10,000 Steps a Day: An Upgrade and Some Fun Math

I have really slacked on my pedometer coverage, I’m sure everyone has been anxiously awaiting an update to my first pedometer post.  Especially since I was so excited to get that darned thing.  Well, wait no longer because here it is!  At my old job I received a free pedometer to participate in a “Walk Across America” program.  I loved that little pedometer, it was such a simple and yet very cool device.  I was able to track my steps throughout the day and determine my level of activity.  It was very cool, and I was excited to play with it.

I now spit on that inferior pedometer (figuratively, not literally as that would be gross.)  It simply calculated steps when it could have done so much more.  More like my SHINEY NEW pedometer.  That’s right, I have a new pedometer that is so much better; it even makes my coffee in the morning.

Actually, I don’t drink coffee and the pedometer isn’t quite that fancy, but it is a serious upgrade in pedometer technology.   In addition to keeping track of steps, my new pedometer also track miles walked, calories burned, and has a clock.  Yeah, even a clock.  My old inferior pedometer didn’t have any of these advanced features.  You know what else; I don’t have to log my steps by typing them in.  Keyboard entry is so 1990s.  This bad boy attaches with a USB cable.  As soon as I plug it in, BAM, it uploads my steps automatically.  I’m even able to reset the count display on the pedometer, while it keeps track of total steps in the background.  That makes it easier to track certain activities, whereas before I didn’t want to clear the display without writing down my steps.  It’s kinda like that trip button on the car’s odometer.

I can’t really explain why I am so excited about pedometer technology, it seems very strange.  Maybe it’s my analytical side wanting to measure and quantify.  If that’s the case, then let’s give that analytical side some freedom.  Follow along as I analyze some of numbers related to pedometer usage.

Analyze Those Steps

10,000 steps equals 5 miles?  Not for me.  With stride length varying from person to person, this calculation can be way off.  It’s also likely to be different for men and women.  Now that I think about it, this equation could be true for exercise walking or jogging, where you are taking longer strides with the purpose of exercising.  But tracking your daily steps throughout your normal (non-exercising) routine, you’ll likely need more than 10,000 steps to walk 5 miles.

Here is the math to determine what length stride is required to get 10,000 steps equal to 5 miles.

1 mile = 63,360 inches

Assuming 10,000 steps = 5 miles then

1 mile = 2000 steps

Put it all together and we get

63360 inches/2000 steps = 31.68 inch stride

As I mentioned above, that’s a little much for a normal walking stride.  My pedometer instructions tell me that the average stride for women is 26 inches, and 30 inches for men.  I suspect that’s a normal “exercise” stride.  My casual walking stride is 22 inches.  If I were speed walking it would be 30 inches, but in everyday walking, it’s much shorter.  We all seem to have different every day walking paces too.   Back in high school I walked very fast, always in a rush to get everywhere.  Since then I have slowed my pace in an effort to be more relaxed and enjoy the current moment.  This slower pace results in a shorter stride.

My stride = 22 inches

63360 inches / 22 = 2880 steps/mile

So, for me, 1 mile = 2880 steps

And to get 5 miles per day, I need 14,400 steps.

That’s a little depressing, but I suppose the important part was just to get active.  Tracking the activity helps me to be accountable for my daily dose of activity.  However, I like to be accurate, and even if my results aren’t what I expected, I have now done the math to get the real numbers.

Calculate Your Stride

The method my pedometer instructions described were to place a ruler on the ground and take a single step.  Measure from heel to heel or tow to tow.  I found that to be awkward, as thinking about my step made it “not normal.”  I found it easiest to find a patch of dirt to walk in.  Then just walk across as I normally walk.  Then I measured the footprints from heel to heel.  This got me a more accurate reading of my normal stride.  I’ve also read that you can take ten steps, measure that distance and divide by ten.

Once you have your stride length, you can calculate your steps per mile.  Here’s the formula:

63360 / your stride = steps per mile.

That’s one mile converted to inches and divided by your stride length.

If live anywhere outside the US, you’re probably using metric numbers, so here’s the calculation for you.  Measure your stride in centimeters.

100,000 / your stride = steps per kilometer.

That’s one kilometer converted to centimeters and divided by your stride length.

I should have done these calculations back when I had my simple pedometer, just so I could get a better idea of how far I actually walked in a single day.  This new fancy pedometer actually does that calculation for me, once I entered in my stride length.

Walking Across America

I’ve seen several programs that talk about Walking Across America.  In fact this is the program I participated in with my first pedometer.  The idea was cool, but the program was way too short.  The way we implemented it was to have teams, and each team would add up all the individual numbers.  These numbers where then scaled to represent some imaginary distance.  That scaling took some of the fun out of it for me.  In a single day, my team would take a virtual (and scaled) walk across an entire state.  I decided to look at the real numbers instead of the scaled numbers.  Here is what I came up with.

Distance across the United States (along the American Discovery Trail) 5057 miles

At 2000 steps = 1 mile

2000 steps x 5057 miles = 10,114,000 steps

At 10,000 steps a day (5 miles/day)

10,114,000 steps/ 10,000 steps per day = 1011 days

With my shorter stride I hesitate to even calculate the number.  I hesitated, but then had to do it anyway.  At 5 miles per day it would take me 1011 days.  Hehe, silly me, the number is the same because I was using the same distance.  If I look at steps, then with my stride it would be 14,564,160 steps.    I suppose the moral this story is if you plan to actually walk across America, you might want to walk more than 5 miles per day, and maybe take bigger strides.

Actually, the real moral here is to just get active.  I find that tracking my activity helps me to be more mindful of the time I spend in healthy activities.  Having the pedometer also encourages me to walk at time when I might otherwise ride or drive.

Here are some numbers to see how many steps are in some daily activities.

• Mowing the back yard: 1600 steps
• Half a day at a Disney Theme Park (Magic Kingdom):  10,000 steps
• Yard work including spraying for bugs, a little fertilizing and some mowing: 12,000 steps

Anyone else out there fascinated with these little pedometers?  (I hope I’m not the only one here )

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Tagged as: Disney, Health, Pedometer, Walking