This weekend I scored a free pedometer. So I’m putting it to use tomorrow. I’m not sure, however, how many steps a normal person takes. I don’t actually have a goal number of steps…I’m doing this more as an experiment.
After some Googling, I found that 10,000 steps per day has become a common goal…but there doesn’t seem to be research to back up that number. I’ve even found that something as low as 6,000 steps a day is shown to be connected to lower death rate in men according to a Harvard Study.
So I decided to use the numbers published by Dr. Catrine Tudor-Locke in Sports Medicine magazine. He’s been studying pedometer walking and these are the classifications he came up with:
Classification of pedometer-determined physical activity in healthy adults:
- Under 5000 steps/day may be used as a “sedentary lifestyle index”
- 5,000-7,499 steps/day is typical of daily activity excluding sports/exercise and might be considered “low active.”
- 7,500-9,999 likely includes some exercise or walking (and/or a job that requires more walking) and might be considered “somewhat active.”
- 10,000 steps/day indicates the point that should be used to classify individuals as “active”.
- Individuals who take more than 12,500 steps/day are likely to be classified as “highly active”.
I’ll give you my number tomorrow.
*puts on science hat*
Why steps are good.
Our evolutionary path was that of walking, not sitting on our posteriors all day. Because of our mobile past our biology developed specific mechanisms to work in tandem with walking. The veins in our legs have valves which prevent blood returning to our heart from falling back into our feet. The pressure of the impact from walking assists in pumping the blood back to the heart. Without regular walking the valves are over worked resulting in a higher risk of failure. This leads to varicose veins and other issues involving blood pooling in the leg. Clotting is another issue. This is the same reason why horses are put down after they break a leg. They evolved to be even more dependent on the impact of hoof steps to propel blood in their limbs. They will suffer even more health issues than humans do for being off their feet for so long.
There are other issues which impact us (ha pun!) educators. After about 10 minutes of sitting there is notable drops in respiration, heart rate, blood pressure, and a 60% drop in sensory input. All these factors lead to less oxygen and nutrition to the brain which hinders brain performance. My professor who cited these statistics from a German researcher in the 1950′s and based on this, and other research, is absolutely convinced that we do not move around enough in the classroom. From her citations I can totally understand the conclusion.
But back to topic.
The more you walk the better!
.-= David´s last blog ..I can do this! =-.
Very interested in how that goes. I personally count the number of blocks I walk per day. I try to average at least 3 miles, more for my mental health than anything else.
I tried a pedometer once but it wasn’t accurate enough for me. I noticed it going up when I wasn’t walking, but was moving in other ways. Probably this is because I bought a cheap one.
One of my friends has complained that the pedometer isn’t a good enough measure of activity level for people who engage in:
Biking – she and many of my other friends bike everywhere, which doesn’t involve steps but is certainly a heart friendly activity.
Any major activities that involve sprinting, because that’s not heart healthy in the way that walking is (your blood sugars know what I’m talking about!).
Other activities- such as swimming, resistance training, rowing, etc, that rely on upper body use as well as lower body.
.-= Jonah´s last blog ..Yom Kippur Log (written after Yom Kippur) =-.