It just happens that one of the most accessible and budget-friendly forms of exercise is also the most beneficial for your health: walking. It’s been proven to help reduce heart disease risk, strengthen your joints and heart, boost your mood, and help you live longer.
There has been debate about how much walking is ideal. Should you be aiming for 10,000 steps a day or is 7,000 the right number? How fast should you move to reap the most benefits of your walking workouts?
Using the myriad scientific data, studies, and expert insight on walking, here is what Fortune has uncovered about the ideal amount of walking to do see benefits.
How many steps a day to aim for
While 10,000 steps has been floated around as the ideal number to hit every day, experts have said that number is fairly arbitrary—it’s actually more of a target range that experts advise to aim for.
“That 10,000 steps was never a peer-reviewed number,” Howard Luks, a New York-based orthopedic surgeon and the author of Longevity…Simplified: Living a Longer, Healthier Life Shouldn’t Be Complicated, told Fortune.
Research has indicated that people who hit around 7,000 steps a day are able to maintain good health, while another study from 2023 of 3,000 participants showed that those who took at least 8,000 steps one or two days a week were 14.9% less likely to die over a 10-year period than those who did not. People who took 8,000 or more steps three to seven days a week were 16.5% less likely to die over the same period as well.
That 7,000 to 10,000-step range is pretty much the sweet spot to see improvements in your fitness, according to National Academy of Sports Medicine trainer Mallory Fox. She says that is generally where people will start to achieve weight loss and see benefits to their cardiorespiratory systems.
However, it’s important to set realistic goals geared towards your individual improvement, according to NiCole Keith, professor of kinesiology at Indiana University–Purdue University and immediate past president of the American College of Sports Medicine.
“Ten thousand steps is a lot of steps,” she told Fortune. “If you’re an active person and you’re out walking all the time, or you work in a manual labor job and you’re on your feet and you’re carrying things and walking around…that’s great. But if you’re a receptionist and only getting 3,000, then make a goal to make it 3,500. Then see if you can push it up to 4,000.”
Fox agrees that people should take their time in increasing their step count, and advises taking a look at how much you’re walking each week—either with the help of a wearable device or the rough step estimate provided by smartphones—and aim to increase that by about 10% each week to ensure you don’t get injured or too sore.
She also echoes that the improvements you’ll see in your fitness, body composition, and overall health are largely dependent on your lifestyle and physiology.
“Everybody is different. Someone’s exercise history, their height, their weight will contribute to how much they need to do,” she says. You’re likely to see improvement just by doing “any additional movement beyond [your] normal activity level,” she adds.
It’s not just about step count—pace matters too
While there’s nothing wrong with leisurely strolls to relieve stress and clear your mind—and remember, every step counts—research indicates that your walking pace is another contributing factor for longevity in particular.
The same 2023 meta-analysis on walking also found that a faster pace was associated with a reduced risk of death, regardless of the number of steps taken per day. Researchers posit that’s because walking faster pushes your heart more, allowing you to get more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity that boosts cardiovascular health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity each week for most adults, or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity—and pushing the walking pace could help you reach that recommendation.
A 2022 U.K.-based study also found that walking quickly could lower dementia risk. And researchers on a 2022 Brazil-based study observed that the greater the number of daily steps—and the quicker the pace of those steps—the less likely someone was to suffer from arterial stiffness, a condition where the arteries, the blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart, become less flexible and more rigid, which could lead to heart problems.
So just how fast are we talking? Walking at a pace of around 100 steps per minute for 30 minutes a day, five days a week would meet the weekly requirements for moderate exercise for older adults, Brazilian researchers pointed out. A 2011 study supported that estimate, stating that 100 steps per minute equated moderate physical activity.
But as Fox pointed out, anything is better than nothing, especially if you’re starting from a lower baseline.
“There are many benefits of walking even at a slow walk or a leisurely stroll,” she says. “The intensity isn’t set in stone. It’s just moving the body more is the bottom line.”
Easy ways to add steps to your day
Here are 5 easy ways to naturally incorporate more walking into your day, according to the American on the Move Foundation:
Take a walk after every meal. Walk while you’re on a work call. Play a tennis or pickleball match. Volunteer to walk dogs for an animal shelter. Tour a museum, zoo, or nature preserve.Fox also encourages using a walking pad if you work from home. You don’t even need to put the speed very fast, she says—as long as you’re moving, you’re getting the benefits.
“The most important thing is being consistent,” Fox adds. Try to get out and move every day, instead of one long walk every once in a while, she explains—it’s better to be doing a half-mile walk every day rather than walking five miles once a week.
For more on fitness:
The exact amount of time you need to lift weights to see muscle gains, according to research The potential benefits of the ‘Japanese walking’ workout which fans claim is better than 10,000 steps a day The top 6 exercises this strength coach thinks everyone should do to stay fit What’s your VO2 max? The most important health metric you’re probably not aware of shows how fit you really areThis story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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