Men who can complete more than 40 push-ups have a much lower chance of contracting cardiovascular disease, according to a new study led by Harvard University.

"Our findings provide evidence that push-up capacity could be an easy, no-cost method to help assess cardiovascular disease risk in almost any setting," said first author, Justin Yang of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health. "Surprisingly, push-up capacity was more strongly associated with cardiovascular disease risk than the results of submaximal treadmill tests."

The study analyzed data collected from over 1,000 male firefighters between 2000 and 2010, and was published on February 15 in JAMA Network Open, an open-access medical research network.

“This study emphasizes the importance of physical fitness on health, and why clinicians should assess fitness during clinical encounters,” said Stefanos Kales, who was a senior author of the study and is a professor in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard Chan School and the chief of occupational medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance.

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