Is the ideal daily step count 10,000?
Maybe, maybe not. Helpfully, there is more nuance in our conversations around this of late. There is good evidence that you don’t need to achieve an ideal daily step count of 10,000 to be healthy.
If you do very few steps then try to do more. However, if you’re spending ages trying to get to 10,000, stop worrying and spend your time doing other kinds of exercise instead. Or take time out to optimise your walking.
Latest research on the ideal daily step count
The British Heart Foundation base their recommendations on a 2023 meta analysis of 200.000 people. A meta analysis is a review of pooled data from multiple smaller pieces of research. It is commonly used to increase the sample sizes. Within this study, the number of people included was in the hundreds of thousands.
The Lancet published a detailed review in 2025.
Even more hot off the press, the American College of Sports Medicine quotes research published this year. They don’t sound important but the ACSM guidelines are very highly respected across the world.
Basically each piece of research says the same thing, (but the Lancet has graphs!). From a baseline of 2,000, any increase in steps is very effective, with the initial increases being the most significant. This is to reduce the chance of dying from heart disease or a range of other diseases. The benefits are very clear indeed.
For people aged 60+ the optimum number of steps is 6,000 to 8,000 and for younger people that is higher at 8,000 to 10,000. It would seem that there is no ideal daily step count but for the population as a whole, then getting all of us from 2,000 to say, 3,000 or even 4,000 would be wonderfully beneficial.
There is an ideal walking speed as well as an ideal daily step count
Did you know (which is code for “I didn’t know that…”) walking speed is also known as the sixth vital sign?
In case you are wondering (which is code for, “I wonder what the other vital signs are?”) Heart rate, temperature, respiration rate, blood pressure and the level of dissolved Oxygen in the blood. You may have encountered the last one as “Oxygen saturation/sats”
Walking requires the co-ordination of the cardiovascular, nervous and musculoskeletal systems. The capacity of those systems to deliver a good walking speed is a proxy for overall health.
There is credible evidence for the correlation of walking speed to health. This is measured (somewhat depressingly) by reduced risk of dying, but also by reduced risk of developing chronic diseases.
Interval training as part of a walk.
If you are now thinking: “Do I need to go a bit faster, and not just amble?” You don’t need to dash down the street when you walk, which in any case would be associated with falls risk. However, walking briskly is an excellent idea. If that feels excessive, consider interval training. Chose certain places or timings in your walk to go faster so that you feel the effort but can still talk, then allow yourself to drop back to a steadier pace.
Far less well known- Other important metrics for good efficient walking.
There is more to walking than just the number of steps. Quality matters, as well as quantity. It is the same with the couch to 5k which was the fitness craze du jour a few years ago. There is more to running than aiming for 5k and I have also written about that, which you can read that blog here.
If you are wondering about ideal daily step counts vs other things that matter, here are your go-to assessments. They are the important areas where you could aim to change and improve.
Are you walking using hip extension?
When you walk, ideally you push through the back of the foot and propel yourself forwards relative to that leg. The other leg swings through, lands and the whole cycle repeats itself.
You walk using the big muscles at the back of the body: calves and soleus muscle, top of the leg (hamstrings), and buttocks (gluteal muscles or glutes).
Except that many of us do not do that. We have lost our hip extension. Why? Too much sitting has cast us into chair shapes and we struggle to open the front of the hips sufficiently to do hip extension. Add into that, generalised loss of strength with, again, too much sitting, menopause, aging. injury and the rest, then the hip extension can be non existent.
Instead, walking becomes a form of controlled falling forwards.
The falling forwards work-around requires you to lift your leg slightly out in front of you, followed by a forward lean of the trunk to generate momentum. Gravity and momentum do more than your muscles here. Fewer muscles are worked in an efficient, calorie burning way. In addition, you need to absorb the momentum. What bits of you do that? Hips, knees and the spine. Who wants to overwork the spine and knees when walking?
Do your arms swing by your sides?
Quite possibly not. Firstly because you are carrying a bag. Fair enough, sacrifice your arm swing on the alter of having a nice handbag or a useful one, but for a water bottle or phone? Absolutely not.
Even if you don’t use a bag, many of us have shoulders that are so tight that the arms don’t easily hang by our sides. They roll forward, or we actively clasp hands behind our back to force them to stay there. Ideally, though, the arm swing drives momentum and walking. Think of your shoulder muscles as the glutes (buttock muscles) of your shoulders and think of the back of the arm as the hamstrings (top of the back leg) of your arms.
That drive assists walking power and speed and enables trunk rotation. On that note:
Is your trunk rotating?
The rotation of your spine transfers energy and power from your legs, up into your shoulders and helps to propel you along. If that is absent you have to replace the missing rotation with alternative movements that are second-rate and inefficient. Why might we have lost rotation? The most likely reason is not moving enough, but also stiffness that creeps up with age. Luckily spine rotation is the easiest spine movement to train and improve, which is great, because is also the most important.
Do you have a nice heel/toe action?
When we walk, we should land slightly on the heel side of the foot, roll through the foot, with a low arch followed by a high arch along the way, and then move off with the toes.
This basic action is often lacking. Gait is complex but here we can keep this fairly simple. The most important thing is to retain the ability to bend well at the ankle and keep the feet pretty mobile. Ankle bending, or to give it’s Sunday name: Dorsiflexion, is crucial but often lacking. We don’t squat enough to sustain a useful amount of ankle dorsiflexion. One of the things that has led to a lack of squatting in our lives, in most of Europe and North America at least, is our toilets. Squat toilets or latrines mean daily squatting and sustained daily dorsiflexion which is better for walking.
What did the Romans ever do for us? Definitely not the toilets.
So next, the feet. Why might they not be mobile? That leads me to:
The vexed question of shoes
Are you wondering why I’m suggesting that the question is vexed? Because I’d say no to most trainers!
Why? The rounded toe box limits toe splay and specifically the ability of the big toe to push off with them both parallel to each other and not off on an angle towards the second toe. The other trainer issue is that they almost always have a slight heel. Not a towering stiletto, I grant you, but a heel nevertheless, and that shifts your body off the heel, away from the back of the body where you are trying to work from. Any heels shifts the body slightly into the toes.
Other shoe stuff to consider, assuming your feet are pretty much fit and well.
The use of cushioned shoes. That rather depends upon the amount of cushioning. Super cushioned shoes might feel lovely and soft, but the cushioning prevents you from pushing your heel into the ground properly. That creates a barrier between you and the ground. Concrete pavements can be pretty uncomfortable with really thin, flat shoes, but do be careful to avoid going too far the other way with really cushioned shoes.
The same goes for shoes or boots with loads of support that prevent your feet from moving. In many ways feet are supposed to move with every step you take so don’t truss your feet up too much.
Of course trainers might be all you have and they are definitely a least worst option. Nothing is ever simple is it? I wouldn’t say throw your trainers away and go for fashionable barefoot shoes but don’t assume that trainers, cushioning, and thick built up walking boots are the best thing for walking. When buying your next pair of shoes I’d go for wide toe box as your priority.
Other shoe options
Altra do wide toe box, zero heel trainers but that have support in the soles. These are the shoes I run in. I cannot cope with running in zero heeled minimal shoes on concrete. It took me a while but I have got used to walking in barefoot shoes. I have written another blog post about walking versus running in my life which you can read here.
Saguaro make pretty affordable zero heeled, wide toe box shoes. I love mine. Hobibear do loads of zero heeled, wide toe box shoes that look properly fashionable and are still affordable. There are other brands, like Vivo Barefoot, but they are more expensive. I like my Vivos too, but they are expensive and I’d go so far as to say, over priced.
If you do fewer steps, what to do instead?
More Pilates obviously. Well, I would say that wouldn’t I. In more general terms, do strength training. This will cover you for mobility and flexibility too. Pilates will do the same thing!
- Stand against a wall. Can you comfortably stand with your shoulders and head touching the wall behind you? If not, strength in the trunk and the back of the shoulders will re-set the shoulders and head. So will getting the chest to stay more strong and open
- Stretches to open up the hips and ankles. Try this one, a favourite of mine!
- Do more hip extension. Exercise examples, All Fours Bird Dog, Side lying bicycles, modified side kick, Standing supported hip hinge with leg lifts, deadlifts where the focus is standing tall whilst holding the barbell. Here is some nice side lying exercises:
- Chest stretches: chest flye, wall chest stretch, the goal post exercise . Here is a wall chest stretch:
- Spine rotation, standing, sitting or side lying. Here is one example:
- The buttock muscles around the side are very active in standing and for stabilising the thigh bone in walking. You need that as much as hip extension. One of the simplest but effective ways to train them is to stand on one leg. Yes, that simple! But not at all easy.
Can you reach the ideal number of steps without going for a walk?
Now, there’s a question! There is no one answer. Well not unless we jettison the nuance and the reality of our busy daily lives.
In the spirit of more nuance, the reality of busy lives means that some people’s steps are in the course of their work. A purposeful daily walk is not always, or ever possible. That is me. However, I do think that a purposeful walk is the ideal. You will be outside, possibly getting some sun, definitely having to negotiate different terrains, inclines, other people, and possibly varying your speed and stride.
For some, the only way to walk is using a walking pad or treadmill. Neither truly mimic real walking because the way you walk has to change, and there is no altered terrain or slopes. However they are good equipment to use for all of those times when you can’t get outside. The walking pads are a cheap alternative to treadmills too. Decathlon sells one for less than £100.
Keep Going
Consistency is key. Fewer steps, more regularly, might be a suitable aim so that you get some daily or every other day movement. Frequent movement is is better than than a big burst at the weekend and followed by being excessively sedentary during the week.
Walking and bone density
Bad news: walking is not that helpful. Here is a plus point though. It is far better than cycling.
Walking isn’t bad for you, it is just that walking is not good enough to effect change.
If you have Osteoporosis or want to actively prevent it, I would say that strength training is a valid alternative way to spend your exercise based time. Perhaps with some walking added in, depending upon what your daily count is. In other words, how close to the baseline of a totally inadequate 2,000 steps are day are you? If you are there, walk more. If you are over 7,000 or so, do some strength training! On a separate note, if you live in Leeds, consider joining my weekly Osteoporosis class.
How about weighted vests?
Yet another metric that contrasts with the ideal daily step count. Is it helpful to load the spine whilst walking? Will this help bone density? The general view on this is yes, they are helpful.
Again with more nuance, ask yourself about how much daily movement you are managing to do. If you have a very low step count, get it higher and start strength training. That is true whether or not you have Osteoporosis.
The vest is a top up, and you have to master the basics first. Basics would be: already walking regularly, have the fitness to handle extra load, and have a decent spine posture. A stooped posture is not a good place to too add a weighted vest. If you stumble with a vest on I imagine you are more likely to fall, and of course it is more load for knees which might be very unhappy about the extra weight.
I’m toying with the idea of getting one. I meet those criteria although I suspect I don’t really walk far enough in one go. The amount of time I spend walking may not be not sufficient to effect change. Or is it? I am also a sucker for new piece of kit though so I will probably get one.
Environment. Ease. Wealth. Privilege
Most, if not all fitness advice is a darn sight easier to follow if you have an easier life.
Pictures of walking a far more likely to be in a pleasant environment with trees and open space like this one.
It is tiresome to read about how you should eat that particular food, do that particular exercise etc, when you are too busy, or too stressed out by bigger problems like paying the bills, or too unwell to manage.
If you are reading you might be thinking: “This is just another article from a privileged person with no disability, and plenty of time, money, knowledge and access to a park, green space and maybe also a car”. I would agree with that, and know how irritating it is to constantly be told about all the healthy food I should eat for my brain, or god knows what other bit of me.
It is super frustrating when you just can’t do what you’re told is good for you. You are forced to consider the counter factual: “what will happen to me if I don’t do all of these important healthy things?”
However, I think we still need to have the conversation, so to speak, but with the acknowledgement that not everyone can “just walk more” or have the health, the time, or the environment to even contemplate an ideal daily step count.
Another way to consider this is to remember that step counts and recommendations are based on the population as a whole. The basic data on reducing risk factors for say, heart disease, are on a population wide level. Sometimes you have to ignore that and think: “What is best for me. What can I manage?” It might be what is best for your dog!
Conclusion
Walking really does count as part of an exercise regime. Walking really does keep you more healthy.
This is one of two contrasting but also complementary themes. On a population wide level, getting us all up to within touching distance of the ideal daily step count would be fantastic and help the overall state of health of the population.
If you have reached roughly the ideal daily step count, rather then more steps, consider optimising your walking and strength training instead.
Having said all that, nothing is ever quite as simple as a blog post… (I know….even mine….), newspaper article or podcast suggests. There are so many variables around age, health, time, inclination. You might not be able to perfectly reach the evidence based targets but with exercise and movement, do what you can.
Try to be consistent, ideally find movement based practice that you enjoy, and keep going.