Drop and Give Me 20 (If You Can)

Interesting piece in the NY Times (h/t to Glenn Reynolds) about the simple push-up as a barometer of fitness:

As a symbol of health and wellness, nothing surpasses the simple push-up.

“It takes strength to do them, and it takes endurance to do a lot of them,” said Jack LaLanne, 93, the fitness pioneer who astounded television viewers in the 1950s with his fingertip push-ups. “It’s a good indication of what kind of physical condition you’re in.”

The push-up is the ultimate barometer of fitness. It tests the whole body, engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs. It requires the body to be taut like a plank with toes and palms on the floor. The act of lifting and lowering one’s entire weight is taxing even for the very fit.

Which is the reason that the military, at least the Army, puts a large focus on the ability of Soldiers to do push-ups. A lot of them.

The military PT test consists of 3 tests: 1) Total number of push-ups in 2 minutes, 2) Total number of sit-ups in 2 minutes, and 3) Timed 2-mile run.

During basic training, a recruit will spend almost as much time in the “front leaning rest” position as they will on their feet. You do push-ups as part of your daily physical training. You do it as punishment (the famous “drop and give me 20″).

Here’s a link the Army’s Push-Up Improvement Program, if you need a little help.

During my basic training, we concluded every day of training with about an hour of PT in our barracks bay before he hit the racks. I remember doing “Magic 8s” until my arms felt like they would melt ( a Magic 8 consists of doing 8 sets of 8 reps of three different types of push-ups: wide, normal, and diamonds — 192 total reps. That’s in addition to the several hundred you probably knocked out earlier in the day).

I can attest that there really are few exercises that will build your upper body and core body strength better than push-ups.

Apparently, though, not that many people are adept at doing them:

In a 2001 study, researchers at East Carolina University administered push-up tests to about 70 students ages 10 to 13. Almost half the boys and three-quarters of the girls didn’t pass.

There is also a disparity in the ability to do push-ups based on gender:

And while anybody can do a push-up, the exercise has typically been part of the male fitness culture. “It’s sort of a gender-specific symbol of vitality,” said R. Scott Kretchmar, a professor of exercise and sports science at Penn State. “I don’t see women saying: ‘I’m in good health. Watch me drop down and do some push-ups.’ ”

II always had a problem with female soldiers not having to perform the same number of push-ups and sit-ups or run as fast as their male counterparts. If they want to and are expected to perform the exact same physical jobs, they should have to pass the exact same physical standards as their male counterparts.

Based on national averages, a 40-year-old woman should be able to do 16 push-ups and a man the same age should be able to do 27. By the age of 60, those numbers drop to 17 for men and 6 for women. Those numbers are just slightly less than what is required of Army soldiers who are subjected to regular push-up tests.

I just dropped in my cube to make sure I could still do 27 push-ups. No problem. Did 30 just to make it a nice even number.

Back in my Army days, I would routinely knock out about 90 push-ups in the alloted 2-minutes during my PT tests.

How many could you do right now — good push-ups, too (not with your knees on the ground, but with a straight back and chin up, chest all the way to the ground, upper-arms parallel to the floor when in the down-position, and elbows fully locked in the upright-position)?

Here’s a link to the Army’s Push-up Improvement Program if you need it.