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Hitting a 10K step count could be ‘disastrous’ for some people, clinician warns
The 10K balloon is beginning to deflate, as more and more people realize it’s not necessarily a step count worth aiming for. Why? Because 10,000 is an arbitrary number. As one expert explains, walking that many steps every day could greatly help some people while being a disaster for others.
Lots of people hold the number 10,000 in high esteem, whether because of advertising, fitness influencers, exercise-based social media content, or word of mouth convincing them of its magical, cure-all abilities. But walkers get many of the health benefits from hitting just 3,000 steps. Reaching the 10K goal might have you hastily walking circles round your bedroom. And were generally better off listening to our bodies, rather than outsourcing intuition to technological devices and apps.
Rehab clinician warns against blanket step count targets
While questions about the number of steps we should be taking per day to optimize health leads to interesting discussions, well never land on an answer thats right for everyone.
Thats Dr Thompson Maesakas take, anyway. He runs The Neural Connection, a neurologic rehabilitation clinic, and has worked with people struggling with all sorts of physical and neurological conditions.
To be completely blunt, he says, every person is different, so by drawing a line in the sand, we don’t provide the critical thinking necessary to properly answer this question.
While suggesting the 10,000 steps per day is a great place to set as a goal for everyone, it negates the individuality of the person and may not always generate the results we’re looking for.
10K steps could greatly help one 50-year-old man and be disastrous for another
Thompson paints a picture to help explain his point. He starts by inventing two imaginary people.
Both are 50-year-old men, but due to each ones unique medical context, insisting they both walk 10,000 steps per day would have vastly different consequences for each of them.
Man #1 has diabetes. Hes 50lbs overweight and has three co-morbidities. His diabetes means he cant self-regulate blood sugar while being overweight likely makes him insulin-resistant.
In his case, walking is a phenomenal exercise, Thompson argues, because exercise is one of the few modalities that allows people to utilize glucose in the bloodstream without insulin.
It’s also relatively low-impact, and non-strenuous. This makes it relatively accessible; insisting he run 5 miles or play high-impact racquet sports may push him over the edge.
Sometimes less is more
Man #2 has chronic low back pain and plantar fasciitis, a condition that causes heel pain and inflammation of the band of tissue that runs from the heel to the toes.
While it may sound good, in theory, for him to walk 5 miles, it could be a significant trigger and further exacerbate his problems, causing more tissue damage, breakdown, and inflammation,” Thompson says.
Instead, hed probably be better off aiming for 2,000 to 3,000 steps, and pairing this with functional rehabilitation and physical therapies to achieve his calorie count of physical activity.
Walking just 2,800 steps per day significantly lowers a persons risk of coming down with cardiovascular disease, and has significant mortality benefits, according to the latest research.
The optimal dose for most people is somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000. However, this doesnt take existing physical ailments into account. Theres always more to the story than a number.
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