The calculation they use for stride length based on gender and height are based on averages.

Some people are going to hit that average, some will not by a little, some by a lot. Both sides of the average.

So by correcting, people will have exactly the same range of difference afterwards - none, a little, huge.

Importance totally depends on how incorrect YOU have seen the distance being, because of the above fact.
Some will see no difference, some a little, some a big difference, so that should spell out how much a prerequisite it is for filling it in. Obviously for some, not a nit, for others, big deal.

No one could possibly tell you what you could expect, and no one else's experience is going to help you figure out your own potential change.

My run's became more accurate for distance.

But since you don't know how inaccurate mine was, or how inaccurate yours was - that's really meaningless info.

You are literally trying to compare apples to oranges, doesn't work logically.

Like heybales said, depends on how far off you are from average for your height and gender. When I calculated mine, I was within .5" of average for a 5' 10" tall man.

Amerielle wrote: »

I have never messed with stride length. I figure most of my steps per day are daily activity like cleaning the house or moving around patients rooms at work, not running or going for a walk which would be a very different stride length. (I suppose I'm probably not understanding some principle of stride length. )

I just checked my numbers and my Fitbit cals in vs out say I should have lost 4.1 lbs this month. My Trendweight real weight loss is...4.1 lbs! I guess whatever the setting is it's working for me.

Give it a try and check your real world results and adjust from there. I have a One by the way...best thing ever!

While the stride length figure is static, your actual stride length does indeed vary as you said.

But the static figure is not used to calculate distance on every step you take.

Rather, that figure with mass is used to figure out what the expected impact should be for that length.

Then your actual steps have different impact forces, and it can figure out from there the one changed variable - actual stride length for that step.

Now a dynamic distance is known, and calorie burn based on it.

So getting a measured stride length means less variance between expected and seen, because it can only adjust so much before you start getting really inaccurate with that math.

Hence the reason the test for stride length shouldn't be exercise pace, nor shopping pace, but between.