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Comment by nick__m | Hacker News Reader

IMO, push-ups are a quicker way to build muscles and self-esteem than weightlifting. That exercise is one of the most complete[1] and you can avoid damaging your carpal tunnel with a cheap pair of handles.

It takes 6 week to go from being barely able to do 5 consecutives push-ups to being able to do a series of 100.[2] But if you had abdominal surgery check with your doctor before embarking/restarting that journey, I learn this the painfull way ...

Finally, the number of push-ups a middle-aged men is able to do is inversely correlated with the risk of cardiovascular disease. According to that research[3], it's at least as good as the treadmill test.

1- https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/health-benefits-push-...

2- https://hundredpushups.com/week1.html

3- https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/push-ups-...

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Pushups arguably _are_ weightlifting, it's just that you're lifting your bodyweight. Pretty similar movement to a bench press, just upside down.

I like lifting "actual" weights more than I like bodyweight because it's extremely easy to quantify your increase in strength. But any kind of weighted exercise is amazingly fun and effective once you get into it.

You can always increase your reps or add extra weight to your body (weight vest, etc). Both are very quantifiable.

My body weight fluctuates from day to day and throughout the day. If I use the same weights, or well calibrated weights, the weight I'm moving is consistent every time.

Sample size of one, but in my younger and less careful days I have managed to injure my shoulders overdoing both push-ups and dumbbell bench press. I managed to injure my shoulders much faster doing push-ups, likely because there was no way for me to ramp up the weights slowly, since push-ups are always minimum body weight. With bench press, I injured myself when I got impatient and ramped up the weights too fast. With push-ups, I injured myself when I got greedy and did too many sets throughout the day, since it's easy to do and do twenty whenever there's a few minutes of free time.

There are various ways to modify a pushup. The absolute easiest that I know of being a standing push up -- stand, plant your hands on a wall, and do the push up motion. Horizontal pushups can also be made easier.

Feels dissatisfying to not even do a "real" pushup, but on the other hand, shoulder injuries are hell.

I worry your third paragraph is mostly correlation: conditioned on someone being able to do a lot of push ups they are likely to be healthy and active rather than just someone who trains push ups.

I am pretty sure that the firefighters in that 10y long study are already likely to be healthy and active. But your argument is sounds and it's only one health study, so I should have said correlated.

But in my defense I used the same terminology as the article I linked to.

edit: I did not used the terminology from the articles but I said correlated instead of predictor... I should have re-read my post before replying... anyway I agree with you ;)

Rather than just pushups, one should try the big 6 from convict conditioning. Pushups, squats, pullups, bridges, handstand push-ups and leg lifts. That way they're conditioning more of their total body.

Dude, that study is _garbage_.

> The researchers analyzed health data from 1,104 active male firefighters collected from 2000 to 2010.

Active male firefighters? You mean people whose entire job is predicated upon physical strength? People for whom pushups are essentially an aerobic exercise? People who are in no way representative of the population at large???

Stupid issue, but : if you are in a really bad shape and obese, making a push-up (or even something slightly resembling it) is really hard, when simple weightlifting exercises are almost always possible.

Pushups can be made easier by leaning on the wall. Or on a raised platform like the edge of a table or a chair (assuming the platform is stable). They get more difficult the higher the feet are compared to the hands. The culmination is the handstand against the wall.

Functional muscle certainly, but as someone who did bodyweight exercises most of his life and then tried weightlifting, there is definitely a cosmetic difference to the muscles produced by the latter.

I hear this a lot, but doesn’t corroborate with my experience seeing folks at calisthenics parks.

This [1] is what I look like with only body weight training. Even if I could, I intentional don’t want to get any bigger given how it affects other sports I play and my current preferences (slightly impacted by my partner’s).

1 - https://www.instagram.com/p/CbKPiVsoSN-/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Interesting, maybe it's a function of body type? I naturally have an extremely slim build. Even lifting heavy every day I had less visible muscle than you, though it was noticeably more than when I was only lifting myself.

> But if you had abdominal surgery check with your doctor before embarking/restarting that journey, I learn this the painfull way

Would you care to elaborate? I've had open abdominal surgery and am starting exercise once again. I used to go to the gym for a while some years ago and nothing bad happened, but I'm always afraid of a hernia.

I had an extremely painful sensation that persisted for a week, it was the start of an hernia and had I push through the pain it would have required additional surgery.

My surgeon had a look at the training program and told me to skip the initial exhaustion test, do it in 18 weeks instead of 6 by increasing the number of reps only once a week and remove the plus from the number of reps in the last series.

It's crazy how fast unsed muscles atrophy when you're past 40, I only stopped for 8 months (the recovery from my surgery) and I had to start back at day one.

I had a serious hernia, but I was in jail, so I couldn't get it fixed for six years. I decided to be careful and just continue working out. I can't recommend it for everyone, but I think the body is capable of more than most people would realize. I assume hernia surgery is a fairly modern invention.

After surgery it was fairly painful for a few weeks. Since recovery I've worked out hard and not had any trouble. I'm a sample size of one.

Great thing about push-ups is you don’t have to go to the gym or buy equipment, so no excuses! And they are great for core. Planks you can do anywhere too.

That said, I’m benching 120lb and aiming for being able to bench my weight and curl 45lbs again. =)

Weight lift involves muscles differently. I liked pushups better before but lifting helps a lot everywhere else.

Beware of muscle imbalances on a pushup-only regimen.

Pushups only is bad, but pushups with pull-ups in particular are a great pair. I learned this in my youth when I found the Armstrong program to be particularly useful. [1] I would also take a moment to emphasize the importance of stretching in muscle formation and recovery as well as injury prevention. I'm serious about the stretching, at 5 minutes per muscle about 1hr per day is a decent start.

1. https://savannahstate.edu/cost/nrotc/documents/Inform2010-th...

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