10,000 step in 30 days challenge

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grob49
grob49 Posts: 125 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I've started the 10,000 steps in 30 days challenge. My question is has anyone else done it and how long does it take for your muscles to get use to it? My quads and hips really get sore and tight towards the end.

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  • Rockmama1111
    Rockmama1111 Posts: 262 Member
    edited May 2023
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    Is that 10,000 per day?

    I walk a lot and am prone to hip tightness.

    I highly recommend doing stretches every day, or even twice a day. You can search “tight hip exercises” on YouTube, or even Google for some poses you can do while sitting around. It’s improved my life hugely. It feels good too, so it’s not like it’s a huge workout chore.

    Second, make sure you’ve got a good pair of walking shoes that fit beautifully. Lace them up snugly. When you have sloppy shoes, you start to compensate with your gait and it messes with other parts of your anatomy that you’d never expect.

    I wish you the best!

  • weeblex
    weeblex Posts: 411 Member
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    Right before Christmas, I was having trouble walking up stairs, and doctors kept telling me I was unfit, my average step count was about 2000 a day.

    So I started walking. 3000 steps, 4000, 5000 and then about 6000 steps I was in agony, I ordered myself a cane from Amazon it was so uncomfortable to walk. But I moved to every other day for a week and my body healed and now I'm back to running or walking every day and apart from post-exercise muscle ache it is better.

    Your body will get used to it, at least mine did, but you need to give the muscles a chance to heal. My personal best so far was walking on Holiday at 22,000 steps in one day.

    Turns out the problem with stairs is blood pressure, not fitness anyway.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,259 Member
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    What was your starting point? If you went from minimal steps straight to 10,000 daily - I hope not! - that would be extreme, and soreness would be part of the process. If the point is fitness, gradual increase is a better plan: I hope that 's what the challenge you're doing is asking of you.
  • mychellelynne
    mychellelynne Posts: 122 Member
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    I worked my way up to 10k steps a day. I started at 7k a day for a month, then 8k.... Now I am at 10k-12k a day and it feels "normal". I still do workouts on top of this.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
    edited May 2023
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    grob49 wrote: »
    I've started the 10,000 steps in 30 days challenge. My question is has anyone else done it and how long does it take for your muscles to get use to it? My quads and hips really get sore and tight towards the end.

    What is your fitness level and where did you start from. Going from sedentary to 10K steps per day everyday is a pretty big leap all at once if you're not conditioned and used to moving...if that's what you're doing.

    I typically get 10K+ steps per day most days which I just kind of consider a baseline of general movement...like I feel like in another time before all of this automation, sitting behind a desk, and whatnot, probably most people were in that neighborhood of daily steps just in their day to day. For me to get there (desk job) I have to deliberately go for a daily walk (either early AM or during my lunch break)...it's nothing huge, usually just 2 miles or so and then the rest of those 10K or more steps comes from my day to day stuff around the office and home. My walks are kind of my mental break and a time for me to reflect on things and also I listen to a lot of health and wellness podcasts...living alcohol free podcasts, and the like. Also, just as a side note...I was recently in DC with my family for spring break and was averaging 25-30K steps per day...I'm not really conditioned to that and was sore as hell. Moral of that story is that if you're not conditioned for what you're doing, it's probably going to hurt.

    From there I try to get out and ride my bike 3-4x per week...generally in the evening when I get home from work. During the work week that's about a 30-45 minute ride depending...usually 30. I try to get out on Saturday mornings for a longer trail ride or a hike. In a total day, the walk and ride get me a bit over an hour of deliberate movement per day where the biking gets my HR up more and adds a bit more of a moderately strenuous component to my fitness.

    I try to get into the weight room 3x per week but sometimes it's 2x...those 2x are kind of non-negotiable at this point because my oldest boy (13) comes with me and he's super into it so if I skip it's a huge letdown for him and he has the best puppy dog eyes.

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