Push-Ups vs. Bench Press Differences in Repetitions and Muscle Activation between Sexes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Push-ups are an ubiquitous resistance training exercise. While exhibiting a relatively similar upper body motion to the bench press, there are substantial differences in repetitions when employing similar relative loads. The objective was to examine sex-related differences in repetitions and muscle activation associated with push-ups and bench press exercises. Twenty resistance-trained participants (10 men [22 ± 6.1 years] and 10 [24 ± 5.7 years] women) performed maximum push-up and bench press repetitions with loads relative to the body mass during a push-up. Electromyographic (EMG) electrodes were positioned on the middle and anterior deltoids, triceps and biceps brachii, and pectoralis major muscles and their relative (normalized to a maximum voluntary contraction) activity was compared between the two exercises performed to task failure. Both females (3.5 ± 3.9 vs.15.5 ± 8.0 repetitions; p = 0.0008) and males (12.0 ± 6.3 vs. 25.6 ± 5.2 repetitions; p < 0.0001) performed 77.4% and 53.1% less bench press than push-up repetitions respectively. Males significantly exceeded females with both push-ups (p = 0.01) and bench press (p = 0.004) repetitions. Significant linear regression equations were found for females (r2 = 0.55; p = 0.03), and males (r2 = 0.66; p < 0.0001) indicating that bench press repetitions increased 0.36 and 0.97 for each push-up repetition for females and males respectively. Triceps (p = 0.002) and biceps brachii (p = 0.03) EMG mean amplitude was significantly lower during the push-up concentric phase, while the anterior deltoid (p = 0.03) exhibited less activity during the bench press eccentric phase. The sex disparity in repetitions during these exercises indicates that a push-up provides a greater challenge for women than men and regression equations may be helpful for both sexes when formulating training programs.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".