The Magic Number is 40 and it will decrease by 96% your chance of a heart attack

To protect your heart, it might be time to focus on building your upper body strength. Research indicates that men who can complete 40 pushups have a 96 percent lower risk of heart attack compared to those who can only manage 10 pushups.

According to the lead researcher, “Our findings suggest that pushup capacity could serve as a simple, cost-free method to assess cardiovascular disease risk in a wide range of settings. Remarkably, pushup capacity was more strongly linked to cardiovascular disease risk than results from submaximal treadmill tests.”

Want to gauge your own strength? Here’s how:

Set a timer for 90 seconds and do as many full pushups as you can (lower your torso until it’s just above the floor and then press back up). All pushups count within the time limit, provided you don't rest for more than three seconds at any point. In the study, resting longer than three seconds marked the end of your count.

Although the study focused exclusively on men, the importance of upper body strength for heart health likely extends to women, even though an equivalent benchmark for women hasn't been established yet. (Attention, researchers: we need more data on this!)

In the interest of your health, give the pushup test a try and share your results with us!