Walking Effectively Means 100 Steps a Minute

By now we know that a healthy lifestyle involves such things as “moderate physical exercise” and “moderate alcohol intake”. A lot seems to depend on the word “moderate”. If you got given a pedometer for your last birthday, you may be happy when you walk up to 10,000 steps a day, but in fact you should aim for a “moderate” workout session - walking 3,000 steps in 30 minutes – every day, or 5 times a week. This was shown in a study reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

A sample of almost 100 Latino adults (60% women, average age 32) with an average BMI of 28.8 (i.e. they were ‘overweight’) participated in the study. They had their oxygen uptake measured while walking on a treadmill during four 6-minute bouts, at different speeds between 2.4 and 4.1 miles per hour. The intent was to discover the pedometer step-rate that would produce an exertion of 3 METS (‘metabolic equivalents’), considered the minimum for “moderate-intensity exercise”.

For men, the 3-MET pace ranged from 92 to 102 steps a minute, and for women it ranged between 91 and 115 steps per minute. So a good average of 100 steps a minute for 30 minutes will meet the “moderate” workout target. (If you prefer, you could do 1,000 steps in 10 minutes three times a day.)

There are clearly some inaccuracies in using a step-count method as your guide to obtaining sufficient exercise. But it’s so simple, and the 100-a-minute so easy to remember, that it represents a good first way to get up to the magic 3 METS/30 minutes daily.