Surely all at some time you have heard the recommendation given to the general population to walk, at least, 10,000 steps a day . That said, all of a sudden, it may seem a lot, but the reality is that the equivalent distance, obviously depending on each person (especially the height of each person) are between seven and eight kilometers, which seems more affordable.
Who else and who least has a device to measure their daily steps: it can be a pedometer (a little vintage , but if it works then it is welcome), a quantifying bracelet or a mobile application. We all count our steps and see how the bar that indicates our progress is going up little by little. But are 10,000 steps a day enough to be fit?
Where do the 10,000 steps come from?
If we want to know the origin of the recommendation of the 10,000 daily steps we must go back to the decade of the 60s in Japan. There Dr. Hatano realized that they were facing an increasing problem of obesity among the population, and that people used to walk an average of between 3,500 and 5,000 steps a day.
Hatano concluded, after some studies, that increasing the number of daily steps to 10,000 could create an average caloric deficit of 500 calories in each person, which would lead to a significant weight loss after only based on physical activity.
In 1964 the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo ( which we will replicate in four years ), and with them physical activity and sport became more important for the population. Hatano saw the window of opportunity and launched into the market a pedometer called Manpo-kei , which in Japanese literally means (oh, surprise!) “10,000 step meter”.
Thus, those 10,000 steps became a kind of slogan for the sale of pedometers, which were very successful then and whose improved heirs are the current monitoring devices.
Are those 10,000 steps enough?
We start from the basis that it is a standardized figure and that, therefore, it does not have to apply to all people equally. This is what happens with the recommendations for the general population: it is necessary that afterwards they adapt to each individual .
If you are an active person who moves a lot throughout the day, it is very likely that these 10,000 steps will be quite short , but precisely for that quantifying bracelets or mobile applications allow us to change our goal or goal to beat. In the same way, for an older person those 10,000 steps can be too much.
It also depends on how we cover those 10,000 steps . If you walk for an hour every day to cover those 10,000 steps but the remaining 23 hours you spend sitting in front of the computer and taking the car to go buy the bread, then the purpose of that quantifying bracelet or that pedometer will not serve to a lot.
The idea of the 10,000 daily steps is to motivate people to maintain a more active life and move more throughout the day , whether by physical activity (such as walking) or physical exercise. The main use we can give quantifiers gadgets and pedometers is to give us that extra motivation that we need to get up from the sofa and go out, or to decide to walk back from the cinema instead of taking a bus or a taxi.
Whatever your situation, walking 10,000 steps a day is not going to hurt you. If they can be more, take advantage and add more steps to your day to day. And this is one of those rare occasions in fitness in which “more is better.”