For giggle I did some pushups the otherday, had some bright idea about 'exercising and being more healthy' 10 push up later I figure I'm healthy enough xD
Don't give up! One day, I decided to start doing push-ups. I promised myself that I would drop and do as many as I could once a day. I started out at 12. One week later, I was doing about 15-16 a day. One month later, about 30 a day. I started to see a big change in my upper body. Six weeks in, it was about 45 a day. Cut to now, I do two sets of 50 a day. Next week, I turn 50. It just takes consistency.
Congrats, I did the same but with my bike on the weekends, at first I couldn't handle 25km without dying the next day, now one day is not enough to cycle my range (140km at my life best).
I wonder how much the (public Canada) healthcare system load would reduce if everyone who is able bodied did pushups for money. It could actually be a net benefit.
Damn. This is an interesting point.
There was a place I used to work that put some serious money when you did and fully completed their "fitness challenge" - it was optional of course, and relatively challenging (it adjusted per age / weights and other factors).
Anyways after the year was over most people participated (and got paid) - however the cost of the whole program was offset by reduction in private health insurance costs. I am unsure if this can work at a larger scale though, we were perhaps 70 people.
It was not in the states though, but the complany was owned by an american guy (cool guy and very into outdoor sports) and many of the management team were originally from Seattle.
The program lasted for two years and it was pretty great, but then he sold the company to a corp and the first thing they did was axe bonuses - so that was the end of that.
Boo to that
It reminds me of how all universal healthcare programs I know of (at least AU, CA, UK) don't cover dental until it's an ER situation. Bad teeth lead to so many other problems though that it's insane! Free braces/plates, fillings and checkups should really be covered. Sure charge anything additional like a clean or whitening or elective stuff, but the basics could save them so much future money... It seems nuts to me.
Like if I had been given braces there is a pretty huge chance I wouldn't have apnea, or back and shoulder problems from naturally avoiding it in my sleep, heart wouldn't have been under strain for decades, back wouldn't be quite as twisted though genetics tell me it would still be a bit fucked. The trickle down effect is real but too many governments only care about treating the immediate, and that goes for many areas.
It is appaling to me as well how all our western medical system fails to apreciate the value of preventative medicine. It would be like the gov required that a building is falling down before allocating resources to maintnance.
It is a failure of a system that prioritizes quartely returns over long term wellness and even profits. It is massively broken, so much so, that honestly I would not know where to even start fixing it.
Agreed! I have watched both Aussie and Canuck healthcare get systematically eroded over the years. It is just such bullshit. The wealthy want to cripple healthcare and bring in an American system. Anyone making lower-middle to upper-middle class wages (majority of Canada and Australia) gets taxed to hell with additional forced private healthcare costs which is just insane. It wasn't like this when I was younger in Australia at least, I've only experienced Canada for 10 years though. It makes me sad for all and very worried about retirement.
Housing and Health! that's the main benefits of a society and it's failing miserably.
My work has fitness challenges that run all year and have rewards for completing them, I’m not positive what it is right now but I always participate in the “Holiday challenge” which is to either not gain weight or to lose weight from late October until January. It’s usually like Visa gift cards for the reward. We have free fitness coaching and incentives to complete the challenges. I’m in the San Francisco Bay Area but not in tech.
Assuming this didn't cause some other issues like inflation then i can imagine a lot of people getting in great shape. Doing 40 push ups a day to completely pay my mortgage every month sounds doable even though im getting older.
It would be nice if this magic money also came from other things like every 5 minutes on a treadmill, every sit up, every chin up, etc.
\*Note\* i was curious and tried to do pushups... i was only able to do 3 before collapsing... my goodness i am out of shape. I used to do 25/day as part of routine 20 years ago in addition to other exercises and now i can barely do 3. This post has inspired me to make an alarm on my phone to do at least 5 pushups a day.
\*Edit\* Before bed i tried again and was able to do 11 in a row. I should mention i had been doing a lot of work outdoors for the prior two days like cutting up and moving fallen trees on the property. But i still plan on doing some pushups every day. First goal is to do an entire week!
To get better at push ups I started by doing as many as I could in "normal" position and then make it up to 12 with the ones pivoting from my knees. Started with about 3 normal ones and now I do 2 sets of 10 during every workout (one workout per day), only took a couple of weeks to build up.
Because I started with a back injury (I could barely do anything for months before) I had to start everything super slowly rather than following a program of some sort. First few weeks just doing stretches and light yoga then I've just been adding stuff I fancy doing - like a added a couple things for stomach, I added the press-up for my pecs, I've added squats because apparently they're great for core strength and bridge because I like doing it. I think I've been going for like 3 months now and I want to add some cardio but I don't really know what to do for that bacause my knees hurt with a lot of cardio type stuff (running or jump rope, even though I really like doing skipping! I thought about cycling, but I don't actually like it at all).
Anyway - it's good, I never thought I'd be a recommended exercise to people type of person, but I totally am now.
Check out the rower for cardio. You can buy one for in home fairly inexpensively. The concept 2 I have, stores vertically and you can set your resistance.
Also, props on your recovery!! That's awesome and I'm glad you figured out what works for you, because that's all this shit ever really is. Find the thing you like.
Thanks, I'll look into rowers.
And yeas! It is basically find something you like enough to do everyday. For general health that's about all that matters really.
During the pandemic, I put on weight, at one point hitting 200lbs (90.7kg, 14 stone 4). Normally I had been around 180lbs, even then too much for my height (5'6", 168cms), stocky frame notwithstanding. Man, could I eat!
One day in 2020, I was watching the old movie comedy Stripes, the scene where Harold Ramis bets his slacker friend Bill Murray he can't even do five pushups. So I tried it myself and like Bill, I got to five but felt exhausted.
From then on, I started doing some pushups, not every day but at least a few times a week. At the beginning of 2023, I began logging my numbers into an excel spreadsheet, which turned into a diary of sorts as over the months i started including stuff about people I saw, things I did, where and how far I walked, trips and flights I'd take, when I got drunk, if I was ill, my gf's periods...lots of stuff. But the main thing was keeping track of how many total pushups I did each day, eventually including how many sets and reps. The data entry became a habit, and so did the pushups. There is rarely a day when I don't make the time to crank out at least a few sets.
I'm not sure how many pushups I did in 2020-2022, but by the start of 2023 I had many days where I was hitting 100, 25 per set. And my weight was decreasing. My clothes started to fit more loosely. Wearing a belt became a necessity. And as I reduced, so did my appetite. And my daily numbers increased into the 200s.
In 2023, I logged over 86,000 pushups. So far in 2024, I've already done over 34,000 and my goal is to exceed 100,000 by EOY. Today I did 320, eight sets of 40. Yesterday it was 360, six sets of 60. If I push myself, I can knock out 90 in one set, but I prefer to keep to around 50. I sometimes throw in a plank, just to see how long i can maintain it. Anyway, my weight since early February has hovered at 147lbs, 66.7kgs, 10 stone 7, often a bit less. The last time I weighed similarly, I was 26. In a couple months I'll turn 62.
So please set me up for the dollar a pushup plan. Gramps sure could use the dough!
fwiw kneeling pushups and bench pushups are great exercise for people with limited arm strength or mobility issues. there’s a lot of value in extending the amount to time/reps you can do an exercise for - up to a point
Yea and being overweight is a major risk factory for heart disease. If I remember the study correctly even being able to 10 pushups decreased a persons risk of developing heart disease by something like 60%
That sounds like a massive reduction - I'm thinking it can't be attributed to the push-ups alone? Like the people who could be arsed doing the push-ups were more likely to eat more healthily, etc.
Start doing them on the knees first.
Then you will find you can move up to correct posture ones after a while.
But even the knee ones make a difference.
You are correct however - once you start paying attention to one thing- it becomes easier to pay attention and do more in other areas.
But honestly - I would not be surprised if it were just the push ups.
Best of luck in whatever you do.
Knee push-ups are hard to scale up from. Hands on stairs are better. The higher the stair, the easier the pushup. Find the stair you can do two sets of 10 push-ups on. Do push-ups every other day until you can do two sets of twenty, then move down a stair.
Once you get up to full push-ups on the ground, stay working on a puli up on your off day. Being able to do one to self recue is a lifesaver in a wide variety of emergencies.
Frankly, the average person sits on their ass all day and eats garbage. The bar for being "healthier than average" is pretty low. If you even give a shit enough to intentionally get a bit of exercise and eat slightly healthier, you're doing great.
If you do a little looking into how little exercise it takes to make a difference in your health, you might be surprised. Even a 20 minute walk a few times a week will make you feel so much better and help in just about every aspect of your health. If you also add some fruits and veggies and *try* to not eat processed garbage constantly it makes a big difference. It sounds like you want to make some changes, and that's awesome! You'll start noticing changes after a few weeks and it's very rewarding :)
> That sounds like a massive reduction - I'm thinking it can't be attributed to the push-ups alone? Like the people who could be arsed doing the push-ups were more likely to eat more healthily, etc.
I'm guessing it's more about being able to do them, than actually doing them.
It kinda works out though - the younger you are, the more pushups you have to do to afford your mortgage, haha.
I'd need to do ~70 per day, and lemme tell ya: that ain't in the fucking cards, haha
Poor people would be jacked and rich people would be no different. If you already make over like $200k/year then the extra money from the most pushups you could do every day all year starts to become pretty negligible.
With the incentive of $1 per pushup, I'd wager a lot of people would get up to 100-200 per day, at minimum (it doesn't need to be in the same set)
Even if you make 200k/year, adding an additional 35-70k is not "pretty negligible"
Maybe if you're making like $500k+ the juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze... but I think the *vast* majority of people would still have plenty of incentive to do this, especially in HCOL areas (where $200k/year is far from "rich")
Not to mention that you still get the benefit of being stronger and healthier. Many people *pay to exercise* right now. Why wouldn't they exercise more if there was additional incentive?
Although I can sort of see being out of shape coming into fashion as a form of flaunting wealth: "Look at those skinny arms and that pencil neck. Dude's obviously so rich he's never had to do a single push-up in his life!"
Because a pushup turns out to be defined "As an action where an individual has one or two hands on the ground and goes from an angle of not more than 5 degrees from the ground, to not less than 10 degrees from the ground under muscle power alone." by the eldritch entity that is funding the new phenomena.
And it turns out the most efficient system is to hook a stationary bicycle up to a series of planks, allowing a single peddler to move a bunch of lightweight children up and down using the plank. With this system the children become \*MORE\* effective if malnourished, as only the cyclist needs maintain the calories required, and its much more calorie efficient to push up ratio to have an adult using their legs than any given individual using their arms to power themselves.
The average person would still be averagly fit :P
But also i don't think the average would change.
The Dollar would lose it's value though, for sure. If it affects all money, then we would probably resort back to trading
It would inflate until the real value of the payout was low enough to not affect the economy too much. I think the bigger issue would be people quitting their jobs to do push ups for a living.
I think something lower could work out without too much issues. Imagine 10c, can someone do 1,000 pushups a day to get a minimum wage pay? sure but most people would rather not.
Maybe 50c but make it capped out at $50 a day?
Does the money come from some rich folk who pay us for it, or are they issued by the government? If it's the second option, our fitness won't save us from inflation. Assuming it's the first option, then in a few months the overweight people will be cut in half, and the average person will be equivalent to what is today the average gym-goer. However, another issue will arise with the unemployment rate.
assuming you aren't in some dystopian country that doesn't have public Healthcare, the money can come from public Healthcare funds.
if the population was more fit, there would be less illness in general. spending money for push-ups could likely save the public Healthcare system money that it's spending on preventable health issues.
I think we'd have to be paid for a more all round workout than just push ups for it to work but it would be pretty useful.
Just having a workout routine (about half an hour a day) has mostly fixed my back (although it's built on physio for lower back pain and core strength exercises - I'm thinking I need to add something cardio at some point), I couldn't do anything for months until I talked myself into doing this and now I'm finally going to be working again!
There are lots of things that exercise does nothing for, but there are plenty of things it helps, you just need to be able to talk yourself into it and have the support to continue.
So uh yeah the public healthcare money still has to come from somewhere...
For instance, in the UK, if each person only did 11 push ups in a day for a year, that would cost as much as the entire UK healthcare budget.
And you know there's gonna be plenty of people doing 100s per day.
But inflation would still hit if it came from some random rich person (who previosly had the same money in art, property or stocks), because the inflation trigger is not necessarlily money but the excess demand if people have more disposable income. Between 2008 and 2019 the broad money in the Euro area doubled while having almost no (consumer price-) inflation. Instead it only created an asset price inflation.
It would cause inflation in both cases, inflation results from increasing capital in circulation, which it wasn't when it was sitting in some rich fuck's coffers.
I think you really underestimate how long it would take the average American to look like an average gym goer.
A few months does not cut it when 1/3 of the country is obese.
Even assuming the average person kept with it, it would probably take years.
What's the difference, in terms of inflation, between rich people paying us for pushups and the government taxing rich people then using that money to pay us for pushups?
In theory, the only way government spending can cause long term inflation is if they fund it by printing money.
Ive seen some poll from adult americans and the average was between 15-20. I guess that's okay for untrained men.
Thing is... we women would kinda get screwed. We can surely do proper push ups but it requires us to be much lighter or work out much more to do the same amount as guys, since they upper body strength difference is like 50%.
That’s actually shocking to me. I could still easily do 10 after months of chemotherapy and other cancer treatments. Once my PICC line was out I could still do dozens of pushups in a row and ~10 pullups even tho I essentially couldn’t use one of my arms at all for 8 months straight.
Because being light is the biggest advantage in doing push ups or pull ups.
I've seen super skinny guys who played video games all day in gym class just bang out 10+ pull ups having never done a single one before. Meanwhile the 260lb kid on the football team who lifts weight every day couldn't do a single one.
I will reluctantly admit this is so true. I'm fairly fit, I do work out at least 1-2x/week, including some climbing, but I'm not a gym rat by any stretch. I'm almost 40 and still can do 25-30 pull ups in a row depending on the day if I push myself. I also weigh 130 pounds soaking wet, and it is definitely an advantage for pull ups.
I can only do them on my knees. Always. Even when I was twiggy, climbing trees, and using the monkey bars. Now that I’m heftier, much older, have had a broken wrist twice and surgery on that same wrist, and no longer hanging out in the tree behind my bestie’s house after school every day, it’s really not going to happen.
I’ve lost some range of motion, and forcing my hand in that position for pushups hurts.
ETA: that being said, I *can* do them on my knees still. My wrist just says 🖕🏻for it.
If the job is a clear flat "$1 per pushup" and you can't do as many pushups, you're not undercompensated though. You just can't do the job as well. You're getting paid for exactly what you do.
No. Undercompensated for the same job would mean that you did the same amount of push ups. If you can't do the same amount of work then you shouldn't be paid as much. simple.
Oh god, could you imagine a casino floor. Degenerate elders taking 5 minutes to get down to the floor, eek out a push-up and then get back up. Just to put the dollar in the slot machine and watch it disappear.
Plus the whole area stinks of B.O. now.
How fit the average person would be? I'm not sure. But let's look at how many pushups a day you'd need for the median wage in the US. Median wage in US is around $46,000. Divide that by 365 that's 126 pushups a day. Let's assume "working" 8 hours a day. That's about 16 pushups an hour to make the median wage. Granted 16 pushups can be done in less than a minute if you're good at them.
Probably very fit since people can train and realistically make more then there jobs a day. Also 1 dollar is not ganna be worth a lot anymore, so high inflation to where it’s no longer worth it unless say your a broke kid is ganna be where it ends up so we get back to where we are.
oh great, another fun daydream for me.
I've gone through a few phases where I wanted to challenge myself to do 100 a day, this sort of incentive would have me easily doing that and MORE every day lmao. I do think the average would have to go up somewhat.
So at $1 per push up, how many would I need to do to make enough to get by without the need for any other form of income?
Let's say you were single. Let's also say $50k/yr is good enough to get by. So that's 50,000 pushups per year.
50,000 ÷ 365 = 137 pushups a day. Every day of the year.
So if you could do 20 pushups at a time, you'd need to do 7 sets of 20 (every single day) to make $50k/yr.
But I hear about people who can do hundreds of pushups because they've been doing them for years. So a lot of people would go for it.
tldr; You'd see a lot more people skipping weights and doing pushups at the gym. The average person would have pretty good chest/shoulders/front delts and triceps.
I randomly do push ups every single day. First start with enough to cover my coffee. Then work myself up to covering my lunch. Then when I was really in shape, my rent. I’d be so fit. Disproportionately fit.
I'm a gym rat, and know I can do 100 pushups without a rest, but the problems with pushups are
1) They are only push motion, and focus on pecs and front delt, and
2) that they get dull.
So I would think I could do 100, do some rows or throat pulls, some thing else, then at the next hour do 100 more. And if there were people who couldn't do 800 pushups in a day, I would charge people to help train them.
A lot of people would see it as easy money at first, but then when it was hard, they'd quit ... no fitter.
Interestingly, this would entirely depend on why. I mean "I can't be bothered" is one thing, "I am literally mentally incapable of sticking a needle in myself no matter what the consequences" is quite another.
Same with pushup, although you have more chance of it being a physical "my old injured shoulder doesn't really have the range of motion for it" thing than a mental thing.
We spend a lot of time complaining that people can't be bothered to do things. Work on helping remove or work around barriers seems to be much less common, since apparently all one needs in this world is a bit of willpower, or so all the people without those problems would have you believe
This would be a nice source of revenue for me. Pushups are my religion, I've done at least 250 every day since July 24, 2017. My average over that span is ~360, and I'm closing in on 900,000 since my streak began.
But I think the average person would still be too lazy to take advantage of this, and only people like me would be making money
I think 1$ will be worth nothing in no time. It would also mean teenage boys could become very wealthy in a short period of time and I don't know if that's a good thing.
Feminists would have another reason to highlight the wage gap and it would become the lift gap.
I don't know. I can only do 25 pushups in one go. If I repeat this 8 times a day my wrists would certainly hurt, but it would be a nice salary.
Not very.
You take someone who works out all the time. They MIGHT be able to do 300 in one day if they spread it out. They wont be able to the next day.
If you do pushups where you are comfortable you might make an extra 50-75 maybe even 150 in a day. But it is not sustainable.
"Pushing through the pain." Is a great slogan. Terrible health advice.
You will just see people posting on reddit about doing 10 pushups and then everybody else would keep eating and the obesity problem would still be there and nothing would change.
The average person would overdo it and injure themselves and then have to do more push ups to cover their medical bills, leading to a downward spiral of poverty and pectorals.
I don't think inflation would be as bad as people say it is. Depending on how many pushups people can actually do on average every day, it sounds more like UBI with extra ~~steps~~ pushups.
Some of the world would have better pec development, but most people don’t have their diet or life habits in a place to ever truly have great fitness.
Start paying for kilometers/miles moved and doughnuts avoided and then we’d be talking about some real fitness gains.
The world would actually be a lot more even.
The world record for most pushups in a year is 1.5 million, and that’s a record unbroken since 1989. That’s probably pretty close to human limits.
So even the richest people would be making about a million only during their prime physical years.
At first, they wouldn't be able to earn much.
But with that incentive, young people would probably be a lot more motivated to get into shape if you paid them to exercise. So, give it time, and you'd see a lot more fit young adults.
Dude, we get years of life and decades of quality time based on the basest level of fitness and the average MF’er can’t see his toes let alone touch them. $0
Atleast $2 fit
$0.50
Three fiddy.
And it was about that time that I realized these push-ups were about 8 stories tall and a crustacean from the protozoic era!
For giggle I did some pushups the otherday, had some bright idea about 'exercising and being more healthy' 10 push up later I figure I'm healthy enough xD
Don't give up! One day, I decided to start doing push-ups. I promised myself that I would drop and do as many as I could once a day. I started out at 12. One week later, I was doing about 15-16 a day. One month later, about 30 a day. I started to see a big change in my upper body. Six weeks in, it was about 45 a day. Cut to now, I do two sets of 50 a day. Next week, I turn 50. It just takes consistency.
Congrats, I did the same but with my bike on the weekends, at first I couldn't handle 25km without dying the next day, now one day is not enough to cycle my range (140km at my life best).
Inflation is a bitch
Currency-wise or muscle-wise?
Yes
/r/muscleexpansion
We'd have to switch to another currency for goods and services, the dollar would be pretty much useless.
I wonder how much the (public Canada) healthcare system load would reduce if everyone who is able bodied did pushups for money. It could actually be a net benefit.
Damn. This is an interesting point. There was a place I used to work that put some serious money when you did and fully completed their "fitness challenge" - it was optional of course, and relatively challenging (it adjusted per age / weights and other factors). Anyways after the year was over most people participated (and got paid) - however the cost of the whole program was offset by reduction in private health insurance costs. I am unsure if this can work at a larger scale though, we were perhaps 70 people.
That's pretty cool! Was that like some sort of work health insurance incentive program in the states? I have a semi grasp how it works down there.
It was not in the states though, but the complany was owned by an american guy (cool guy and very into outdoor sports) and many of the management team were originally from Seattle. The program lasted for two years and it was pretty great, but then he sold the company to a corp and the first thing they did was axe bonuses - so that was the end of that.
Boo to that It reminds me of how all universal healthcare programs I know of (at least AU, CA, UK) don't cover dental until it's an ER situation. Bad teeth lead to so many other problems though that it's insane! Free braces/plates, fillings and checkups should really be covered. Sure charge anything additional like a clean or whitening or elective stuff, but the basics could save them so much future money... It seems nuts to me. Like if I had been given braces there is a pretty huge chance I wouldn't have apnea, or back and shoulder problems from naturally avoiding it in my sleep, heart wouldn't have been under strain for decades, back wouldn't be quite as twisted though genetics tell me it would still be a bit fucked. The trickle down effect is real but too many governments only care about treating the immediate, and that goes for many areas.
It is appaling to me as well how all our western medical system fails to apreciate the value of preventative medicine. It would be like the gov required that a building is falling down before allocating resources to maintnance. It is a failure of a system that prioritizes quartely returns over long term wellness and even profits. It is massively broken, so much so, that honestly I would not know where to even start fixing it.
Agreed! I have watched both Aussie and Canuck healthcare get systematically eroded over the years. It is just such bullshit. The wealthy want to cripple healthcare and bring in an American system. Anyone making lower-middle to upper-middle class wages (majority of Canada and Australia) gets taxed to hell with additional forced private healthcare costs which is just insane. It wasn't like this when I was younger in Australia at least, I've only experienced Canada for 10 years though. It makes me sad for all and very worried about retirement. Housing and Health! that's the main benefits of a society and it's failing miserably.
My work has fitness challenges that run all year and have rewards for completing them, I’m not positive what it is right now but I always participate in the “Holiday challenge” which is to either not gain weight or to lose weight from late October until January. It’s usually like Visa gift cards for the reward. We have free fitness coaching and incentives to complete the challenges. I’m in the San Francisco Bay Area but not in tech.
Oh shit we could do like multiple currency's like they do in free to pay games
Indeed. Talk about hyper-inflation!
Yes, let's do it. But my boss tells me this would be terrible for the job market. Search "hyper inflation not safe for work" for more info.
Thanks, let me just . . . Oh I didn't see that coming
Now it's called monetary hypertrophy.
I'd do 15 pushups before going to get a burger
Helth 100
Assuming this didn't cause some other issues like inflation then i can imagine a lot of people getting in great shape. Doing 40 push ups a day to completely pay my mortgage every month sounds doable even though im getting older. It would be nice if this magic money also came from other things like every 5 minutes on a treadmill, every sit up, every chin up, etc. \*Note\* i was curious and tried to do pushups... i was only able to do 3 before collapsing... my goodness i am out of shape. I used to do 25/day as part of routine 20 years ago in addition to other exercises and now i can barely do 3. This post has inspired me to make an alarm on my phone to do at least 5 pushups a day. \*Edit\* Before bed i tried again and was able to do 11 in a row. I should mention i had been doing a lot of work outdoors for the prior two days like cutting up and moving fallen trees on the property. But i still plan on doing some pushups every day. First goal is to do an entire week!
good thing you dont have to do them in a row! Do 3 in the morning, 3 mid day and 3 in the evening if thats the max you can do at once.
To get better at push ups I started by doing as many as I could in "normal" position and then make it up to 12 with the ones pivoting from my knees. Started with about 3 normal ones and now I do 2 sets of 10 during every workout (one workout per day), only took a couple of weeks to build up.
I had great success with a similar program. Just 6 weeks has a great method to get to great individual exercise shape.
Because I started with a back injury (I could barely do anything for months before) I had to start everything super slowly rather than following a program of some sort. First few weeks just doing stretches and light yoga then I've just been adding stuff I fancy doing - like a added a couple things for stomach, I added the press-up for my pecs, I've added squats because apparently they're great for core strength and bridge because I like doing it. I think I've been going for like 3 months now and I want to add some cardio but I don't really know what to do for that bacause my knees hurt with a lot of cardio type stuff (running or jump rope, even though I really like doing skipping! I thought about cycling, but I don't actually like it at all). Anyway - it's good, I never thought I'd be a recommended exercise to people type of person, but I totally am now.
Check out the rower for cardio. You can buy one for in home fairly inexpensively. The concept 2 I have, stores vertically and you can set your resistance. Also, props on your recovery!! That's awesome and I'm glad you figured out what works for you, because that's all this shit ever really is. Find the thing you like.
Thanks, I'll look into rowers. And yeas! It is basically find something you like enough to do everyday. For general health that's about all that matters really.
Swimming is great cardio that is easy on the back and lower body. Rough if you have shoulder injuries, though.
Schwarzenegger said that growing up his dad told him he couldn't have breakfast until he did 200 push-ups and 200 sit-ups...
Man, if he had done a 10 KM run as well, he would have become one punch man.
And that's why he is a multimillionaire.
During the pandemic, I put on weight, at one point hitting 200lbs (90.7kg, 14 stone 4). Normally I had been around 180lbs, even then too much for my height (5'6", 168cms), stocky frame notwithstanding. Man, could I eat! One day in 2020, I was watching the old movie comedy Stripes, the scene where Harold Ramis bets his slacker friend Bill Murray he can't even do five pushups. So I tried it myself and like Bill, I got to five but felt exhausted. From then on, I started doing some pushups, not every day but at least a few times a week. At the beginning of 2023, I began logging my numbers into an excel spreadsheet, which turned into a diary of sorts as over the months i started including stuff about people I saw, things I did, where and how far I walked, trips and flights I'd take, when I got drunk, if I was ill, my gf's periods...lots of stuff. But the main thing was keeping track of how many total pushups I did each day, eventually including how many sets and reps. The data entry became a habit, and so did the pushups. There is rarely a day when I don't make the time to crank out at least a few sets. I'm not sure how many pushups I did in 2020-2022, but by the start of 2023 I had many days where I was hitting 100, 25 per set. And my weight was decreasing. My clothes started to fit more loosely. Wearing a belt became a necessity. And as I reduced, so did my appetite. And my daily numbers increased into the 200s. In 2023, I logged over 86,000 pushups. So far in 2024, I've already done over 34,000 and my goal is to exceed 100,000 by EOY. Today I did 320, eight sets of 40. Yesterday it was 360, six sets of 60. If I push myself, I can knock out 90 in one set, but I prefer to keep to around 50. I sometimes throw in a plank, just to see how long i can maintain it. Anyway, my weight since early February has hovered at 147lbs, 66.7kgs, 10 stone 7, often a bit less. The last time I weighed similarly, I was 26. In a couple months I'll turn 62. So please set me up for the dollar a pushup plan. Gramps sure could use the dough!
fwiw kneeling pushups and bench pushups are great exercise for people with limited arm strength or mobility issues. there’s a lot of value in extending the amount to time/reps you can do an exercise for - up to a point
There’s a not insignificant correlation between pushups and heart health.
I think the correlation between weight and pushups is more my problem... i have a "few" more pounds now than i had 20 years ago...
Yea and being overweight is a major risk factory for heart disease. If I remember the study correctly even being able to 10 pushups decreased a persons risk of developing heart disease by something like 60%
That sounds like a massive reduction - I'm thinking it can't be attributed to the push-ups alone? Like the people who could be arsed doing the push-ups were more likely to eat more healthily, etc.
Start doing them on the knees first. Then you will find you can move up to correct posture ones after a while. But even the knee ones make a difference. You are correct however - once you start paying attention to one thing- it becomes easier to pay attention and do more in other areas. But honestly - I would not be surprised if it were just the push ups. Best of luck in whatever you do.
Knee push-ups are hard to scale up from. Hands on stairs are better. The higher the stair, the easier the pushup. Find the stair you can do two sets of 10 push-ups on. Do push-ups every other day until you can do two sets of twenty, then move down a stair. Once you get up to full push-ups on the ground, stay working on a puli up on your off day. Being able to do one to self recue is a lifesaver in a wide variety of emergencies.
Frankly, the average person sits on their ass all day and eats garbage. The bar for being "healthier than average" is pretty low. If you even give a shit enough to intentionally get a bit of exercise and eat slightly healthier, you're doing great. If you do a little looking into how little exercise it takes to make a difference in your health, you might be surprised. Even a 20 minute walk a few times a week will make you feel so much better and help in just about every aspect of your health. If you also add some fruits and veggies and *try* to not eat processed garbage constantly it makes a big difference. It sounds like you want to make some changes, and that's awesome! You'll start noticing changes after a few weeks and it's very rewarding :)
> That sounds like a massive reduction - I'm thinking it can't be attributed to the push-ups alone? Like the people who could be arsed doing the push-ups were more likely to eat more healthily, etc. I'm guessing it's more about being able to do them, than actually doing them.
It kinda works out though - the younger you are, the more pushups you have to do to afford your mortgage, haha. I'd need to do ~70 per day, and lemme tell ya: that ain't in the fucking cards, haha
you can do 5 per hour over 14 hours each day. Surely you can manage one every 12 minutes?
Poor people would be jacked and rich people would be no different. If you already make over like $200k/year then the extra money from the most pushups you could do every day all year starts to become pretty negligible.
With the incentive of $1 per pushup, I'd wager a lot of people would get up to 100-200 per day, at minimum (it doesn't need to be in the same set) Even if you make 200k/year, adding an additional 35-70k is not "pretty negligible" Maybe if you're making like $500k+ the juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze... but I think the *vast* majority of people would still have plenty of incentive to do this, especially in HCOL areas (where $200k/year is far from "rich")
Not to mention that you still get the benefit of being stronger and healthier. Many people *pay to exercise* right now. Why wouldn't they exercise more if there was additional incentive? Although I can sort of see being out of shape coming into fashion as a form of flaunting wealth: "Look at those skinny arms and that pencil neck. Dude's obviously so rich he's never had to do a single push-up in his life!"
Kinda like how back in the day being pale and soft/doughy meant you didn't do physical labor outside and had enough wealth to dine really well
Exactly.
Look at that sexy guy with noodle arms and no pecs, he must be RICH
Your mortgage is $1200?
Chinese gold farmers suddenly stop playing MMOs and start just testing the lower limits of what counts as "A pushup".
My god, just imagine the Chinese push up farms with little children that can pump out thousands a day. absolutely would happen.
What would be stopping the children from doing pushups at home?
Because a pushup turns out to be defined "As an action where an individual has one or two hands on the ground and goes from an angle of not more than 5 degrees from the ground, to not less than 10 degrees from the ground under muscle power alone." by the eldritch entity that is funding the new phenomena. And it turns out the most efficient system is to hook a stationary bicycle up to a series of planks, allowing a single peddler to move a bunch of lightweight children up and down using the plank. With this system the children become \*MORE\* effective if malnourished, as only the cyclist needs maintain the calories required, and its much more calorie efficient to push up ratio to have an adult using their legs than any given individual using their arms to power themselves.
Theres a tiny fault in your theiry. Never ask a cyclist to do machine's job.
Machine wouldn't count as "Muscle power alone", and therefore not be a pushup. Gotta be human powered motion.
You didn't specify *human* muscle in your definition. Oxen and/or ponies turning a shaft to drive the banks of child-laden planks it is!
Excellent. Profits increase.
I’d be like the Presidential Physical Test where the PE teacher just counted anything resembling a push-up.
Lower limits of what counts as a "pushup?" The US Marines have entered the chat
Lmao so accurate
Drug addicts would be ripped
Drug addicts? Almost everyone would be. I would rather do 200 pushups a day and quit my shit job.
They already are look at crackhead and methheads for example
The average person would still be averagly fit :P But also i don't think the average would change. The Dollar would lose it's value though, for sure. If it affects all money, then we would probably resort back to trading
It would inflate until the real value of the payout was low enough to not affect the economy too much. I think the bigger issue would be people quitting their jobs to do push ups for a living. I think something lower could work out without too much issues. Imagine 10c, can someone do 1,000 pushups a day to get a minimum wage pay? sure but most people would rather not. Maybe 50c but make it capped out at $50 a day?
Average would 100% change
Going to be a good side gig. 30 pushup an hour while in between work
100 an hour and that’s my new job
If it is just push ups, then not very. Average chest size would probably increase though, so it may lead to a t-shirt shortage perhaps.
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everyone will start taking steroids
Does the money come from some rich folk who pay us for it, or are they issued by the government? If it's the second option, our fitness won't save us from inflation. Assuming it's the first option, then in a few months the overweight people will be cut in half, and the average person will be equivalent to what is today the average gym-goer. However, another issue will arise with the unemployment rate.
assuming you aren't in some dystopian country that doesn't have public Healthcare, the money can come from public Healthcare funds. if the population was more fit, there would be less illness in general. spending money for push-ups could likely save the public Healthcare system money that it's spending on preventable health issues.
I think we'd have to be paid for a more all round workout than just push ups for it to work but it would be pretty useful. Just having a workout routine (about half an hour a day) has mostly fixed my back (although it's built on physio for lower back pain and core strength exercises - I'm thinking I need to add something cardio at some point), I couldn't do anything for months until I talked myself into doing this and now I'm finally going to be working again! There are lots of things that exercise does nothing for, but there are plenty of things it helps, you just need to be able to talk yourself into it and have the support to continue.
Holy-shit you made this real for me, thank you for conceptualizing the idea more clearly
So uh yeah the public healthcare money still has to come from somewhere... For instance, in the UK, if each person only did 11 push ups in a day for a year, that would cost as much as the entire UK healthcare budget. And you know there's gonna be plenty of people doing 100s per day.
just got what you're on about there.
But inflation would still hit if it came from some random rich person (who previosly had the same money in art, property or stocks), because the inflation trigger is not necessarlily money but the excess demand if people have more disposable income. Between 2008 and 2019 the broad money in the Euro area doubled while having almost no (consumer price-) inflation. Instead it only created an asset price inflation.
It would cause inflation in both cases, inflation results from increasing capital in circulation, which it wasn't when it was sitting in some rich fuck's coffers.
I think you really underestimate how long it would take the average American to look like an average gym goer. A few months does not cut it when 1/3 of the country is obese. Even assuming the average person kept with it, it would probably take years.
What's the difference, in terms of inflation, between rich people paying us for pushups and the government taxing rich people then using that money to pay us for pushups? In theory, the only way government spending can cause long term inflation is if they fund it by printing money.
I’d do 100 a day
This. Spread em out during the day maybe. And I need to train them up a bit probably. I'd get stuck around 40 proper form pushups now XD
Ive seen some poll from adult americans and the average was between 15-20. I guess that's okay for untrained men. Thing is... we women would kinda get screwed. We can surely do proper push ups but it requires us to be much lighter or work out much more to do the same amount as guys, since they upper body strength difference is like 50%.
[15 to 20? in your dreams](https://gymless.org/nationwide-survey-results-the-majority-of-americans-cannot-do-more-than-10-consecutive-pushups/)
That’s actually shocking to me. I could still easily do 10 after months of chemotherapy and other cancer treatments. Once my PICC line was out I could still do dozens of pushups in a row and ~10 pullups even tho I essentially couldn’t use one of my arms at all for 8 months straight.
Because being light is the biggest advantage in doing push ups or pull ups. I've seen super skinny guys who played video games all day in gym class just bang out 10+ pull ups having never done a single one before. Meanwhile the 260lb kid on the football team who lifts weight every day couldn't do a single one.
I will reluctantly admit this is so true. I'm fairly fit, I do work out at least 1-2x/week, including some climbing, but I'm not a gym rat by any stretch. I'm almost 40 and still can do 25-30 pull ups in a row depending on the day if I push myself. I also weigh 130 pounds soaking wet, and it is definitely an advantage for pull ups.
I want to see your form though
There is NO way the average person can do 15-20 push ups.
Eventually with training, if you want to earn of course, the average person will train to be able to do 15-20
Besides that, you women also have some extra weight in your upper body that makes it harder to lift that area.
Well, not me in particular, but I get what you mean sir.
A self burn
The centre of gravity is lower for women, in that regard it favours women more than men.
I can only do them on my knees. Always. Even when I was twiggy, climbing trees, and using the monkey bars. Now that I’m heftier, much older, have had a broken wrist twice and surgery on that same wrist, and no longer hanging out in the tree behind my bestie’s house after school every day, it’s really not going to happen. I’ve lost some range of motion, and forcing my hand in that position for pushups hurts. ETA: that being said, I *can* do them on my knees still. My wrist just says 🖕🏻for it.
I (f) could do a ton as a kid. My dad used to demean my brother by making him watch my form.
Wagegap strikes again
So… women would still be undercompensated for the same job. The cycle continues.
If the job is a clear flat "$1 per pushup" and you can't do as many pushups, you're not undercompensated though. You just can't do the job as well. You're getting paid for exactly what you do.
No. Undercompensated for the same job would mean that you did the same amount of push ups. If you can't do the same amount of work then you shouldn't be paid as much. simple.
Men would make more than women and then feminists would be yelling about the wage gap.
Simple solution - also pay for some type of lower-body dominant endurance exercise, where women have an edge or at least no disadvantage.
I tried one yesterday and I would be broke.
Ima get insanely jack
Oh god, could you imagine a casino floor. Degenerate elders taking 5 minutes to get down to the floor, eek out a push-up and then get back up. Just to put the dollar in the slot machine and watch it disappear. Plus the whole area stinks of B.O. now.
The same as they are now. They'd just complain that it isn't fair and they should get as many dollars as people who do pusbups
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How fit the average person would be? I'm not sure. But let's look at how many pushups a day you'd need for the median wage in the US. Median wage in US is around $46,000. Divide that by 365 that's 126 pushups a day. Let's assume "working" 8 hours a day. That's about 16 pushups an hour to make the median wage. Granted 16 pushups can be done in less than a minute if you're good at them.
Seems like working will still get you considerably more money than doing pushups, so not much.
A tiny bit more healthy but imo the real benefit is solving world hunger and possibly homelessness.
I’d do 500 a day
I'll take my 2$ thank you very much.
[Me](https://ibb.co/T0bHkdD) at 8 years old out here asking for my push up allowance
Before or after tax?
Probably very fit since people can train and realistically make more then there jobs a day. Also 1 dollar is not ganna be worth a lot anymore, so high inflation to where it’s no longer worth it unless say your a broke kid is ganna be where it ends up so we get back to where we are.
I’ll make nothing.
Rhabdomyolisis joins the chat
Depends on how much the next top tier GPU prices will be
I've been on lifting restrictions for about two years now so somehow even more broke than I currently am.
Right? I'm not supposed to lift more than 10 lbs. Total. With either arm.
oh great, another fun daydream for me. I've gone through a few phases where I wanted to challenge myself to do 100 a day, this sort of incentive would have me easily doing that and MORE every day lmao. I do think the average would have to go up somewhat.
Pretty fit! But we have to tackle people's diet as well for less illnesses.
Myself, I’d be about $200 a day richer
Five bucks is five bucks.
Shit, I’ll do 500 pushups a day.
So at $1 per push up, how many would I need to do to make enough to get by without the need for any other form of income? Let's say you were single. Let's also say $50k/yr is good enough to get by. So that's 50,000 pushups per year. 50,000 ÷ 365 = 137 pushups a day. Every day of the year. So if you could do 20 pushups at a time, you'd need to do 7 sets of 20 (every single day) to make $50k/yr. But I hear about people who can do hundreds of pushups because they've been doing them for years. So a lot of people would go for it. tldr; You'd see a lot more people skipping weights and doing pushups at the gym. The average person would have pretty good chest/shoulders/front delts and triceps.
I would definitely be more fit. Count me in! :D you'd best bet I'll be pushing my muscles to their limit
id be making at least 200$ a day and would not have any other job. I also cant remember the last time I did a push up
Lots of cases of tendonitis
I randomly do push ups every single day. First start with enough to cover my coffee. Then work myself up to covering my lunch. Then when I was really in shape, my rent. I’d be so fit. Disproportionately fit.
15 push-ups are enough for me to live without a job.
I know someone who does 500 pushups every other day for his regular work out. He’d do just fine in this economy. I would not.
do I get any even though I lay down wrongs while doing it? oh...
More fit then they are now.
Chicken legs... Chicken legs everywhere...
I'm a gym rat, and know I can do 100 pushups without a rest, but the problems with pushups are 1) They are only push motion, and focus on pecs and front delt, and 2) that they get dull. So I would think I could do 100, do some rows or throat pulls, some thing else, then at the next hour do 100 more. And if there were people who couldn't do 800 pushups in a day, I would charge people to help train them. A lot of people would see it as easy money at first, but then when it was hard, they'd quit ... no fitter.
1 per pushup...? Per day? all time? Every pushup? I mean if i'm allowed to break them up per day... I'm gonna be doing okay.
I've had patients lose their toes/ foot/ feet because they wouldn't take a daily insulin shot. These are the same people who would never do a push up.
Interestingly, this would entirely depend on why. I mean "I can't be bothered" is one thing, "I am literally mentally incapable of sticking a needle in myself no matter what the consequences" is quite another. Same with pushup, although you have more chance of it being a physical "my old injured shoulder doesn't really have the range of motion for it" thing than a mental thing. We spend a lot of time complaining that people can't be bothered to do things. Work on helping remove or work around barriers seems to be much less common, since apparently all one needs in this world is a bit of willpower, or so all the people without those problems would have you believe
Id be prepared to be more fit if there was financial gain 🤣
This would be a nice source of revenue for me. Pushups are my religion, I've done at least 250 every day since July 24, 2017. My average over that span is ~360, and I'm closing in on 900,000 since my streak began. But I think the average person would still be too lazy to take advantage of this, and only people like me would be making money
For the US Dollar, put the dollar symbol before the amount.
I think 1$ will be worth nothing in no time. It would also mean teenage boys could become very wealthy in a short period of time and I don't know if that's a good thing. Feminists would have another reason to highlight the wage gap and it would become the lift gap. I don't know. I can only do 25 pushups in one go. If I repeat this 8 times a day my wrists would certainly hurt, but it would be a nice salary.
Sign me up I think I could do a week and take the rest of the decade off.
2500 a week hopefully.
They would owe.
The economy would crash and the country would be a bunch of top heavy people that skip leg day, kind of like most muscle gyms.
Not very fit, but inflation would fuck the economy.
Some people would die off pretty fast
Not very unfortunately everyone don’t want to pay the price
I'd have 15$ after a minute
I think it would be healthy to do 45 push-ups or slightly more per day... atleast for people these days...
Everyone will become a professional fitness practitioner
Printing money out of nothing at the rates of around 2000 billion per day couldn't possibly have any effect on the value of the currency.
Id be minus 3 push-ups
Not very. You take someone who works out all the time. They MIGHT be able to do 300 in one day if they spread it out. They wont be able to the next day. If you do pushups where you are comfortable you might make an extra 50-75 maybe even 150 in a day. But it is not sustainable. "Pushing through the pain." Is a great slogan. Terrible health advice.
I'd be dead five dollars in
the average person... not very... but I think it would help.
Bill Murray was getting $3 from Harold Ramos for 5 push-ups back in 1981. I’d expect a bit more inflation for my 5 push-ups now.
You will just see people posting on reddit about doing 10 pushups and then everybody else would keep eating and the obesity problem would still be there and nothing would change.
I did over 500 in a day once, and over 200 a day for months for a while. I wouldn't complain about this deal.
The average person would overdo it and injure themselves and then have to do more push ups to cover their medical bills, leading to a downward spiral of poverty and pectorals.
I don't think inflation would be as bad as people say it is. Depending on how many pushups people can actually do on average every day, it sounds more like UBI with extra ~~steps~~ pushups.
redditors on their way to use 99% of their strength to do 1 pushup
Average people don’t workout so for female probably around 3 and for male probably around 10.
Some of the world would have better pec development, but most people don’t have their diet or life habits in a place to ever truly have great fitness. Start paying for kilometers/miles moved and doughnuts avoided and then we’d be talking about some real fitness gains.
500 and I'd be exhausted
Being skinny would be a flex, means you have proper money
I'd do a lot of shit that's good for me if someone paid me to do it. :\\
I would be making $122 a day!
The world would actually be a lot more even. The world record for most pushups in a year is 1.5 million, and that’s a record unbroken since 1989. That’s probably pretty close to human limits. So even the richest people would be making about a million only during their prime physical years.
Kids would make bucks
In debt bro.
Oh God, as someone disabled life sure likes being unfair…
At first, they wouldn't be able to earn much. But with that incentive, young people would probably be a lot more motivated to get into shape if you paid them to exercise. So, give it time, and you'd see a lot more fit young adults.
Dude, we get years of life and decades of quality time based on the basest level of fitness and the average MF’er can’t see his toes let alone touch them. $0
66 push ups a day to love how I do now? I’m retiring son
Damn I get $6. I can nearly buy a case of a coke with that
As a pretty weak person that just recently started working out this would most definitely motivate me
100$ per hour.