We know, broadly speaking, that staying active keeps us healthy, and getting in a certain amount of steps each day is a simple way to go about it.
What’s not as clear are the combinations of time, distance, and briskness that work best for getting those steps in.
The opportunity to get out for a daily stroll isn’t equally available to everyone, whether it’s due to schedule pressures, health conditions, or other circumstances.
For some people especially, knowing the most optimum ways to boost health can be really useful.
In a new study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers led by a team from the University of Sydney analyzed records from more than 64,000 middle-aged individuals in a large health research database, following them for an average of eight years.
Step counts and stepping intensity were cross-referenced against deaths and cause of death across the study period, to find relationships between exercise habits and health outcomes over several years.
The biggest takeaway is that people don’t have to hit 10,000 steps a day to see benefits from walking.
“That heavily quoted step target actually came from a 1960s Japanese pedometer campaign rather than from evidence,” says behavioral scientist Nicholas Koemel from Monash University.
“The important message is that every step counts, and how you take those steps can also matter.”
What the researchers found is that a variety of step counts and intensities were associated with lower mortality risk.
“Most prior step-related studies focused on intensity and amount in isolation, resulting in a paucity of evidence understanding the joint relationship between volume and intensity of total daily steps,” write the researchers in their published paper.
“Our study, using a large prospective cohort coupled with an advanced accelerometry algorithm to identify steps, examined different step-based strategies associated with all-cause mortality (ACM) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality risk.”
frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen>For analysis, the participants were sorted into four groups: those taking under 5,000 steps a day, then 5,000–7,500 steps a day, 7,500–10,000 steps a day, and people taking more than 10,000 steps a day.
Some interesting patterns emerged.
For example, there was a similar and substantial reduction in mortality risk for those walking less than 5,000 steps a day but walking briskly (around 80 steps per minute), and those walking between 5,000-7,500 steps a day but doing them more slowly (around 60 steps per minute).
In other words, if you don’t have time to cram in 7,500 steps as you would like, try walking with more intensity – it may well have the same health benefits. If you can’t walk quickly, see if you can clock up more steps instead.
Reaching a peak 30-minute cadence of around 90–100 steps per minute – averaged across the 30 highest-cadence minutes of the day – was something of a sweet spot, the researchers found, and could be a useful health target.
Taking the pace out of the equation, meanwhile, 7,500–10,000 steps per day was linked to the lowest mortality risk.
“Our findings contribute to the evidence base for step-based approaches targeting both daily step counts and stepping intensity to lower risk, and may inform step-based interventions for middle-aged and older adults, particularly individuals with barriers to increasing daily step counts or stepping intensity,” write the researchers.
The observational nature of the study means cause and effect can’t be proven – the researchers only observed what was happening, rather than testing different scenarios against each other. Step activity was only recorded for part of the study period, and may have changed over time.
Even though multiple factors were accounted for in the data, including diet and age, there may have been other ‘hidden’ influences affecting both step count and mortality risk (such as illness or social isolation).
Related: One Factor in Walking May Improve Your Heart Health More Than Your Step Count
Despite those limitations though, the extended study period and large number of participants make this a useful reference for future health guidelines – and it seems likely that a simple daily step count isn’t all that matters.
“Our study moves beyond single-metric approaches (eg, focusing solely on daily step counts) to examine combinations of different step dimensions in relation to mortality risk, informing future step-related public health and clinical guidelines,” write the researchers.
The research has been published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
This article was fact-checked by Peter Dockrill and edited by Peter Dockrill. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know.
