How Fast Do You Need to Walk to Reap Real Health Benefits?
Walking is one of the most accessible types of physical exercise. Not only can you do this without special equipment or a membership, you can even start taking steps already without formally considering it a workout. But how fast do you need to go for it to “count” towards improving your health? New research may provide the answer.
A meta-analysis published this week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine compared the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in people who walked at different speeds. (In many cases, people were asked to report how fast they walked; in others, they wore activity trackers such as Fitbits or took a timed walk test during a clinic visit.) Here’s how they classified different walking speeds:
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Light or casual walking : less than 2 mph (30:00 per mile).
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Average or normal walking : 2–3 mph (20:00–30:00 per mile). This equates to the 3 mph speed Google Maps uses to estimate travel time when providing walking directions.
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Fairly fast walking : 3–4 mph (15:00–20:00 per mile).
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Brisk/Staggering Walking : 4 mph or faster (15:00 per mile)
Many people believe that 4 mph is the fastest they can go without breaking into a run. (Of course, this will depend on personal factors, such as the length of your legs.)
According to this analysis, people who walked at an average or “fairly fast” pace were less likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life. (The average follow-up period was eight years.) The faster people walked, the better: Brisk walking was associated with a 39% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, compared with light or casual walking.
Based on these results, you’ll want to walk faster than 2 mph if you can. (2.5 mph is a speed typically considered “moderate” intensity exercise.) But the authors note that their results have “low to moderate confidence, mostly coming from studies with a high risk of bias,” meaning that we may have to take them with a grain of salt.
Why does walking speed matter?
This is not the first study to compare walking speed with health outcomes. Previous studies have shown that people who walk faster are less likely to have a stroke, die from heart disease, or develop cognitive decline or dementia.
But does walking protect you, or is it just a sign that you’re already healthy? Perhaps both.
A group of physical therapists wrote in a 2015 review that “not only is [gait speed] an indicator of an individual’s functional ability and overall health, it has been shown to predict a range of outcomes, including response to rehabilitation, functional dependency, frailty, and mobility disability.” , cognitive decline, falls, institutionalization, hospitalization, cardiovascular events and mortality, and all-cause mortality.”
In other words, it’s possible that walking speed is just an indicator of overall health. If you are too sick to walk very quickly, your health may already be deteriorating. But we also know that exercise is good for your health and that it helps you perform better.
After all, walking is cardio if you go at the right speed. If you don’t exercise much, a normal walking speed of 2.5 miles per hour will be enough to be considered “moderate” exercise (the kind that we should all be doing for at least 150 minutes a week , or about 20-30 minutes a day). ). Jogging or brisk walking can give you a few minutes of “vigorous” exercise, which will do double duty.
Ultimately, we don’t have a perfect way to measure the amount of exercise needed for health. Step counting has become a favorite because it’s easy to measure using a pedometer, smartwatch, or even keeping your phone in your pocket. Walking speed also helps here: the faster you walk, the more steps you will take.
But still: we already know that 10,000 steps is bullshit ; The number of steps needed to improve your health ranges from 2,800 to 9,800 , depending on which study you read and how they defined health-related outcomes. Most health and fitness experts will tell you that the more you can walk, the better—and that if you walk slowly now, you’ll probably be able to walk faster as you get better.