Doing press-ups, do you lift yourself up? Or do you push the earth down?

Question

Press-ups - push-ups

I say tomato, you say tom-ay-to

Answer 1

actually that's a very interesting question...scientists working at the scripps institute along with other groups from 4 other countries have been doing studies on this phenomenon for the past 6 months. not until the technology for global positioning satelites was perfected did they have a way to measure the exact effect of a human push-up on the earths surface. now that they have pre-determined reference points all over the globe they can actully measure how far the earth actually moves when you push it. turns out mostly you're pushing yourself (due to the mass of the earth) but the earth actually moves when you shove it (in relation to the lunar surface) the preliminary findings show that if all the people on one side of the earth were to do push-ups while the moon is directly opposite them, they could actually make the earth softly bump against the moon, which would start a catastrophic elliptical orbit of the moon around the earth which would eventually end up with the moon flying off into outer space. they don't have any evidence yet as to what ramifications that may have but the prevailing theory is that we would have massive flooding in some areas and drought in others due to the fact that we would no longer have tidal shifts in the ocean. I hope this information is helpful to you.
pete liberty
f.o.i.a.e.a.g.t.o.p.u.
the federation on information and education against the global threat of push ups

Answer 2

It sounds like you're talking about what we call "push ups" around here, as opposed to a bench press. However, "up" is an entirely relative term so the question is only meaningful if you provide a vector of perspective.

Answer 3

You are resisting the combined force of the levered weight of your body plus gravity.
By doing so, you are both pushing the earth down and lifting yourself up.

Answer 4

You push the earth down.

Answer 5

Lift your self up obviously or every time someone done one we would feel the reverberations. the greater object has more of an impact on the smaller object rather than the other way round.

Answer 6

I've never felt the earth move doing press-ups.

Answer 7

if you are talking about push ups. you are doing both, you are exerting force on the earth, but effect on the earth is negligible, so you only notice yourself going up

Answer 8

When doing push ups use u're chest to lift u'rself up; make sure u feel the weight on u're chest.

Answer 9

Both:
This is called Newton's Third law.[1]

Answer 10

Here in Denmark we don´t call them push-ups but arm-bendings.