“10000 steps a day. Yep, that’s 10 thousand steps every day . Go and buy a cheap pedometer or look up if its already on your phone,, and record how many steps you take each day. This is your baseline of daily activity. Any gym work or running around is training and is extra . This is the minimum amount of movement you do to keep ticking over.
Frequently I see people work quite hard in the gym for an hour, but are totally sedentary for the rest of the time. The gym session barely compensates for their lack of day today movement.
I also see many sports people, who apart from the weekly football match, are to all intents and purposes, sedentary. So, put that pedometer on, check your phone and review your daily count.
| Lifestyle Index | Sedentary | Low Active | Somewhat Active | Highly Active |
| Steps/day* | <5000 | 5000 – 7500 | 7500 – 10,000 | >10,000 |
But don’t worry! slowly build up your activity level if you find yourself in the sedentary box! Get active at work
for some science, look at
“Effects of a 10,000 steps per day goal in overweight adults” by Schneider et al (Am J Health Promot. 2006 Nov-Dec;21(2):85-9.)“
Some points need to be made
1) the 10,000 steps is a fantastic way to assess basic activity. Ive helped people who could only manage 3000 steps in a day and the effect was remarkable.
2) 10,000 steps a day is the very least you should be doing.
However, if you present 10,000 step Versus almost anything else, anything else is probably better: Brisk walking is better, a fast 400m run or a Crossfit Workout is better, indeed a life and death brawl at your local pub really gets the blood pumping. The issue is this: you have to really be sedentary to do less than 10,000 steps a day, so its a great baseline and target and you should always do more.
3) the message is “do both”.
So, its 10,000 steps each day, plus a workout