Walking 10k Steps: Fact or Fiction in Your Fitness Tracker?

 Many fashionable people wear Xiaomi sports bracelets, and it is said that the most important function is to measure steps. Presumably, people with diabetes will often use pedometers. These software make our exercise more quantitative, but are the steps they measure really effective?

Have you really walked 10,000 steps?

In some industries, walking may be required while working. Most of this walking is very low intensity and does not promote health due to incorrect standing or walking postures.

The average number of steps for adults is around 8,000, and these 8,000 steps are basically very low-intensity steps, just daily activities. Among the 10,000 steps taken per day, excluding 8,000 steps from daily activities, your effective number of steps may be only 2,000. If you give up exercising when the pedometer shows 10,000 steps, the effect of exercise has not been achieved.

Ensure exercise intensity

When people with diabetes do daily walking exercises, the first thing to do is to ensure that the intensity of walking must be higher than the speed you are usually accustomed to. Only then will more energy be consumed within a certain period of time to increase the value of the exercise. You can use the cadence of pedometer software to determine Estimate exercise intensity. The stride length should also be wide, and the stride length of healthy walking should be about 10 centimeters larger than the usual stride length.

Cadence is the number of steps taken in 1 minute. The walking cadence corresponding to moderate-intensity heart rate is similar for all age groups (20-60 years old). The cadence can reach moderate exercise intensity at 120 steps/min. The cadence range of medium-intensity exercise intensity is 120-150 steps/min. People with diabetes should do at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise every day. If you choose brisk walking, you need to walk at least 3,600 steps or more in 30 minutes to be beneficial to your health.

Walking is the same as other sports. It is important to ensure sufficient intensity and exercise time to achieve fitness effects.

Calculating step by step is not necessarily scientific

The most important thing is to increase your daily activity.

Diabetic patients should not stick to the number of 10,000 steps displayed by the pedometer software. Good physical condition and good blood sugar are our goals.

If you want to lose weight, it's best to jog instead of brisk walking. A speed of 6.4 km/h represents brisk walking, and a speed of 8.1 km/h represents jogging. Brisk walking is a lower-limb-focused exercise, while jogging can mobilize more muscles throughout the body. Switching from brisk walking to jogging significantly increases energy consumption, which is helpful for weight loss.