Can Pushups Make You Fat?

All forms of exercise are designed to help you build muscle, burn fat or both. Pushups are an effective body-weight exercise that you can perform at home or at the gym and help to increase your upper-body strength. In itself, this exercise will not make you fat, although if you combine it with an unhealthy diet and a lack of aerobic exercise, you're unlikely to be satisfied with your fitness results.

  1. Pushup Form

    • The pushup is an exercise designed to build your pectoral muscles, which are the muscles that make up your chest. This exercise requires no equipment and there are a number of variations that you can attempt as well. Lie on the floor on your chest, bend your elbows, tuck your toes under, and place your hands on the floor just outside your shoulders. While tightening your core muscles to keep your body straight, straighten your arms and lift your body so that you’re resting on your hands and toes. Keep your core tight and descend to the starting position to finish your first rep.

    Losing Fat

    • Losing fat is all about burning more calories through exercise or other activities than you consume through food and drink. Pushups are an effective muscle-building exercise, but they won’t help you burn calories at a rapid rate. Harvard Medical School reports that a 155-pound person will burn just 167 calories in 30 minutes of moderate-intensity calisthenics. To lose 1 pound of fat, it's necessary to burn an excess of 3,500 calories.

    Gaining Fat

    • Exercises do not make you fat, but you'll gain weight if you consume more calories than you burn. If you perform a set of pushups daily, it can be easy to think that this workout allows you to eat excessively, but given the low rate of calories you'll burn during pushups, this belief is untrue. The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion suggests daily calorie consumption ranges for men and women. Men should consume 2,400 to 3,000 calories per day, and women should consume 1,800 to 2,400 calories daily, on average.

    Aerobic Exercise

    • If you're concerned about gaining weight, despite dedicating yourself to a pushup regimen, add some aerobic exercises to your daily workout. Pushups will help you build muscle, but aerobic exercises are an effective way to burn calories at a high rate to avoid gaining fat. Simple aerobic exercises to consider include swimming, jogging, walking, cycling and jumping rope. A 155-pound person will burn 372 calories, for example, in 30 minutes of jumping rope. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise.