10,000 Steps In Addition To Regular Exercise

If you walk more then 10 minutes most fitbits will auto recognize that as active minutes. So it will add to your active time and add to your steps. At least my charge HR does.

i would not have the time or energy to do 10K steps AND cardio/strength. I don't even have time to get 10K. Who do they think has all this time?

The more you move the better, but we each have to do what we can do. I'm not the most fit person among us, but I do aim for 10k steps daily plus strength training, or swimming 4-5x week. I count running towards my step goal but no extra calories.

lizery wrote: »

cwolfman13 wrote: »

There's nothing hard and fast about 10,000 steps...there's nothing scientific about it...pedometers sold in Japan in the 1960s were marketed under the name "manpo-kei," which translates to "10,000 steps meter.

It's a reasonably good guideline to get you moving...don't know what articles you're reading, but 10,000 steps per day would be considered active.

Personally, I could care less about steps...I care about being active...I cycle 50+ miles per week and I'm pretty lean, healthy, and fit. I have a desk job so no way I'm getting in 10K steps...I'm better served to spend the time I can be active doing something a bit more intense than walking around.

While there's nothing hard and fast about it, the reason they were sold in Japan under that name was because as people were becoming more sedentary and weight was and increasing problem some Japanese scientist had the hypotheses that by increasing activity in the average person from 4000 to 10000 steps/day would decrease obesity and related jazz thus being a simple and effective public health preventative strategy.

Modern 100000 step rhetoric stems from this Japanese experiment.

Yeah, that's why I said it's a good guideline for moving more...but I think a lot of people get hung up on "they have to be steps"...I'm far better off spending that kind of time on my bike from an overall fitness standpoint.

Basically, just move more...

@cwolfman absolutely agree re 'just moving more'.

Even the heart foundation & world health organisation ect suggest 10000 as 'optimum' but stress that other activities including cycling, swimming, strength training are all necessary; walking steps is not the be all and end all.

Personally I think for largely inactive people though, a numerical target (10000 or whatever) is a great motivator to get people moving. Particularly in populations that may not have resources to deliberately 'work out'.

When I wore a Fitbit, 10k was a pretty basic number for me. I typically walk my dogs 2 miles a day, at least (that, in and of itself comes to a bit over 6k in steps), and the rest I easily got just going about my day. I work a full time job that can keep me busy and on my feet (not always, but I have easily put 8k on a Fitbit at work on many occasions). I usually could still find time to do something else, though I didn't always necessarily do it.

Of course, some people just find walking super super boring, while I generally love it. That could be why I always found it very easy to hit that 10k mark most days, and easily surpass it. I'd be that person who would choose to walk a mile somewhere rather than get in the car and drive there.

FWIW, I no longer wear a Fitbit. I found it didn't necessarily change my habits at all (I was either going to be lazy or not), and the challenges drove me up the wall, especially when I would make the mistake of joining a weekend one and had to work- when people spend half their day on a treadmill on a Saturday just to win a stupid Fitbit challenge while you're stuck it work and then you get harassed because you're not able to keep up with them, you start to realize that little device is more annoying than its worth.