Can girls do more push ups than boys?

hehehaha

My friend said that girls can do more push ups than boys since boys are heavy weight. Then in military service, why are there more push ups for boys to pass? That's the question.

Panda

The ability to do Push-ups is upper body strength versus body mass. Increased Upper-body strength does increase body mass but not as much as the additional strength.
I have never seen anything that has indicated that Women are stronger than Men in any muscle group where equal training has been carried out, hence the majority of sports being seperate for men and women.

hehehaha

But aren't boys heavy weight?

Panda

But they have bigger muscles assuming an equal level of fitness. If you take a man and women of the same fitness level and same height the man will be slightly heavier but will have more muscle strength that more than compensates for the increased mass.
All anthropomorphic studies have come to the conclusion that in direct comparison men are stronger than women.

russ_watters

I was in the Navy and I never saw any women get within about 40% as many pushups as the better men (70 - 80 vs 120 - 130). For men, however, the skinnier ones (like me!) were often able to do more pushups because pushups don't actually require much strength, just muscle endurance. A muscle-bound guy may do 5 reps per set at near double his weight in a bench-press, but that doesn't help much if you want to do 120 pushups in 2 minutes.

radou

Muscle endurance yes, but I thought the mass also plays an important role (?).

eaboujaoudeh

i'm also surprised with this difference too, i mean girls want equalities!! now we demand equality in the army..everyone should do the same excercices!!

Moonbear

One thing to consider in addressing the original question is...at what age? It is quite common for 13 yr-old girls to outperform 13-yr old boys in tests of strength. Boys peak in strength several years later than girls due to a later onset of puberty. This is part of the reason why you'll notice such a big difference in age between girls and boys participating in Olympic level sports such as gymnastics. The female gymnasts are usually at their peak performance levels for such activities around 13-15 years old. The male athletes are reaching peak performance closer to 18 years old.

You also have to ask at what level of training you want to make comparisons. Unless you're specifying a high level of training, among the general population you'll find plenty of men who can't do a single push-up and women who can do 100s.

Keep in mind that push ups are not only dependent on arm strength either, but also the strength of back and abdominal muscles if you're using proper form. You use a little bit of leg muscles, but not much relative to other workouts. So, it's not enough to just look at the size of the muscles in the arms, but also at entire upper body strength.

russ_watters

Not really. When doing a pushup, you are lifting only perhaps 3/4 of your body's weight. There is just no need to be musclebound. And for those who are, most of that added weight is toward the upper-body, so most of it adds to the amount you have to lift (meaning if you are skinnier, your center of gravity is lower).

russ_watters

It may be worthwhile to note that the specific combination of strength(...to weight ratio), flexibility, and agillity required for gymnastics and similar sports (figure skating) favors women. Women are superior to men in most aspects of those sports.

That said, in gymnastics, anyway, the physique women have is physically damaging to them. It is unhealthy and unnatural. The same is true of both male and female powerlifters.

Azael

Why do you say male powerlifters have unhealthy bodies? Might be true for the super heavyweights but I dont se how it would apply for the middle weights. The lightweights might be pushing it a bit but only around contest time.

Most powerlifters and weightlifters do not carry any obscene ammounts of musclemass either.

hehehaha

So you mean girls can do more push ups than boys?

Monique

I once beat a classmate with arm-wrestling But I am not that delusional to think that I am stronger than guys, I always need to ask a male-labmate to help me open the liquid nitrogen tank. As for push-ups, I'd be happy if I could do a single proper push-up.

pakmingki

what exactly is the difference between muscle strength and muscle endurance?
How mutually exclusive are they from each other?

russ_watters

The muscles are physically different: http://members.shaw.ca/bodybuilding/...structure.html

That's why distance runners' bodies and sprinters' bodies are very different from each other. Different workouts yield different muscles.

russ_watters

Yes, it was probably an overgeneralization. A lot has to do with diet, drugs, and suppliments screwing with your body chemistry, but too much exercising alone can do that too. I probably shouldn't have limited it to powerlifters - too much running (I'm not sure if it is the exercise itself or the low body fat) can be harmful as well.

russ_watters

In general, the answer is no. But when you ask broad, vague questions, you get a lot of caveats.

You seem to be very hung up on the issue of physical strength differences between the sexes. You shouldn't be - it isn't a big deal.