It’s not all about your daily count: The myth of 10,000 steps

We are now being told a 15 minute walk is better than multiple short ones. But we should also be going a certain pace and aiming for a particular number of steps to boost our health.

How do you tot up your daily activity? After years of being told that multiple walking “snacks” – walking up an escalator, say, or to the coffee machine – are a good way to hit your target, researchers now say that “one long walk a day” is better.

“There is a perception that health professionals have recommended walking 10,000 steps a day is the goal, but this isn’t necessary,” says Dr Matthew Ahmadi, one of the authors of the research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “Simply adding one or two longer walks per day, each lasting at least 10-15 minutes at a comfortable but steady pace, may have significant benefits – especially for people who don’t walk much.”

In their study of 33,560 adults from the UK Biobank, all of whom amassed an average 8,000 steps or fewer per day, they showed that those who concentrated their walking into one or two bouts lasting 10-15 minutes slashed their risk of cardiovascular disease compared with those who snatched their steps in brief outings of less than five minutes.

“If you walk a little, set aside some time to walk more often and in longer sessions,” says the study co-author, Borja Del Pozo Cruz, associate professor and epidemiologist at the European University of Madrid. “Such small changes can have a big impact.” Here’s how to improve the quality of your daily steps:

Go for a daily 15-minute walk

We should aim for 15 minutes at a minimum in one go.

People who made their daily steps in snack form of less than five minutes for each outing were found to be at 13.03 per cent risk of heart disease – the risk for the longer duration group was reduced to 4.39 per cent.

“You need to get your cardiovascular system working continuously for a longer duration for it to start to adapt in a positive way,” says Dr Daniel Bailey, an exercise scientist and reader in sedentary behaviour and health at Brunel University. “Longer bouts of walking regularly will help your body to control blood sugar, blood pressure and heart rate as well as improve circulation, which are all important for heart health.”

Aim for 7,000 steps to stay healthy

How many steps do you do?

This daily figure was recommended following a large global review of 57 studies that was published in The Lancet Public Health in July. Professor Melody Ding, an epidemiologist and population behavioural scientist at the University of Sydney, who headed that analysis, found that, compared with people who took 2,000 daily steps, those walking 7,000 steps saw similar health gains to clocking 10,000 a day, with boosted heart and brain health, and halved the risk of early death. “We have evidence that walking at least 7,000 steps a day can significantly improve eight major health outcomes, including reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia and depressive symptoms,” she says.

Can’t manage 7,000? Build up your count in 500-step increments

According to the NHS, most of us clock an average of 3,000-4,000 steps a day. Yet even if you manage only 2,000 steps, there are benefits from inching upwards in increments of 500 extra steps over time. “A lot of studies look at sedentary people for whom big improvements come with relatively few extra steps,” Bailey says.

Up your pace

Pace is also important.

Although his new findings focus on duration and consistency, Del Pozo Cruz says “pace still matters”. And Bailey adds: “There’s pretty strong evidence showing that if you walk quickly you will get bigger benefits than walking slowly for the same number of steps.”

Researchers define brisk walking as a pace of at least 100 steps a minute or about 2.7mph, but how fast you can move depends on how fit you are. “A pace at which you struggle to hold a conversation and are puffing is brisk,” says the fitness coach Dalton Wong.

Research involving 405,981 midlifers carried out at the University of Leicester has also revealed that speedy daily walkers have a biological age 16 years younger than dawdlers.

“What we don’t know is whether walking briskly for 10 minutes is better for your overall health than walking slowly for 20 minutes,” Bailey says.

You need to do more than 10,000 steps to get fitter

A lot of studies focus on the minimum number of steps required to stay healthy – improving physical fitness requires a greater amount of effort.

“People confuse walking for health with walking for exercise or fitness,” Wong says. “To improve fitness by walking, you would need to do 15,000, 20,000 or more daily steps and to do at least one weekly longer distance walk of 60-90 minutes.”

Much of this can be at what Wong calls “conversation pace”, which is ideal for fat-burning. “This low-intensity cardio helps to build an aerobic base from which you can further build your fitness,” he says.

To increase your fitness further, you ideally need to be working at moderate to vigorous intensities. “The harder you go, the fitter you will get,” Wong says. “So gradually add bursts of faster-paced walking and include inclines and hills on your walks.”

This article originally appeared on The Times.