Medicine
standard push-ups for men, andthey use them and then they
record their data and then youknow that data gets entered into
the data bank and it can beused to check things out.
So there's a lot of data on it.
For one thing, that's one thingto keep in mind.

(05:11):
So, when I was talking about thevalue of it, it's important to
understand that, look man,push-ups have better health
outcomes.
I mean, that's just been shown.
Is it because there's somethingso miraculous about the push-up

(05:31):
?
Like you know, it's justanother exercise and in reality
it is just another exercise.
So no, it's nothing miraculousabout it.
I think it's the fact that whenpeople are able to do push-ups,
they have enough strength allthe way around to be able to do
those and other things.
It's really as simple as that.

(05:51):
Like, there are people thathave torn rotator cuffs and
they're partially repaired orthey're never going to be 100%
because of scar tissue, say,well, I can't do push-ups
anymore because it creates pain.
That's fine.
Does that mean I'm no longergoing to have a good health
outcome?
Of course not.
It doesn't mean that it'scorrelated to.

(06:11):
We know that somebody who isputting in the time to get
stronger at them is putting inthe time to do the other thing.
So, in the case of the personwith the torn rotator cuff or
partially torn rotator cuff, ifthey are spending as much time
invested in doing other forms ofstrength training.
Of course, they're still goingto see those outcomes.
So it's very important tounderstand that.

(06:33):
That the pushup itself isn'tmiraculous, all right, but it is
a great exercise that measuresthese things and, man, it's one
of two of the best calisthenicstyle body weight exercises you
can do all the time, no matterwhere you go.
Again, with exception of injury, that you can do all the time.

(06:56):
That and the squat it'sphenomenal.
So you know, let's talk aboutthat.
It works the chest, theshoulders and the triceps.
So that is why it is a majorpushing exercise, because those
are the pushing muscle groups ofthe upper body working
collectively.

(07:16):
It's very hard to do a pushexercise and not incorporate
those three muscle groups.
Depending on your exerciseangle of where your arms and
shoulders are in relation toyour spine will depend upon
which of those muscles you areworking the most.

(07:37):
For the most part, if you'redoing a standard push-up
correctly and when I saystandard I don't mean standard
in the true sense.
Let me explain that further.
When you're doing a ultimatelycorrect push-up, whether it be
standard or modified, it ispredominantly the pectoralis
major, so your chest muscles.

(07:57):
That means as we're going down,we don't go down with like teed
elbows, so to say.
I see people do that and Icringe.
And you're not keeping yourelbows firmly against your side
Nothing wrong with that butthat's not a standard push-up,
that's more of a tricep push-up.
So when you let your elbows goout and you go down at an angle

(08:20):
of about 45 degrees, you'regoing to be working primarily
your pectoralis major, which iswhat we want, because it's one
of the largest muscle groups ofthe upper body and it's one of
the largest, or is the largestof the pushing muscles of the
upper body.
We want that.
And then, following that wouldbe your triceps and then a

(08:40):
little bit of your anteriordeltoids.
So you're getting pretty mucheverything you do upper body
wise.
You're getting a lot ofdeltoids, which is why you don't
have to do a lot of specificdeltoid work.
The push-up covers all of it,really.
And then understanding that thechest press machine is a

(09:02):
machine version of a push-up.
So if you're weak on that, thatmeans you're probably weak on
push-ups.
The dumbbell chest press is adumbbell exercise that
replicates essentially a push-up.
A bench press is a push-up.
So it's like all the sameexercise done in different
fashion.
One of the downsides of apush-up, but when you really

(09:23):
think about it it's not that badof a downside is that when you
get strong, there's no way toreally increase the load.
I mean, you can put things onyour back or use bands, but that
hasn't been shown to be toooverly effective, but you can't
really increase load.
So you can improve yourendurance but not your strength.
So then you would have toincorporate the other forms of

(09:46):
it chest press on the machine,dumbbells, bench press, whatever
because you need to be able toincrease the load.
But absolutely for enduranceyou don't need to increase
anything but the reps, and whenyou travel it's not going to
matter because you're going toget what you need even if you're
not adding more weight.
So those are the muscle groupsthat are used, but you're also

(10:07):
using your core.
If you're doing it properlymodified is off the knees, but
you still have to engage yourcore and keep your pecs in line
with your spine as you go down.
A lot of times we see peoplekind of do the wiggle worm on
the way up.
Well, then you are not reallyworking your core.
So if you do it correctly andthen in standard position, of

(10:29):
course as well, if you'restaying up on your toes and
you're up on your hands, that'sbasically a standard plank
position from the pushupposition right.
So that's obviously core.
You're moving, you're workingyour core.
So so many different musclegroups are trained when we do
the pushup.
So those are the muscle group,a lot of core, pecs, triceps,

(10:54):
deltoids, and then of courseyou're always going to have your
antagonist, the opposing musclegroups, anytime you work
something.
So there's a lot of muscleaction involved in the push-up.
All right, so just for fun,let's learn a little bit about
it.
So the push-up literally can goback 5,000 years and it is

(11:17):
often credited to some yogapractices in India 5,000 years
ago.
So we have been doing it for areally, really long time.
So there's your first littlebit of history.
You can say, oh well, man'sbeen doing push-ups for about
5,000 years.
You would not be wrong Again,it came out of more of a yoga
tradition in India.

(11:38):
Now the term push-up kind of iscredited to us Americans and
the English between 1905 and1910 is somewhere around the
ballpark of dates that westarted actually calling it the
push-up itself.
There are records showing thatin ancient Greece and a lot of

(12:02):
the philosophers and if you knowme, you know I love that stuff.
I love studying ancient Greeceand philosophy and the Stoics
and all the other philosophersof Greece like Socrates and
Plato and all that good stuff.
Well, they were absolutelyknown to strength train.
They were absolutely known tokeep themselves in shape, which

(12:23):
is why oftentimes when you hearpeople talking about an example
of a fit body, they'll say, oh,they're built like a Greek god,
because that sort of was theepitome to them of what people
should look like, which was, formales anyway, a high level of
muscularity.
So the push-up was famous thenand it was famous in India and

(12:48):
the first person given credit toit and I talked about this in
one of my books, actually.
So I'm always pleased when Isee names get repeated.
But anyway, jarek Ravila waskind of given credit for
inventing the modern day push-up.
That's the name.
I guess he was the first personto start calling it that and

(13:09):
doing it.
But again, that is around 1905,1910.
But we know it went backfurther to the ancient Greeks
and to the Indian culture.
So anyway, but there's somehistory behind it.
It is a great exercise.
Now I want to like finish thiswith a little bit of a story, of

(13:31):
the value of it and try to tieall this in for you.
Years ago, it was probably 20years ago, I was doing a road
bicycle race near Orlando and Iwas doing a lot of endurance
stuff back then and I racedbikes and if you know anything
about bike racing, you know it'sa different kind of bike than a

(13:51):
triathlon bike.
You are in packs, which youcall a peloton, and you'll have
people behind you, people infront of you, and then the idea
is, as you get closer to thefinish line, somebody tries to
break away, to win.
You try to break away from thepack, but for the most of the
race if you're in the lead pack,or really if you're in the

(14:12):
second lead pack, third leadpack, whatever but for most of
the race people pack up inpelotons and you don't try to
win until you feel like you canget away and nobody can catch
you.
So that's kind of the essenceof a road race.
This was about a 40 miler, Ithink it was.
It was 40 or 50 and it mighthave been two laps, I don't

(14:32):
remember.
But I had, uh, gotten up nearthe front and I was able to stay
up towards the front the entirerace and I had a friend with me
.
He was racing with me and, um,I was a better sprinter than him
.
So our game plan was going tobe and, and he was stronger,
like holding poles and stufflike that, so kind of like

(14:53):
taking the blows, getting upfront and letting people draft.
He was super strong at that.
And our game plan was going tobe because it was just us two.
And then there was these teamsfrom different parts of Central
Florida.
We were going to stick together.
He was going to try to pull melike the last, I don't know five

(15:14):
miles, so I could kind of catchmy breath, and then, as we got
close, I was going to sprintaway because I was a better
sprinter than he and I'm notbragging, it's just.
You know, we worked together.
If I would have won, he wouldhave won.
So, anyway, we stayed up frontthe whole time and we were, our
game plan was working out almostperfect, whereas there was

(15:35):
maybe I don't know quarter mileleft, I don't know 200 yards,
200 meters, something like that,and maybe a little bit further,
and my friend did a breakaway,pulled away.
You know, I got on his wheel,so to say and you know we got
out front and he was going ashard as he can, then he's going
to pull to the left and then Iwas going to go around him and

(15:55):
go for the win.
That was the game plan and itwas working until this one guy
came up and he wanted myfriend's wheel, so to say.
So he starts edging in, hestarts edging in and I'm holding
the line.
I'm holding the line, you know,being aggressive myself,
because I don't want to, I don'twant to lose.
So I'm holding his wheel andhe's trying to push me off the

(16:16):
wheel and you know that'sillegal's illegal, by the way
and uh, he finally, kind of likejams in there and throws an
elbow Um, kid you not, this isamateur racing.
Who would go to that extent inan amateur race?
So knocks me off the bike.
Um, bad, crash, real bad.
I flip over the handlebars, Iget run over by the group that

(16:36):
had kind of caught us throughthe all this mayhem and mayhem
and got run over.
I still have a chain sprocketscar on my back where somebody's
sprocket went over my back.
Make a long story short I endedup in the emergency room.
Nothing too tragic or bad, but,you know, pretty banged up and
bloodied and, as the doctor was,you know, going through all the

(16:57):
x-rays and stuff, he's like,you know, miraculously you've
got some road rash but no brokenbones.
I said, well, thank goodness.
He said you know you can credityour muscular frame for that,
that you know the fact you havemuscle on you when you land, you
know that absorbs a lot of theblow and everything.
So anyway, I'm saying all thatbecause that always stuck with

(17:18):
me, even though I knew that.
You know, hearing it fromsomebody when you are in the
emergency room is nice to hear.
In a way it takes, you know, alittle bit of the put, some
sweetness in the bitter.
But that's kind of the key withall this with pushups.
So, like again, it's not amiraculous exercise but the fact
that we can do them shows we'restrong, and the fact that we're

(17:40):
strong shows we havemuscularity.
And the fact we havemuscularity shows very positive
health outcomes, like they'veshown when it comes to BMI, that
people with normal BMIsactually live longer, so to say,
live longer, live more of aquality of life than people that

(18:00):
are underweight.
So it's important to understandthat we want to carry muscle,
we want to be stronger and thepush up is a great replication
or a great example or a greatmetric to let us know if we are
hitting that goal or not.
All right, so I hope this helpsand, as always, please send this

(18:22):
out to your friends.
Text it to them, because ithelps spread it around.
I mean, not the people thatdon't care, but send it to
people in your contact list thatmight go.
Man, this is going to be goodfor them.
All right, thanks everybody.
Thank you for listening totoday's program.
I ask you to please follow theshow wherever you get your

(18:46):
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They have the best service.
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(19:06):
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