The 10,000 step count goal is made up – and wrong
UQ Mythbusters
For years, fitness trackers and health gurus have pushed the idea that hitting 10,000 steps a day is the golden rule for staying fit. But is this really the best metric for daily movement?
UQ Mythbusters is back and we’re digging into the origins of the 10,000-step goal and what science says about its actual benefits, with the help of UQ expert Professor Jeff Coombes. He’s a Professor in the School of Human Movement Studies whose research interests focus on determining the optimal exercise prescription for improving health.
Along the way, we’ll check in on other common myths about daily exercise to help you build a more balanced, effective fitness routine.
Key points:
- The 10,000 step count goal was made up as part of a marketing campaign – it’s not based on science.
- Extensive research has shown that 5,000–7,500 steps per day is a better target.
- An even better goal is 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75-150 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise per week.
- Wearable fitness trackers can be a useful tool – though the majority of people ditch them after a few months.
Set us straight once and for all: do we really need to clock 10,000 steps a day? Is this actually a good measure for a healthy, active lifestyle?
The 10,000-steps-a-day goal originated in Japan as part of a marketing campaign in the 1960s with no science behind it. Now we know from large data sets that between 5,000–7,500 steps per day is usually sufficient for improving health outcomes, especially for older adults.
What's more important, step count or the kind of activity those steps represent?
For most people, setting a steps per day target is a good way to monitor physical activity levels and if a person is able to achieve between 5,000–7,500 steps per day they will improve cardiovascular health and reduce the risk of chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.
However, for obtaining more health benefits and decreasing the risk further, it is recommended to achieve the Australian Physical Activity Guidelines of 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75-150 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise per week. The exercise should include completing two strength training sessions per week.
Why is a step count goal a useful metric for an active lifestyle?
A daily step count is easy to monitor with wrist-worn devices and/or smart phones. It gives people a clear and manageable physical activity goal that is health related. Most devices have their own approach to answer the question – am I doing enough physical activity? For example, the Apple Watch has Move, Exercise and Stand rings and encourage users to ‘close their rings’.
There are also third-party apps that use information from wrist-worn devices such as heart rate data allows people to see if they are reaching the optimum exercise levels. As the intensity of exercise is important, measuring heart rate during exercise, especially aerobic exercise, is an excellent way to monitor physical activity levels. There are physical activity metrics that use heart rate data from exercise to give a score that is easily understandable. One of the best is the approach from Mia Health that provides an Activity Quotient (AQ) score that reflects the last seven days of exercise. The goal is to keep your AQ at, or above 100.
Wearable health technologies are often a bit of an aspirational purchase – are they just a gimmick?
Image: Adobe Stock/blackzheep
They are certainly worth trying. Some people enjoy tracking their physical metrics (step counts, ring scores, AQ points) and this motivates them to do more exercise. It also helps people understand more about how much and what types of exercise are most beneficial.
The majority of people do only use them for a few months, but for many, their use leads to many exercise-related health benefits.
True or false: our ancestors were hyper-active hunter-gatherers. We need to get moving because it's what our bodies were built for.
False. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were active by modern standards (largely due to the demands of survival), but they didn't do large amounts of high-intensity exercise that we often associate with being ‘hyper-active’. Nearly all of their energy was expended on tasks like hunting, gathering and carrying food, but they also needed long rest periods to conserve energy.
True or false: sitting is the new smoking.
False – but while sitting is nowhere near as harmful to health as smoking, long periods of sitting do lead to an increased risk of chronic disease. For people that have desk jobs, the solution isn’t to just stop sitting (e.g. standing desk), but rather to limit long periods of sitting with regular movement. Breaking up sitting time with simple exercises (e.g. sit-to stand, desk push-ups, calf raises) and going for short walks is recommended.
Image: Adobe Stock/blackzheep
Image: Adobe Stock/blackzheep
Between desk work and driving, a lot of us lead a pretty sedentary lifestyle these days. What are your tips for people who have struggled to build activity into their routines?
- Find an activity or activities that you enjoy and are likely to keep doing. Walking is the most popular form of exercise, so trying to incorporate more walking into a daily routine is a good start. Although higher intensities of exercise are more beneficial, most people will not enjoy doing these types of exercise. If you don’t enjoy it don’t do it as it is likely that you won’t keep doing it.
- Start slowly and build gradually. At a population level, the greatest health benefits are seen when people go from doing nothing to something. Benefits continue to increase, albeit at a slower rate, as people move towards meeting the physical activity guidelines, where the benefits then start to plateau.
- Find a buddy. Having an ‘exercise friend’ can increase the enjoyment and help to keep you both motivated to do the exercise.
- Don’t set goals based on weight loss. Have short- and long-term goals that are focused on behaviours and not physical traits, such as your weight. You could set a goal that you will complete 3 10-minute walks this week with the long-term goal to go for a 60-minute walk with plenty of hills in 3 months.
Have you got a myth in mind that could use some expert attention? Recently been on the receiving end of some received wisdom that seems a bit suss?
Submit your idea now for the next UQ Mythbusters!
