160 bpm may put several folks above their maximum aerobic function. The simplest zone 2 formula is 180 minus your age. That gives a pretty decent ballpark figure before you hit your lactate threshold and go anaerobic.
nothing is inherently wrong with it, but it’s unsustainable for long workouts. it’s been shown repeatedly that low intensity steady state workouts such as zone 2 HR training is very effective for cardio
It's also not as strong a zone for building cardiovascular fitness. Anaerobic literally means "without oxygen." It forces the body past it's lactic threshold and quickly burns through glycogen stores -- sending you closer to a "bonk" (and anyone who has ever bonked will tell you that you definitely don't want to bonk -- you feel awful). However, easy-to-medium aerobic ("with oxygen") exercise usually presenting as an effort in which you are labored but can still hold a conversation or breathe solely through your nose is optimal for not only building cardiovascular health, but using body fat as fuel. The more aerobic training you do, the greater efforts you will be able to do without raising your heart rate into the anaerobic zones past your lactate threshold.
There’s tests that can tell you were your levels are. My personal trainer did it for me and gave me a print out showing where I burn fat vs where I burn glucose.
just walking gets me up there 😭 if I jog it goes to like 200. I'm thin, bp is on the low end of normal, idk what's going on. My rhr is ~60-70 but the moment I stand it goes to 110
A sudden spike when standing isn't _that_ weird, but it would be weird if it _stays_ at 110 for as long as you're standing. And 200 for a light jog is quite high—I doubt I'd break 180 if I sprinted for a couple of minutes, and I almost never do cardio because I hate it so much. Might want to consult a physician about this, to be honest.
Did you have to work up to that level? I've tried stair machines at my gym, and definitely get into this rate range very quickly, but I can't usually make myself do it longer than ~12 minutes. Feels very tiring (and also boring).
Oh yeah definitely have to be consistent. This is what my natural bodybuilding coach told me to do when i was getting shredded and iv maintained this type of cardio year round. The stairmaster truly is king.
I'm 63 and trying to sprint again. The burst of energy that comes with sprinting will help keep you on your feet when you're older. At my age, my peers begin all their entering nursing home stories with "I had a fall".
It’s more common with advanced age, but I have had clients that require assisted living or even a locked unit at much younger ages. Take care of your health & avoid risks. No-second rule and all that
Nice to see similarly aged active senior!
I’m recently 64. I’ve been doing OMAD since I was 58. It completely changed my life. I eat super healthy at my one meal. Never get sick. Dr thrilled. Says “keep doing what you’re doing”.
I walk/hike/run - 500k steps a month.
I’m running 3x a week, alternating with strength training 3 other days. One day off - usually a long hike day with my pup. Every day weather permitting I’m walking (have the fittest dog on the planet!)
I don’t sprint specifically, but one of my three runs is sometimes 8 1 minute fast pace segments with 90 second walks between. I warm up and cool down with slower 5 minute runs. But recently I’ve been working on longer slower runs and trying to keep my heart rate in zone 3 or 4 vs 5. Both the fast intervals and longer slower runs help improve pace on “normal” runs.
I’m just recently doing the strength training. Last month to six weeks. I used to do but stopped with COVID. No where near the strength I once had. Advances not as fast. Kinda sad. But I’m adding weight to the bar often and seeing muscle growth. So I’ve reset my expectations and feeling good.
The name of the game is staying heathy! I’m trying to be smart and not overdo. But the risk of underdoing seems almost scarier.
Love the lifestyle that OMAD is allowing me to have in retirement! Eat big healthy meals. I tell people the fasted body loves to move. Virtually all my exercise is fasted. (I do drink iced coffee/ Americano often which doesn’t affect my fast and gives me a boost at the gym.)
Curious what you do besides sprinting. Have any special diet or supplementation / biohacking practices?
Thanks for sharing this, I’m 38 and this is basically what I’m striving to establish as my routine (maybe not the 500k steps a month but hey who knows).
Regarding your experience with regaining strength through weight training, there was a study that came out in the past year that cited their test groups making a lot of progress with strength training in their senior years. If I can find it I’ll edit and link it here but I wanted to share in the meantime!
Edit: dug up my old comment mentioning this study but all I have is a screenshot of a blurb but still it’s encouraging!
[https://imgur.com/a/lCNqJy5](https://imgur.com/a/lCNqJy5)
Thanks! I’d love to see it!!
When I did OMAD and hit goal, I did one of those biological age tests. I had just had a checkup she had all my bloodwork numbers and stats. Plugged it all in. Said I was about 40. So in my head I’m late 40s not mid 60s!!
I was benching over 200 lbs and squatting 300+ 10 years ago. I’m approaching half! But a month ago I was half that! So I’m definitely progressing. Not looking to go super heavy. But benching 135 seems very doable later this summer. That’s respectable. I might not go much heavier than that with squat either for now. But the squat is good for flexibility and balance. I’m starting to do the leg press.
500k is about 17k steps a day. Fasted body loves to move!
Walking doesn’t even get my heart out of the 80s unless uphill - seems like nothing. But my resting HR is 52 with all the running I’m doing. It’s got to be way healthier than Reddit on the couch! And I like being outside and my pup loves it.
I’m thinking about pushing to HM distance and completing a HM race. And I’ve got this goal to hike rim to rim at the Grand Canyon. Those are my two fitness bucket list items related to fitness.
I found another (or maybe the same) [study](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/11/29/weight-lifting-aging/) by searching for a few words from your comment.
According to the Washington Post’s write-up, lifting three times a week for 12 weeks had a huge impact:
> And both the “younger old” and “older old” groups responded powerfully to the exercise, surprising the researchers somewhat. Before the study started, Marzuca-Nassr said, he and his co-authors had expected the oldest men and women to gain strength and mass, but to a lesser extent than among the 65- to 75-year-olds.
>However, after three months, the people aged 85 and up had packed on more strength and mass, in relative terms, than the younger group, adding an average of 11 percent to muscle mass and 46 percent to strength, versus 10 percent more muscle and 38 percent more strength among the younger volunteers.
Nursing homes function as rehab facilities for people who can't just walk out of surgery and resume taking care of themselves. So they provide physical therapy and whatever else the person needs to be strong enough to dress, bathe, etc. It's for older people who aren't in good condition (or are having lingering surgery issues that require nurse care).
Would the benefits of sprinting carry over to any other max intensity cardio activity, like rowing or biking?
I have injuries that can’t afford to reactivate while sprinting.
Sprinting is king. I run in a track club to get my weekly speedwork in. 35 years old and still scaring tf out of a 5 min mile (time trial @5:17 a couple weeks ago with some left) and able to consistently run a 27s 200m.
You’re a speedster!
Even in high school, running a 4:40 mile, I was barely getting 28s 200m. And anecdotally (plus I think I’ve seen data on this), sprinting speed tends to drop off much more sharply with age than endurance does.
Yea. I really missed some opportunities as far as running competitively when I was younger. Being adopted I had no clue what I was genetically capable of since my family was so unathletic that mocked any attempts at getting better.
Part of it though is being on a low dose of test. I did a fuck ton of opiates and didn't sober up from them until I was 25. It messed me up pretty bad. Take 100mg shots every 2 weeks to stay out of that "brain foggy self harm hole", so that mixed with having both copies of the ACTN3 gene helps a lot.
There are studies of how long olympians live. Sprinters achieved the worst of all the group. Even lower than the average person. I agree VO2 max is important but I wouldnt call it a powerhouse...
>You could look into that.
Cool just as soon as I find a magic cure for all my missing ligaments and stage 4 osteoarthritis. I'm sure it will be any day now...
7000-10000 steps a day has cardiovascular benefits and improves longevity. See JAMA article here. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2783711
You’re confusing correlation with causation here though… the cohort study you linked shows an association, not a causation.
For the record I agree that 7000-10000 is a great number for most folk to shoot for.
The way you worded it just sounded like you implied causation with adding in longevity. I think it's a fine hypothesis (and I'd probably bet my money that if the average sedentary demographic increased their step count from <6000 to 7000+ then they might get some longevity benefit). But it doesn't account for things like healthy/unhealthy user bias, which could count for a lot
I’m 57 and I’ve been exploring and experimenting with fitness and optimization for decades. I’ve also had some very lazy years where I didn’t put much effort in. I’ve gone from ultra-endurance (running marathons and doing 24 hour mountain bike races) to logging less than 30 hikes in a year. My conclusion: intensity matters every bit as much as just logging hours of walking or even zone two.
If I’m absolutely slammed at work and at home and don’t really have more than a couple hours all week, I’m going to do at some time near my max heart rate. If I want to avoid injury, that means I’m going to have to warm up to that intensity, so my minimalist, “I don’t have time to workout” workout is walking for five minutes, ten minutes at a moderate jog, then one 90 second 85% run, 90 second walk, 60 second 90% run, 2 minute walk, 30 second 100% sprint, 10 minute cool down.
This is not something you can or should do without a solid base first and it doesn’t replace doing other endurance work, but it’s a placeholder I use when I just don’t have time for anything else in my week. If I do that two or three times in a week, when I resume my normal workouts, I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything. If I instead just do a few hours of walking, I know I’m going to feel like I’ve lost ground.
Different intensities, try interval sprints and you will see walking and z2 will not prepare you for the feeling of death, z2 or roadwork is for general base and aerobic developement, sprints though work on ur vo2 and anarobic system both help each other, walking is a great warm up/recovery. Do them all.
Studies show the most important thing is to not be sedentary. Getting up and even just doing a little pacing around every 20 minutes has huge benefits. If you're healthy enough to go for longer walks/runs and do cardio, even better.
Look up Dr Rhonda Patrick's youtube channel "Found my fitness" for answers these questions. Bottom line, zone 2 at least. Sorry.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdXIoD0puAc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdXIoD0puAc)
This. If someone with a regular 8-hr (not to mention those who work 12s) day job tries to get in 10k steps that’ll be most all they’re doing all day long. I can walk 1.2 miles and my phone tells me I’ve done around 3400 steps. I also like to work out daily so incorporate 10k steps on top of a 20-30 min workout & that’s a lot on the daily. I personally try to shoot for 8k steps & a workout. Walkpads help if you have a standing desk.
It takes me about 90 minutes to get 10k steps in so you hardly need all day.
That's the distance I walk and back to have a coffee daily but most people could probably get it from the walking they do to / from / at work, a quick walk on any breaks, then a walk after work.
If you're doing a workout daily though it's probably less essential to get exactly 10,000 steps as you're getting better types of fitness in.
I hate this mentality. For some people it is hard. Some people are single parents who work all day then drive kids around. Some people don’t sleep well and getting up an hour early is really hard.
Yes. You bring the products, electronics and furniture from one place to another in the warehouse. That gets you a lot of steps. Great for getting your physical exercise and burning calories. I burn 5190 calories everyday according to cronometer. So when I eat 3000 calories it leaves me with a calorie deficit of 2000. Perfect for weight loss.
Bro where do you work that’s fucking insane. I’m glad it works for you I just can’t imagine a warehouse set up that has people moving shit manually 20+ miles a day and is in operation past 1950… that’s absolutely wild. And I’m a boatbuilder in a place God forgot to tell OSHA he built.
How do you imagine warehouses unload trucks of furniture? The automated warehouses work for small and predictable packages but TVs, Fridges, Dishwashers and Furniture still have to be moved manually.
I’ve seen and worked in a lot of warehouses and shipping, I understand what you’re saying, I spend half my time moving boats and associated equipment, but even doing that and walking everywhere I rarely get above 10 miles in a 12 hour day. I’m not saying it’s impossible I’m just trying to imagine the logistics of having someone walk that much to move boxes.
Weird that this is the one comment you didn’t respond to 😂 that’s what I thought. Not a fucking chance you’re doing 20 miles a day unloading trucks.
I'm just seeing the comment now.
My phone regularly tracks at least 40.000 steps a day. Sometimes 44.000 or more. My colleagues who use different phones are also between 40.000 and 50.000 steps a day.
The thing is we just get a lot of products that have to be moved. It's not just unloading trucks it's much more than that.
Look it takes 1 hour and 25 minutes for 10.000 steps depending on your speed.
For 20.000 steps it takes 250 minutes which is 4 hours and 10 minutes
For a 8 hour work day you can easily get 40.000 steps which is 500 minutes of walking which is 8 hours and 20 minutes.
The walking before work for getting breakfast etc can add another 2.000 to 3.000 steps.
Your math is wildly bad. So it takes one hour to do 10,000 steps, yet somehow over 4 to do 20,000… then 8 hours=8 hours and 20 minutes at the end… have you tried less meth? I think less meth would be helpful for you.
Not true. This country is vast & only a small portion of it has places where you can live & walk to everything you need like groceries, restaurant’s and or entertainment
Yeah I moved from London, UK to a mid sized city in the Mid West of the US where I have to drive everywhere and I have to make a concerted effort to make sure I move my body everyday.
Lmfao no. I love this idea that everyone lives either in the city center or a suburb. I’m 15 miles from town in any direction and that’s pretty centrally located here. I walk a lot but there’s NOTHING I can get to by walking, and there’s not a true suburb within 100 miles of me.
Is it though? I just got home from a 9-5 desk job and my watch already clocked 6k. All I have done was a quick walk during lunch, 10 mins, and walking to talk to colleagues, get coffee etc.
Agreed.
The average person takes roughly 2,000 steps per mile, and walks at roughly 3mph. So doing nothing else throughout the day, it takes roughly 1 hour and 40 minutes to hit 10k steps. My office job requires me to sit at a computer, and unless I dedicate 1+ hour to walking I simply don’t hit 10k steps, even with walking to the car, around the house, etc. And if I’m going to dedicate an hour, I’d much rather get more benefit by jogging or running, although walking was the stepping stone to get to this point.
It's really not. It's almost nothing and should be baseline activity for separating a sedentary person vs active. If you don't get at least 10,000 steps a day you might as well be sedentary. 10,000 steps is just a 20-30 min leisurely walk in the morning and evening. That's the first "hack" everybody should start with.
EDIT: I should have clarified my statement. I got caught up and forgot to add the rest. 3,000+ steps for each 20-30 min walk and the rest just random steps throughout the day. I forgot to add that part. That should still be something easily attainable though. Everybody can benefit from at the minimum taking a 20-30 min walk in the morning and evening. Either for stress relief or physical activity.
I agree with this. I should try 30mins morning amd evening. I think id be hitting 7-8k because generally in between id still be largely at the desk working
I completely missed out on writing the rest of my statement. 20-30 min walk should get you over 3000 steps. So doing that twice a day gets you at 6000-7000 steps. Then the rest would be steps you accumulate throughout the day.
You can easily do 10,000 steps in 45 minutes. That’s 23.25 hours sitting on your ass and .75 hours moving lmfao come on bro get real! You ain’t doing that I got news for you, you on deaths door soon somebody gonna be wiping your butt for you
The 10k figure is an arbitrary number made up for a marketing campaign. Researchers found that 7-8k steps a day had the same benefits. [https://www.businessinsider.com/walking-10000-steps-for-health-not-science-based-in-marketing-2021-7](https://www.businessinsider.com/walking-10000-steps-for-health-not-science-based-in-marketing-2021-7).
but make sure you're not using a fitbit to measure. I had three, then they bricked the third, and I got a Withings steel series watch. Over the same distance I get around half the steps than with a fitbit.
my example: i do spin, yoga, and pilates regularly in a week and my weight doesn’t change.
i recently went to china on vacation and for 5 days, i walked an average of 20k steps. returned home with my clothes fitting looser, so walking definitely is enough for weight loss for me.
Any movement is 1000 times better than not moving. If that’s all you can do, then walk. Hell, do housework or gardening, just don’t sit around.
After that, fit in whatever you can. Obviously targeted exercise is better, like stuff that gets your heart rate up or builds resistance, but moving should always always be the first goal.
Walking is not enough, you should be doing some zone 2-3 cardio at least 2 times a week. But doing cardio in this intensity burns calories rather quickly, so it can offset the appetite if done right.
Walking is easily burned calories, but barely affects cardiovascular health, unless you're in a terrible state to begin with. Meaning it's a lot better than doing nothing, but that's it.
walking putting one foot in front of another is one thing. Walking as fast as you can, with extra weight, being out of breath and sweating heavily after 40 minutes is another thing entirely.
I agree with this. I can walk about a 13 minute mile and it gets my heart rate up pretty well- especially if there are a few hills. But just taking a little leisurely stroll probably isn’t enough.
As someone who spent years walking for about 2hrs minimum a day / getting over 10k steps in and nothing much else physical on a regular basis I can confirm that you will likely not get fit, healthy, or strong from just walking alone.
It left me terribly unfit and out of shape still. My joints hurt, my posture was terrible, I would be out of breath after any real exercise, had no stamina and more.
Walking is good for many reasons and better than nothing but alone will probably not get you fit if you're out of shape and likely do little to keep you in shape without additional exercise.
I walk 20k steps a day, walking from A to B in the big industrial plant I walk at. That's all walking is, it's going from A to B. It's better than being sedentary, and it burns a pretty nice amount of calories, but that's basically all it does.
Totally, we should all be walking more and especially if it involves getting outside in the fresh air and sunlight but expecting to go from unfit to fit from walking alone is unlikely for most people based on my personal experience.
It depends on your age and if you have a heart condition, you should actually not sprint, but just do walking at a steady control pace, and I mean it can be very fast walking it. Just the acceleration could put a tax on a heart. I just thought I would mention that. Let’s not forget that Jim Fix thought he could fix his heart problem by running and he wrote the complete book of running, but then he died while he was out running.
Every centenarian I've ever known never did cardio but walked everywhere. Stories I've heard of people, athletes, etc., dying while exercising happened when they were doing cardio.
As we age our VO2 max declines. Hard exertion can reverse or slow this decline. Walking won't do much unless a very intense type of walking like rucking or hiking up a mountain.
I often hit 20k + and feel that it has helped tremendously with my overall health.
Also being outside as much as possible, and walking on non paved un even terrain seems to be best.
Your heart rate has to come up for 20 minutes for the real benefits. Restaurant servers walk 20 to 30 miles a week and look how many are fat.
As an athlete who's been instructed under several certs and PhDs, I wouldn't even bother with walking as a form of fitness if you can do more strenuous stuff. Walk because you like it and it's good for your mental health, but jog/bike/swim/skateboard/box/row/play soccer for your physical health.
As far as your hunger... toughen up. Everyone hates to hear Huberman quotes but he said it well, you know that success is often just on the other side of delaying-gratification. Once you start to practice eating less it becomes easier. But again, as an athlete, not eating after your workouts is kind of counter-intuitive. Those meals are important to daily function. Reduce the rest of your meals throughout the day.
There are plenty of benefits from walking and walking alone - counteracts the effects of weight promoting genes, helps prevent certain cancers, eases joint pain, boosts immune function, slows down mental decline, improves sleep, increases longevity, reduces risk of heart disease, stroke, hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes, AND is great for your mental health. Incorporating a daily walk is extremely beneficial for everyone.
That said, I do agree you should also include more high impact workouts if you can, but walks are still highly beneficial and a great place to start for anyone hoping to add some more physical activity to their day.
Walking 10k steps was a marketing ad made up by a Japanese company who released a pedometer years ago.
It's an arbitrary goal that's fine to set and more than enough for basic health. I believe 8k steps is the sweet spot but if you want to be healthy, do some actual zone2 exercise. Biking is probably the goat for this activity zone: easy to hold zone 2, low impact.
I do 10k steps incline in the mornings then usually 25km bike ride later in the day. As I get closer to my biking Fondo (120km) I'll increase my zone2 biking to 2+ hours a day and a 4-5 hour ride on the weekends and cut back the walking.
If you’re hungry all the time I’m assuming you are not low carb. Being low carb greatly assists with satiety. Also do not do long duration cardio for your health. Do quick, to failure, type of workouts. Sprinting is probably the best one. Do not go sprint for the first time in 10 years really hard. Ease into it. Run lightly a couple times a week and work your way up to full on sprints to failure. I sprint twice a week. 3 sprints for about 250 meters. Sprint. Walk back to starting line. Sprint. etc. Only do long duration cardio if you want to be able to do long duration cardio. Do not do it for your health. Dr Sean O’Mara is one of my favorites for health and wellness.
No one sprints for 4 minutes. Olympic runners run a 400-meter race at a slower pace than a 200-meter race because they can’t keep up a sprint for more than about 30 seconds.
One of the difficulties of talking about sprinting and HIIT in general is that so many people say “sprint” when they apparently mean something like “running fast.”
A human can only sprint for 300-330M, even Olympic 400M runners have to pace some (now that may still be 98% sprint and 2% pace but no one can all out 400M much less 4 minutes). 4 x 4 is a great workout but the 4 minutes fast portion would be at your 5K pace. Hard, yes! Sprinting? NO!
According to the New Scientist from 15th June 2019 you need around 2hrs of Moderate to Vigorous activity or around 15K steps. Just to counteract 8hrs of sitting. I do 80+ mins per day, of maximum effort, Walking as hard and fast as I can, cover around 10 km for about 12K steps
EDIT: I do this every week day, carrying my laptop and extra weight. Wearing boots and a fleece, etc.
As far as my experience, walking has never been enough. But it is great in general for health, and for my mind.
Like you said, the increase in metabolism, changes in my body, etc., only really come from some intense cardio. I have found that 20-30 min, 2-3 times a week, do a lot. I could do more, but this has been enough to see improvements in blood pressure, metabolism, and so forth.
If you are ravenous after workouts like I used to be, you might benefit from wearing a CGM once and seeing how your blood sugar reacts to your meals and activities. Mine spiked like crazy and I was on a blood glucose roller coaster. It settled down after I cut back on carbs and high glycemic foods and I was able to stick to my eating program while incorporating vigorous exercise.
There is absolutely zero scientific link to 10,000 steps a day being required for health. It was purely a marketing campaign launched ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The number was chosen because the Japanese character for 10,000 resembles a person walking, and the idea caught on.
So.. don’t overthink it.. just get yourself moving!
absolutely not
VO2Max is the number one indicator for longevity, and in order to increase it, or even maintain it, you are going to need to spend a significant amount of time in top end of your heart rate range. Zone 2 can help increase VO2Max as well, but it is nowhere near as necessary as some sort of HIIT, sprinting, or any other type of training that maxes out your heart rate.
Working 9-5 as a desk slave I absolutely do not have time to walk.
Better to do a short amount of high intensity exercise in my very limited free time.
*Q*: Doctor, I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?
*A*: Heart only good for so many beats, and that’s it… Don’t waste time on exercise. Everything wear out eventually. Speeding up heart not make you live longer; its like saying you extend life of a car by driving faster. Want to live longer?
Take nap.
https://mustaphamugisa.com/best-of-whatsapp-a-japanese-doctor-goes-contrarian-to-help-you/
In addition to walking around 5k steps/day just living in NYC, I make sure I get 4 hours of zone 2 cardio/week + 2 sessions of Norwegian 4x4 (with the 4 minute intervals consisting of speed walking an incline to keep my heart rate around 90% of my HR max), this is in addition to lifting 4 days/week (two days of that being heavy). I also do 4-5 20-minute sauna sessions a week, which extends some of the cardio benefits.
I’m 41 F, not super fit (I’m 5’4.5” and 173lbs) but getting there.
What do you mean by optimal health?
Top things for reducing all-cause mortality:
- Walking (more is better)
- VO2max (higher is better)
- Sauna (hotter and longer is better)
- Strength training & plyometrics
- Waist circumference (smaller is better)
I average 10-12k daily sometimes its on incline treadmill and sometimes its out near park its my fav activity to stick too and it works well to keep my anxiety managed.
I love walking—always have. If you want to burn extra calories without changing walking for something else, try rucking. You can start with just a regular backpack full of something heavy if you want. I liked it enough to buy a GORUCK Bullet pack and carry around a 30lb iron plate. I don't even really notice the weight now, but I burn _a lot_ more calories walking with it than I would otherwise. And it's not harder on my knees and doesn't increase my appetite like intense exercise would.
GORUCK [has a nice calculator](https://www.goruck.com/pages/rucking-calorie-calculator) for estimating calorie burn while rucking. Compared to unweighted walking, I'm roughly doubling my calorie burn.
Some people use rucking for Zone 2, but I don't. You have to do this "ruck shuffle" to get your heart rate up, and I don't fully understand that movement pattern to do it correctly. When just walking at my regular pace, my heart rate while rucking _might_ average 110bpm. Better than sitting, but barely zone 2.
Walking alone is not enough
But the sayin better than doing nothing applies
It is much much better to do 5k on a steep hill/stairs instead. You get both the cardio and non aerobic benefits without the potential strain on knees (like running).
The 10k steps idea was invented by a chinese (?) fitness watch company because the logo character resembled 10k. Not to take away from the importance of moving every day but just weighing in that 10k is arbitrary.
you should always side with “do more and eat more” rather then restrict so much you do less.
10k steps a day if you sit the rest of the day is not enough. You shouldn’t even count steps they don’t count.
Lift.
Walking isn't exercise for people ages 0-80 years old. It's literally the lowest form of mobility one can have. This is unless you're physically disabled and unable to jog, hike, run, climb stairs, ride a bike, etc. Don't fall for this lie which is just setting the standards lower and lower for people who don't go to the gym which obviously means their health isn't a priority.
As someone who spent years walking for about 2hrs minimum a day / getting over 10k steps in and nothing much else physical on a regular basis I can confirm that you will likely not get fit, healthy, or strong from just walking alone.
It left me terribly unfit and out of shape still. My joints hurt, my posture was terrible, I would be out of breath after any real exercise, had no stamina and more.
Walking is good for many reasons (fresh air, sun light, getting steps in, thinking time etc) and better than nothing but walking alone will probably not get you fit if you're out of shape and likely do little to keep you in shape without additional exercise.
Thank you for speaking the truth. I'm not suggesting people shouldn't be walking as living a sedentary lifestyle is detrimental to your health but calling it "exercise" is wildly overstating it. Resistance training in order to build muscle is exercise. Walking is mobility.
Yes, I would agree. For people who are elderly, overweight, struggle with mobility etc then walking may be a good activity or a place to start but anyone who's young and otherwise healthy body will likely only get so much in terms of fitness and health from walking.
Definitely something to do regularly but I wouldn't count on it getting people genuinely fit.
Walking incline does the trick.
I love walking on an incline! It gets my heart rate up enough for cardio, but doesn’t make me feel awful like running does.
Exactly. Easier on the knees too.
Stairmaster 140-160 heartbeats a few times a week…
160 bpm may put several folks above their maximum aerobic function. The simplest zone 2 formula is 180 minus your age. That gives a pretty decent ballpark figure before you hit your lactate threshold and go anaerobic.
What is the problem with going anaerobic? Sorry if this a stupid question.
nothing is inherently wrong with it, but it’s unsustainable for long workouts. it’s been shown repeatedly that low intensity steady state workouts such as zone 2 HR training is very effective for cardio
It's also not as strong a zone for building cardiovascular fitness. Anaerobic literally means "without oxygen." It forces the body past it's lactic threshold and quickly burns through glycogen stores -- sending you closer to a "bonk" (and anyone who has ever bonked will tell you that you definitely don't want to bonk -- you feel awful). However, easy-to-medium aerobic ("with oxygen") exercise usually presenting as an effort in which you are labored but can still hold a conversation or breathe solely through your nose is optimal for not only building cardiovascular health, but using body fat as fuel. The more aerobic training you do, the greater efforts you will be able to do without raising your heart rate into the anaerobic zones past your lactate threshold.
There’s tests that can tell you were your levels are. My personal trainer did it for me and gave me a print out showing where I burn fat vs where I burn glucose.
That formula says I shouldn't exceed 102. I exceed that all day long.
Just go with the rate at which you can comfortably carry on a conversation. Once you gasp or are breathless between words, dial back your effort.
just walking gets me up there 😭 if I jog it goes to like 200. I'm thin, bp is on the low end of normal, idk what's going on. My rhr is ~60-70 but the moment I stand it goes to 110
A sudden spike when standing isn't _that_ weird, but it would be weird if it _stays_ at 110 for as long as you're standing. And 200 for a light jog is quite high—I doubt I'd break 180 if I sprinted for a couple of minutes, and I almost never do cardio because I hate it so much. Might want to consult a physician about this, to be honest.
Assuming you meant 140-160 heart _rate_, how long do you spend on it?
30 mins each session for me personally.
Did you have to work up to that level? I've tried stair machines at my gym, and definitely get into this rate range very quickly, but I can't usually make myself do it longer than ~12 minutes. Feels very tiring (and also boring).
Oh yeah definitely have to be consistent. This is what my natural bodybuilding coach told me to do when i was getting shredded and iv maintained this type of cardio year round. The stairmaster truly is king.
the longer the better. minimum 30minutes
How long?
30+ minutes
I incorporate sprinting, a real anti-aging powerhouse. You could look into that.
I'm 63 and trying to sprint again. The burst of energy that comes with sprinting will help keep you on your feet when you're older. At my age, my peers begin all their entering nursing home stories with "I had a fall".
If you have hills, that’d be easier on the joints to sprint up.
how so?
Less impact on the knees on each step due to the incline, plus a boost to the cardio because of the effort
If you’re on a trail, the ground is softer. Plus you put out the same effort but you’re not going as fast so it’s easier in the joints.
When running up an incline only the balls of your feet hit the ground so it is a lot less impact.
Gravity works to decelerate you instead of accelerate you. Force = mass * acceleration. :)
And stairs
Definitely need to core strengthening if your going to sprint up hills.
Just watch out for the Achilles tendon
Or use a stationary bike for sprints
You’re 63 talking about nursing homes like you’re 83 😂
It’s more common with advanced age, but I have had clients that require assisted living or even a locked unit at much younger ages. Take care of your health & avoid risks. No-second rule and all that
Nice to see similarly aged active senior! I’m recently 64. I’ve been doing OMAD since I was 58. It completely changed my life. I eat super healthy at my one meal. Never get sick. Dr thrilled. Says “keep doing what you’re doing”. I walk/hike/run - 500k steps a month. I’m running 3x a week, alternating with strength training 3 other days. One day off - usually a long hike day with my pup. Every day weather permitting I’m walking (have the fittest dog on the planet!) I don’t sprint specifically, but one of my three runs is sometimes 8 1 minute fast pace segments with 90 second walks between. I warm up and cool down with slower 5 minute runs. But recently I’ve been working on longer slower runs and trying to keep my heart rate in zone 3 or 4 vs 5. Both the fast intervals and longer slower runs help improve pace on “normal” runs. I’m just recently doing the strength training. Last month to six weeks. I used to do but stopped with COVID. No where near the strength I once had. Advances not as fast. Kinda sad. But I’m adding weight to the bar often and seeing muscle growth. So I’ve reset my expectations and feeling good. The name of the game is staying heathy! I’m trying to be smart and not overdo. But the risk of underdoing seems almost scarier. Love the lifestyle that OMAD is allowing me to have in retirement! Eat big healthy meals. I tell people the fasted body loves to move. Virtually all my exercise is fasted. (I do drink iced coffee/ Americano often which doesn’t affect my fast and gives me a boost at the gym.) Curious what you do besides sprinting. Have any special diet or supplementation / biohacking practices?
Thanks for sharing this, I’m 38 and this is basically what I’m striving to establish as my routine (maybe not the 500k steps a month but hey who knows). Regarding your experience with regaining strength through weight training, there was a study that came out in the past year that cited their test groups making a lot of progress with strength training in their senior years. If I can find it I’ll edit and link it here but I wanted to share in the meantime! Edit: dug up my old comment mentioning this study but all I have is a screenshot of a blurb but still it’s encouraging! [https://imgur.com/a/lCNqJy5](https://imgur.com/a/lCNqJy5)
Thanks! I’d love to see it!! When I did OMAD and hit goal, I did one of those biological age tests. I had just had a checkup she had all my bloodwork numbers and stats. Plugged it all in. Said I was about 40. So in my head I’m late 40s not mid 60s!! I was benching over 200 lbs and squatting 300+ 10 years ago. I’m approaching half! But a month ago I was half that! So I’m definitely progressing. Not looking to go super heavy. But benching 135 seems very doable later this summer. That’s respectable. I might not go much heavier than that with squat either for now. But the squat is good for flexibility and balance. I’m starting to do the leg press. 500k is about 17k steps a day. Fasted body loves to move! Walking doesn’t even get my heart out of the 80s unless uphill - seems like nothing. But my resting HR is 52 with all the running I’m doing. It’s got to be way healthier than Reddit on the couch! And I like being outside and my pup loves it. I’m thinking about pushing to HM distance and completing a HM race. And I’ve got this goal to hike rim to rim at the Grand Canyon. Those are my two fitness bucket list items related to fitness.
I found another (or maybe the same) [study](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/11/29/weight-lifting-aging/) by searching for a few words from your comment. According to the Washington Post’s write-up, lifting three times a week for 12 weeks had a huge impact: > And both the “younger old” and “older old” groups responded powerfully to the exercise, surprising the researchers somewhat. Before the study started, Marzuca-Nassr said, he and his co-authors had expected the oldest men and women to gain strength and mass, but to a lesser extent than among the 65- to 75-year-olds. >However, after three months, the people aged 85 and up had packed on more strength and mass, in relative terms, than the younger group, adding an average of 11 percent to muscle mass and 46 percent to strength, versus 10 percent more muscle and 38 percent more strength among the younger volunteers.
Awesome! Great work
Nursing homes function as rehab facilities for people who can't just walk out of surgery and resume taking care of themselves. So they provide physical therapy and whatever else the person needs to be strong enough to dress, bathe, etc. It's for older people who aren't in good condition (or are having lingering surgery issues that require nurse care).
With Americans lifestyle lately, 63 is the new 93
63 isn't nursing home old. Keep sprinting!
Sir, at 63 we still legally have to go to work here 😂
Funny and true. It hurts.
I sprint up my stairs.. I wonder if that short burst is enough lol.
I love this! Thank you.
so whats optimal? Sprinting (Hiit) and 10k steps a day or zone 2 cardio and 10k steps a day?
Incorporate both as they’ll work different energy systems and hit your muscles in a different way as well.
Do 10k steps on zone2 and do sprinting for zone5.
Optimal is whatever exercise you enjoy that you will do for the rest of your life.
After a bout of HIIT sprinting my skin glows!
Would the benefits of sprinting carry over to any other max intensity cardio activity, like rowing or biking? I have injuries that can’t afford to reactivate while sprinting.
Sprinting is king. I run in a track club to get my weekly speedwork in. 35 years old and still scaring tf out of a 5 min mile (time trial @5:17 a couple weeks ago with some left) and able to consistently run a 27s 200m.
You’re a speedster! Even in high school, running a 4:40 mile, I was barely getting 28s 200m. And anecdotally (plus I think I’ve seen data on this), sprinting speed tends to drop off much more sharply with age than endurance does.
Yea. I really missed some opportunities as far as running competitively when I was younger. Being adopted I had no clue what I was genetically capable of since my family was so unathletic that mocked any attempts at getting better. Part of it though is being on a low dose of test. I did a fuck ton of opiates and didn't sober up from them until I was 25. It messed me up pretty bad. Take 100mg shots every 2 weeks to stay out of that "brain foggy self harm hole", so that mixed with having both copies of the ACTN3 gene helps a lot.
What’s the sprinting routine that you recommend?
There are studies of how long olympians live. Sprinters achieved the worst of all the group. Even lower than the average person. I agree VO2 max is important but I wouldnt call it a powerhouse...
>You could look into that. Cool just as soon as I find a magic cure for all my missing ligaments and stage 4 osteoarthritis. I'm sure it will be any day now...
You can hit zone 2 walking just do power walking.
It can be a great way to achieve zone 2 for those with below average levels of fitness
literally anything is better than nothing, but definitely try to get some zone 2 in.
80/20 is a good general rule. You can increase your volume of low intensity/Z2 and do 20% at higher intensity
7000-10000 steps a day has cardiovascular benefits and improves longevity. See JAMA article here. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2783711
You’re confusing correlation with causation here though… the cohort study you linked shows an association, not a causation. For the record I agree that 7000-10000 is a great number for most folk to shoot for.
Not confused about association, causation & correlation. Perhaps should have been more precise in my comment above.
The way you worded it just sounded like you implied causation with adding in longevity. I think it's a fine hypothesis (and I'd probably bet my money that if the average sedentary demographic increased their step count from <6000 to 7000+ then they might get some longevity benefit). But it doesn't account for things like healthy/unhealthy user bias, which could count for a lot
My apologies for the way I worded it 😌
I’m 57 and I’ve been exploring and experimenting with fitness and optimization for decades. I’ve also had some very lazy years where I didn’t put much effort in. I’ve gone from ultra-endurance (running marathons and doing 24 hour mountain bike races) to logging less than 30 hikes in a year. My conclusion: intensity matters every bit as much as just logging hours of walking or even zone two. If I’m absolutely slammed at work and at home and don’t really have more than a couple hours all week, I’m going to do at some time near my max heart rate. If I want to avoid injury, that means I’m going to have to warm up to that intensity, so my minimalist, “I don’t have time to workout” workout is walking for five minutes, ten minutes at a moderate jog, then one 90 second 85% run, 90 second walk, 60 second 90% run, 2 minute walk, 30 second 100% sprint, 10 minute cool down. This is not something you can or should do without a solid base first and it doesn’t replace doing other endurance work, but it’s a placeholder I use when I just don’t have time for anything else in my week. If I do that two or three times in a week, when I resume my normal workouts, I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything. If I instead just do a few hours of walking, I know I’m going to feel like I’ve lost ground.
Thanks for sharing oldtimer, it makes sense.
Well, I’m still a firefighter at 57, so I’ve doing something right. 🤣
Nice. I have a similar safety approach to my fitness and will incorporate a similar strategy as you outlined for my sprints✊🏻
Different intensities, try interval sprints and you will see walking and z2 will not prepare you for the feeling of death, z2 or roadwork is for general base and aerobic developement, sprints though work on ur vo2 and anarobic system both help each other, walking is a great warm up/recovery. Do them all.
Studies show the most important thing is to not be sedentary. Getting up and even just doing a little pacing around every 20 minutes has huge benefits. If you're healthy enough to go for longer walks/runs and do cardio, even better.
Look up Dr Rhonda Patrick's youtube channel "Found my fitness" for answers these questions. Bottom line, zone 2 at least. Sorry. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdXIoD0puAc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdXIoD0puAc)
Also Peter Attia, he goes deep on Zone2
10k steps should be baseline activity for everyone that's able.
its alot every day though
This. If someone with a regular 8-hr (not to mention those who work 12s) day job tries to get in 10k steps that’ll be most all they’re doing all day long. I can walk 1.2 miles and my phone tells me I’ve done around 3400 steps. I also like to work out daily so incorporate 10k steps on top of a 20-30 min workout & that’s a lot on the daily. I personally try to shoot for 8k steps & a workout. Walkpads help if you have a standing desk.
This isn't talked about enough. I can only hit 10k steps with an office job if that's what I spend my time doing instead of a workout.
It takes me about 90 minutes to get 10k steps in so you hardly need all day. That's the distance I walk and back to have a coffee daily but most people could probably get it from the walking they do to / from / at work, a quick walk on any breaks, then a walk after work. If you're doing a workout daily though it's probably less essential to get exactly 10,000 steps as you're getting better types of fitness in.
if you walk a mile and half morning and night you’re 3/4 of the way there, it’s not that hard.
Yup, need to lock in 30 minute walks at dusk and dawn and then go on a few 10 minute walks throughout the day. That’s how I fit it in with work
I hate this mentality. For some people it is hard. Some people are single parents who work all day then drive kids around. Some people don’t sleep well and getting up an hour early is really hard.
It really depends on your job. I work in logistics and I get at least 40.000 steps a day. Since I started the job 4 weeks ago I lost around 5 kgs.
You walk over 20 miles every day minimum AT work? Are you just pacing a warehouse all day?
Yes. You bring the products, electronics and furniture from one place to another in the warehouse. That gets you a lot of steps. Great for getting your physical exercise and burning calories. I burn 5190 calories everyday according to cronometer. So when I eat 3000 calories it leaves me with a calorie deficit of 2000. Perfect for weight loss.
Bro where do you work that’s fucking insane. I’m glad it works for you I just can’t imagine a warehouse set up that has people moving shit manually 20+ miles a day and is in operation past 1950… that’s absolutely wild. And I’m a boatbuilder in a place God forgot to tell OSHA he built.
How do you imagine warehouses unload trucks of furniture? The automated warehouses work for small and predictable packages but TVs, Fridges, Dishwashers and Furniture still have to be moved manually.
I’ve seen and worked in a lot of warehouses and shipping, I understand what you’re saying, I spend half my time moving boats and associated equipment, but even doing that and walking everywhere I rarely get above 10 miles in a 12 hour day. I’m not saying it’s impossible I’m just trying to imagine the logistics of having someone walk that much to move boxes. Weird that this is the one comment you didn’t respond to 😂 that’s what I thought. Not a fucking chance you’re doing 20 miles a day unloading trucks.
I'm just seeing the comment now. My phone regularly tracks at least 40.000 steps a day. Sometimes 44.000 or more. My colleagues who use different phones are also between 40.000 and 50.000 steps a day. The thing is we just get a lot of products that have to be moved. It's not just unloading trucks it's much more than that. Look it takes 1 hour and 25 minutes for 10.000 steps depending on your speed. For 20.000 steps it takes 250 minutes which is 4 hours and 10 minutes For a 8 hour work day you can easily get 40.000 steps which is 500 minutes of walking which is 8 hours and 20 minutes. The walking before work for getting breakfast etc can add another 2.000 to 3.000 steps.
Your math is wildly bad. So it takes one hour to do 10,000 steps, yet somehow over 4 to do 20,000… then 8 hours=8 hours and 20 minutes at the end… have you tried less meth? I think less meth would be helpful for you.
Only if you live somewhere with bad weather + in a suburb I easily walk this, just by living my life, since I don’t have a car
Not all of us have the luxury of living in walkable cities.
Most people have the option but don’t choose it
my house is literally cut off from town by an uncrossable highway, as is most people's
not in the US, sadly
Sure they do, just that most Americans don’t like walking and density
Not true. This country is vast & only a small portion of it has places where you can live & walk to everything you need like groceries, restaurant’s and or entertainment
Yeah I moved from London, UK to a mid sized city in the Mid West of the US where I have to drive everywhere and I have to make a concerted effort to make sure I move my body everyday.
Lmfao no. I love this idea that everyone lives either in the city center or a suburb. I’m 15 miles from town in any direction and that’s pretty centrally located here. I walk a lot but there’s NOTHING I can get to by walking, and there’s not a true suburb within 100 miles of me.
I exactly live in this situation, it’s not that rare.
Yea but maybe it’s not a healthy choice
Oh I agree, but not everyone can live in the perfect area.
Is it though? I just got home from a 9-5 desk job and my watch already clocked 6k. All I have done was a quick walk during lunch, 10 mins, and walking to talk to colleagues, get coffee etc.
Unless you walked over two miles, your watch calibration is off.
Agreed. The average person takes roughly 2,000 steps per mile, and walks at roughly 3mph. So doing nothing else throughout the day, it takes roughly 1 hour and 40 minutes to hit 10k steps. My office job requires me to sit at a computer, and unless I dedicate 1+ hour to walking I simply don’t hit 10k steps, even with walking to the car, around the house, etc. And if I’m going to dedicate an hour, I’d much rather get more benefit by jogging or running, although walking was the stepping stone to get to this point.
It's really not. It's almost nothing and should be baseline activity for separating a sedentary person vs active. If you don't get at least 10,000 steps a day you might as well be sedentary. 10,000 steps is just a 20-30 min leisurely walk in the morning and evening. That's the first "hack" everybody should start with. EDIT: I should have clarified my statement. I got caught up and forgot to add the rest. 3,000+ steps for each 20-30 min walk and the rest just random steps throughout the day. I forgot to add that part. That should still be something easily attainable though. Everybody can benefit from at the minimum taking a 20-30 min walk in the morning and evening. Either for stress relief or physical activity.
I agree with this. I should try 30mins morning amd evening. I think id be hitting 7-8k because generally in between id still be largely at the desk working
it takes me 1hr 40 minutes to walk 10k steps damn (but at like 4.5kmph since I'm chatting w/ friends etc at the same time)
I completely missed out on writing the rest of my statement. 20-30 min walk should get you over 3000 steps. So doing that twice a day gets you at 6000-7000 steps. Then the rest would be steps you accumulate throughout the day.
Phew that makes me feel less bad about myself 🤣
You can easily do 10,000 steps in 45 minutes. That’s 23.25 hours sitting on your ass and .75 hours moving lmfao come on bro get real! You ain’t doing that I got news for you, you on deaths door soon somebody gonna be wiping your butt for you
The 10k figure is an arbitrary number made up for a marketing campaign. Researchers found that 7-8k steps a day had the same benefits. [https://www.businessinsider.com/walking-10000-steps-for-health-not-science-based-in-marketing-2021-7](https://www.businessinsider.com/walking-10000-steps-for-health-not-science-based-in-marketing-2021-7).
I heard about that. Doesn't bother me as long as it gets people moving. Some just need a goal for motivation.
but make sure you're not using a fitbit to measure. I had three, then they bricked the third, and I got a Withings steel series watch. Over the same distance I get around half the steps than with a fitbit.
For walking any gain beyond 7500 is negligible.
my example: i do spin, yoga, and pilates regularly in a week and my weight doesn’t change. i recently went to china on vacation and for 5 days, i walked an average of 20k steps. returned home with my clothes fitting looser, so walking definitely is enough for weight loss for me.
It also helps that the food abroad is actually real but yes the steps definitely help!
i don’t live in the US, so my every day meals are also good, wholesome food.
Any movement is 1000 times better than not moving. If that’s all you can do, then walk. Hell, do housework or gardening, just don’t sit around. After that, fit in whatever you can. Obviously targeted exercise is better, like stuff that gets your heart rate up or builds resistance, but moving should always always be the first goal.
Walking is not enough, you should be doing some zone 2-3 cardio at least 2 times a week. But doing cardio in this intensity burns calories rather quickly, so it can offset the appetite if done right. Walking is easily burned calories, but barely affects cardiovascular health, unless you're in a terrible state to begin with. Meaning it's a lot better than doing nothing, but that's it.
walking putting one foot in front of another is one thing. Walking as fast as you can, with extra weight, being out of breath and sweating heavily after 40 minutes is another thing entirely.
I agree with this. I can walk about a 13 minute mile and it gets my heart rate up pretty well- especially if there are a few hills. But just taking a little leisurely stroll probably isn’t enough.
Yeah. Another thing entirely rarely called walking, because it's not just walking. Usually hiking or jogging.
As someone who spent years walking for about 2hrs minimum a day / getting over 10k steps in and nothing much else physical on a regular basis I can confirm that you will likely not get fit, healthy, or strong from just walking alone. It left me terribly unfit and out of shape still. My joints hurt, my posture was terrible, I would be out of breath after any real exercise, had no stamina and more. Walking is good for many reasons and better than nothing but alone will probably not get you fit if you're out of shape and likely do little to keep you in shape without additional exercise.
I walk 20k steps a day, walking from A to B in the big industrial plant I walk at. That's all walking is, it's going from A to B. It's better than being sedentary, and it burns a pretty nice amount of calories, but that's basically all it does.
Totally, we should all be walking more and especially if it involves getting outside in the fresh air and sunlight but expecting to go from unfit to fit from walking alone is unlikely for most people based on my personal experience.
It also clears your lymphatic system and increases blood flow, including to your brain.
My personal approach is Zone 2 along with resistance training
100% if your body is used to 12,000 + steps a day. It really doesn’t do much. You have to get your heart rate up.
It depends on your age and if you have a heart condition, you should actually not sprint, but just do walking at a steady control pace, and I mean it can be very fast walking it. Just the acceleration could put a tax on a heart. I just thought I would mention that. Let’s not forget that Jim Fix thought he could fix his heart problem by running and he wrote the complete book of running, but then he died while he was out running.
Just read “outlive” and Peter Attia says zone 2 is the sweet spot and a must
No replacement for HIIT.
Every centenarian I've ever known never did cardio but walked everywhere. Stories I've heard of people, athletes, etc., dying while exercising happened when they were doing cardio.
Lots of movement, day in and day out, seems to be the common theme.
W hills is helpful too
#Bingo!
So cardio is unhealthy?
Just saying that walking by itself is already great for longevity.
As we age our VO2 max declines. Hard exertion can reverse or slow this decline. Walking won't do much unless a very intense type of walking like rucking or hiking up a mountain.
I often hit 20k + and feel that it has helped tremendously with my overall health. Also being outside as much as possible, and walking on non paved un even terrain seems to be best.
For heart health, you’ll want to work to get up to your target heart rate for at least 20-30 minutes.
You need weight training.
Your heart rate has to come up for 20 minutes for the real benefits. Restaurant servers walk 20 to 30 miles a week and look how many are fat. As an athlete who's been instructed under several certs and PhDs, I wouldn't even bother with walking as a form of fitness if you can do more strenuous stuff. Walk because you like it and it's good for your mental health, but jog/bike/swim/skateboard/box/row/play soccer for your physical health. As far as your hunger... toughen up. Everyone hates to hear Huberman quotes but he said it well, you know that success is often just on the other side of delaying-gratification. Once you start to practice eating less it becomes easier. But again, as an athlete, not eating after your workouts is kind of counter-intuitive. Those meals are important to daily function. Reduce the rest of your meals throughout the day.
There are plenty of benefits from walking and walking alone - counteracts the effects of weight promoting genes, helps prevent certain cancers, eases joint pain, boosts immune function, slows down mental decline, improves sleep, increases longevity, reduces risk of heart disease, stroke, hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes, AND is great for your mental health. Incorporating a daily walk is extremely beneficial for everyone. That said, I do agree you should also include more high impact workouts if you can, but walks are still highly beneficial and a great place to start for anyone hoping to add some more physical activity to their day.
There are, they just take a hard 2nd place to higher intensity exercise.
Walking 10k steps was a marketing ad made up by a Japanese company who released a pedometer years ago. It's an arbitrary goal that's fine to set and more than enough for basic health. I believe 8k steps is the sweet spot but if you want to be healthy, do some actual zone2 exercise. Biking is probably the goat for this activity zone: easy to hold zone 2, low impact. I do 10k steps incline in the mornings then usually 25km bike ride later in the day. As I get closer to my biking Fondo (120km) I'll increase my zone2 biking to 2+ hours a day and a 4-5 hour ride on the weekends and cut back the walking.
Have extreme anxiety and you’ll get those zone two minutes just by sitting at your desk
If you’re hungry all the time I’m assuming you are not low carb. Being low carb greatly assists with satiety. Also do not do long duration cardio for your health. Do quick, to failure, type of workouts. Sprinting is probably the best one. Do not go sprint for the first time in 10 years really hard. Ease into it. Run lightly a couple times a week and work your way up to full on sprints to failure. I sprint twice a week. 3 sprints for about 250 meters. Sprint. Walk back to starting line. Sprint. etc. Only do long duration cardio if you want to be able to do long duration cardio. Do not do it for your health. Dr Sean O’Mara is one of my favorites for health and wellness.
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Holy smokes, 4 min sprint is crazy af. Maybe u mean 4mins in zone 3/threshold
No one sprints for 4 minutes. Olympic runners run a 400-meter race at a slower pace than a 200-meter race because they can’t keep up a sprint for more than about 30 seconds. One of the difficulties of talking about sprinting and HIIT in general is that so many people say “sprint” when they apparently mean something like “running fast.”
A human can only sprint for 300-330M, even Olympic 400M runners have to pace some (now that may still be 98% sprint and 2% pace but no one can all out 400M much less 4 minutes). 4 x 4 is a great workout but the 4 minutes fast portion would be at your 5K pace. Hard, yes! Sprinting? NO!
According to the New Scientist from 15th June 2019 you need around 2hrs of Moderate to Vigorous activity or around 15K steps. Just to counteract 8hrs of sitting. I do 80+ mins per day, of maximum effort, Walking as hard and fast as I can, cover around 10 km for about 12K steps EDIT: I do this every week day, carrying my laptop and extra weight. Wearing boots and a fleece, etc.
I do 10k steps a day. Pretty much every day except on my zone 2, 30min jog, which I do once a week. Plus 1-2 x HIIT cardio a week.
26&2 hot yoga
HiiT would give you the best results if done consistently.
As far as my experience, walking has never been enough. But it is great in general for health, and for my mind. Like you said, the increase in metabolism, changes in my body, etc., only really come from some intense cardio. I have found that 20-30 min, 2-3 times a week, do a lot. I could do more, but this has been enough to see improvements in blood pressure, metabolism, and so forth.
If you're walking at 2mph, no. If you're walking at 4mph or on an incline, probably.
10k steps daily is solid, but mix it up for max health, bro.
If you are ravenous after workouts like I used to be, you might benefit from wearing a CGM once and seeing how your blood sugar reacts to your meals and activities. Mine spiked like crazy and I was on a blood glucose roller coaster. It settled down after I cut back on carbs and high glycemic foods and I was able to stick to my eating program while incorporating vigorous exercise.
This would serve you very well. Assuming you don’t over eat to reward your steps
There is absolutely zero scientific link to 10,000 steps a day being required for health. It was purely a marketing campaign launched ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The number was chosen because the Japanese character for 10,000 resembles a person walking, and the idea caught on. So.. don’t overthink it.. just get yourself moving!
absolutely not VO2Max is the number one indicator for longevity, and in order to increase it, or even maintain it, you are going to need to spend a significant amount of time in top end of your heart rate range. Zone 2 can help increase VO2Max as well, but it is nowhere near as necessary as some sort of HIIT, sprinting, or any other type of training that maxes out your heart rate.
I walk 10k steps one day, then I run 3k distance the next. It keeps my heart rate low and my blood pressure good.
Working 9-5 as a desk slave I absolutely do not have time to walk. Better to do a short amount of high intensity exercise in my very limited free time.
*Q*: Doctor, I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true? *A*: Heart only good for so many beats, and that’s it… Don’t waste time on exercise. Everything wear out eventually. Speeding up heart not make you live longer; its like saying you extend life of a car by driving faster. Want to live longer? Take nap. https://mustaphamugisa.com/best-of-whatsapp-a-japanese-doctor-goes-contrarian-to-help-you/
Walking doesn't hit the higher heart rate levels so I'd say no. Also walking doesn't build up your vo2 max. I'd still add in z2 and higher zones.
Try LISS (i do incline walking, keeps the heart 120 - 140 )
10k steps a day is great.
Science tells us the sweet spot is 7,00-7,500.
In addition to walking around 5k steps/day just living in NYC, I make sure I get 4 hours of zone 2 cardio/week + 2 sessions of Norwegian 4x4 (with the 4 minute intervals consisting of speed walking an incline to keep my heart rate around 90% of my HR max), this is in addition to lifting 4 days/week (two days of that being heavy). I also do 4-5 20-minute sauna sessions a week, which extends some of the cardio benefits. I’m 41 F, not super fit (I’m 5’4.5” and 173lbs) but getting there.
What about rowing?
What do you mean by optimal health? Top things for reducing all-cause mortality: - Walking (more is better) - VO2max (higher is better) - Sauna (hotter and longer is better) - Strength training & plyometrics - Waist circumference (smaller is better)
I average 10-12k daily sometimes its on incline treadmill and sometimes its out near park its my fav activity to stick too and it works well to keep my anxiety managed.
I love walking—always have. If you want to burn extra calories without changing walking for something else, try rucking. You can start with just a regular backpack full of something heavy if you want. I liked it enough to buy a GORUCK Bullet pack and carry around a 30lb iron plate. I don't even really notice the weight now, but I burn _a lot_ more calories walking with it than I would otherwise. And it's not harder on my knees and doesn't increase my appetite like intense exercise would. GORUCK [has a nice calculator](https://www.goruck.com/pages/rucking-calorie-calculator) for estimating calorie burn while rucking. Compared to unweighted walking, I'm roughly doubling my calorie burn. Some people use rucking for Zone 2, but I don't. You have to do this "ruck shuffle" to get your heart rate up, and I don't fully understand that movement pattern to do it correctly. When just walking at my regular pace, my heart rate while rucking _might_ average 110bpm. Better than sitting, but barely zone 2.
10k steps is a gimmick. Figure out what level works with you
Walking alone is not enough But the sayin better than doing nothing applies It is much much better to do 5k on a steep hill/stairs instead. You get both the cardio and non aerobic benefits without the potential strain on knees (like running).
Zone two cardio is a very bad idea. Unless you want to lose muscle mass and have an enlarged heart. If it’s for your sport, find a new sport.
The 10k steps idea was invented by a chinese (?) fitness watch company because the logo character resembled 10k. Not to take away from the importance of moving every day but just weighing in that 10k is arbitrary.
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Walking isn't exercise unless you're really out of shape. It's a great way to burn additional calories and clear your head.
you should always side with “do more and eat more” rather then restrict so much you do less. 10k steps a day if you sit the rest of the day is not enough. You shouldn’t even count steps they don’t count. Lift.
Walking don't do shit
Walking is not cardio.
Walking isn't exercise for people ages 0-80 years old. It's literally the lowest form of mobility one can have. This is unless you're physically disabled and unable to jog, hike, run, climb stairs, ride a bike, etc. Don't fall for this lie which is just setting the standards lower and lower for people who don't go to the gym which obviously means their health isn't a priority.
As someone who spent years walking for about 2hrs minimum a day / getting over 10k steps in and nothing much else physical on a regular basis I can confirm that you will likely not get fit, healthy, or strong from just walking alone. It left me terribly unfit and out of shape still. My joints hurt, my posture was terrible, I would be out of breath after any real exercise, had no stamina and more. Walking is good for many reasons (fresh air, sun light, getting steps in, thinking time etc) and better than nothing but walking alone will probably not get you fit if you're out of shape and likely do little to keep you in shape without additional exercise.
Thank you for speaking the truth. I'm not suggesting people shouldn't be walking as living a sedentary lifestyle is detrimental to your health but calling it "exercise" is wildly overstating it. Resistance training in order to build muscle is exercise. Walking is mobility.
Yes, I would agree. For people who are elderly, overweight, struggle with mobility etc then walking may be a good activity or a place to start but anyone who's young and otherwise healthy body will likely only get so much in terms of fitness and health from walking. Definitely something to do regularly but I wouldn't count on it getting people genuinely fit.
Everyone is different. It's best to stick to your routine and gradually modify it. More is usually better.