Walking faster can substitute for 10,000 steps a day, study finds

Think you need to hit 10,000 steps every day to get meaningful health benefits? A new study suggests there may be more than one way to make your daily steps count.

Researchers found that taking fewer steps at a faster pace offers a lower risk of early death, much like taking more steps at a slower pace. The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, analyzed activity tracker data from nearly 65,000 middle-aged UK Biobank participants over an average eight-year follow-up period.

The researchers divided participants into four daily step-count groups: fewer than 5,000 steps, 5,000 to 7,500, 7,500 to 10,000, and more than 10,000. They also measured each person's peak 30-minute cadence, or the average number of steps taken per minute during the 30 most active minutes of the day, which do not have to be consecutive, averaged across the monitoring period.

While 7,500 to 10,000 daily steps offered the lowest risk of early death regardless of pace, taking fewer steps still provided major benefits if done briskly.

Among people taking under 5,000 steps a day, those who reached a higher stepping pace of at least 80 steps per minute had a substantially lower risk of death than slower walkers. Maintaining a higher pace for 30 minutes daily progressively lowered death risks for anyone taking under 7,500 steps.

According to a report by EurekAlert, lead author Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis said the findings could be particularly useful for people who cannot easily accumulate large numbers of steps because of time constraints, disability, or environmental limitations.

“We found that the risk was substantially lower among those achieving a higher stepping pace but fewer than 5,000 daily steps,” Stamatakis said.

The findings also challenge the idea that everyone needs to aim for the 10,000-step target. Dr. Nicholas Koemel, a co-author of the study, noted that the widely quoted goal did not originally come from a specific health recommendation.

“That heavily quoted step target actually came from a 1960s Japanese pedometer campaign rather than from evidence,” Koemel said, adding that setting an overly ambitious step goal could even discourage some people from exercising, particularly those dealing with physical limitations or demanding schedules.

“For a 65-year-old managing a knee issue, a carer with fragmented time, or a shift worker, a high step target can be a reason to give up rather than a reason to start,” Koemel said.

Instead, he emphasized that even a smaller amount of walking pays off.

“The important message is that every step counts, and how you take those steps can also matter,” he said. “Someone walking 4,000 steps a day who walks them with more purpose is doing something worthwhile, and someone who cannot walk quickly can still benefit by gradually accumulating more steps at a slower pace.”

Still, the researchers stressed that there is no single walking pace that works for everyone. Associate Professor Matthew Ahmadi said consistency matters more than occasional bursts of activity. 

“The body responds to habitual patterns, not to irregular and infrequent effort, so what counts is what you do on most days over months and years, not a motivated fortnight,” Ahmadi said.

He also offered a simple way to tell whether your walking pace is brisk enough.

“There is no single pace that suits everyone,” Ahmadi said. “The most practical test is also the simplest, which is to pay attention to your breathing: at a brisk pace that is maintained for at least a minute or so you should be breathing noticeably harder, feeling warmer, and still able to hold a conversation in short sentences, but you should not be able to sing comfortably.”