That’s a bit of an odd title, I know, but I’m not sure how else to word it. Given the recent fascination with pushups, I got to wondering about how much weight you’re actually moving when you do a pushup.
Asked another way:
What’s the bench press equivalent of a pushup?
Of course, these are rather different exercises, and the weight distribution changes as you move through the pushup motion, so it’s not possible to directly compare the two in a particularly meaningful way. Nonetheless, I’m curious about how much weight you’re moving up and down when you do a pushup.
Armed with nothing more than my curiosity and a scale, I set out to answer this question.
The data
I started by weight myself — 236.6 pounds. I then dropped into a fully-extended pushup position with my hands on the scale (albeit with my hands closer together than normal). The reading on the scale? 154 pounds. I then moved to the ‘bottom’ position of the pushup (again, with my hands close enough together to get them on the scale) and took another reading — 178 pounds.
The bottom line
Based on the numbers above, it appears that you’re moving approximately 65% of your body weight at full extension, whereas this number goes up to roughly 75% when you drop to the bottom position.
Of course, these numbers depend on a variety of factors — for example, arm placement, how far you drop during the pushup motion, and the distribution of weight over your body (if you’re “top heavy,” you’ll be pushing proportionally more weight). Nonetheless, it appears that you are moving roughly 70% of your body weight when doing pushups.
What about knee pushups?
A common way for people to start out when doing pushups is to do “knee pushups.” How much easier are these than regular pushups? I explored that, too, though only for the fully extended position. In this case, I was at roughly 116 pounds in the fully extended position, which is roughly 50% of my body weight or 75% of the “regular” pushup load.
So there you have it… When doing “normal” pushups, you’re moving somewhere in the ballpark of 70% of your body weight, whereas this decreases to just over 50% of your body weight with knee pushups.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:49 am
It never even occurred to me to test this, but very fascinating results. If you wanted something more accurate for the standard pushup position, you could place a board across the scale and weigh yourself with the board, and that would then allow you to place your arms farther apart.
Thanks for the numbers. Now I’m going to have to test this myself…
July 11th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
The Flying Pig Marathon, etc… has a “Pump and Run” which uses 75% of body weight for a 19-39 yr old male http://www.pumpandrunrace.com/
July 12th, 2008 at 5:20 am
I’ve often wondered about this. One of the instructors at my gym told me about 45% of bodyweight but I suspect he made that statistic up.
July 13th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Readings will change with elevation. Also if you were using a calibrated medical weight machine vs. a home digital/dial the readings will be more accurate on the medical device. You are very close in your observations, however you can’t “actually” weigh a press-up, because your body weight would be shifting to find equilibrium and thus prove it impossible to get a full fledged answer.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:29 am
That’s very interesting, actually, and something I’d never really considered before – I would have assumed it was around 60 per cent or so. Basically the body minus the legs.
Having said all that the current near-obsession around the Internets with the 100-pushup plan continues to bemuse me!
July 15th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Interesting study. I quit my gym contract and instead do a daily office workout every 2 hours with different exercises using my own body weight, which is getting me better results.
What I don’t quite understand is that supposing a push up is 70% of my bodyweight; how come I can do twice as many push ups in contrast to bench presses using the same weight?
July 15th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Agreed with Alex, I can do over 100 pushups but could definitely not approach that number on bench press. I believe the reason could be that although you are “moving” 75% of your body weight, most of your body’s muscles are involved in the moment. I am thinking maybe it is possible that 50% of the “weight” in a pushup is supported by the other muscles in your body – core, legs etc. That would explain why it is so much easier than the equivalent weight on the bench.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:23 am
I agree with anon regarding the supporting muscle groups. Shoulders are a biggie too!
July 15th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Alex: Bench presses isolate a smaller number of muscles, so they are not quite the same thing. Perhaps the larger number of muscles involved in a pushup makes them easier? Also, the range of motion is a bit different — bench presses are “deeper” than a typical pushup which arguably makes it more difficult.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:01 am
I had often wondered about this but never thought of this ridiculously simple way to measure it. Cheers!
July 27th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I never actually measured this. If you don’t know, the Nintendo Wii fit works by using this principle.
July 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am
This is why, in order to have the best pushups is to go down as far as possible.
Also, it’s why putting your legs up higher than your hands (I do it on a chair) makes them much more difficult. You push up much more weight. Until, eventually, you’re straight up and down handstand-style and you’re pushing 100% of your weight.
July 30th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
when you talk about weight, you are really talking about the force that you and the earth exert against each other due to gravity. But this force is the product of mass and acceleration. The faster you push yourself up, the more the push up with ‘weigh’. If you move at a slow, steady speed, the ‘weight’ will approach that of when you are stopped in a pushup position.
November 9th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I’d like to believe that a pushup is 65% because that would mean that at 82.5kg bodyweight and with a 30kg weight on my back I am doing (82.5 x .65 + 30) = 83.5kg
Hurrah! I can press my own body weight (8 times!)
However since the most I have ever done is 75kg in the bench I would have to say it is nearer 45-50% which would mean I am pressing the equivalent of about 68kg which actually feels far more realistic to me.
Hope this helps anyone interested in the matter.