From Men's Health Step counts can be a serious preoccupation for most people who pay attention to their fitness tracker or smart phone. Photo credit: Men's Health. Photo credit: adamkaz - Getty Images. Story continues. Our goal is to create a safe and engaging place for users to connect over interests and passions.
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Fighting Irish Wire. Start by wearing the pedometer every day for one week. Put it on when you get up in the morning and wear it until bedtime. Record your daily steps in a log or notebook. By the end of the week you will know your average daily steps. When we calculate how many steps make up a mile, it is important to give due consideration to your personal stride length.
To give an example, the stride of a 7ft tall runner will be longer than that of a 4ft person of shorter stature enjoying a casual walk. And, therefore, the number of steps in a mile will vary. In a study published by the American College of Sports Medicine in , researchers sought to find out the number of steps men and women took to walk one mile at both 20 and minute pace and compare them to those running one mile at 12, 10, 8 and 6-minute pace. So, what were the results? Of note was that on average, individuals took more steps while jogging a minute mile than while walking a minute mile 1, against 1, steps, respectively.
The researchers commented that this finding was likely related to the smaller distance between steps that people tend to take while jogging at the slower speed minute miles compared to walking at a minute-per-mile pace. It's worth noting that people who exercise at higher intensities tend to take fewer steps and cover a distance in less time. They also tend to see greater health benefits than those who exercise at lower intensities. Of course, you should always seek advice from qualified health professionals before making any major changes to your lifestyle or fitness regime.
There are a couple of studies of particular note relating to age and stride length. The first was published in in the Journal of Applied Physiology. In the study, Professor Paul DeVita and his colleague Tibor Hortobagyi set out to examine the joint torques and powers of young and elderly adults walking at the same speed. They discovered that the older people get, the less they use the muscles in their ankles to make each stride, and the more they use the muscles around their hips.
Rough estimates of steps per mile based on a stride to height ratio are:. You can use a step-counting pedometer or the pedometer function of your mobile phone to count your steps, or you can count them in your head. The best way to find your average steps per mile is to count them several times over a course of a known distance and find your own average:.
An average stride length that you will see listed in many places is 2. Measuring your stride length will give you a much more accurate number for your personal steps per mile. Your stride length is the distance is from the heel print of one foot to the heel print of the other foot.
This is the distance traveled forward by a single leg. Your stride length varies depending on whether you are walking or running, and whether you are on hills or rough trails, or crossing streets with starts and stops. To measure your stride length, you can use various methods such as walking a football field feet and using these equations:. If you know your stride length, your steps per mile will be:. Most pedometers request that you enter your stride length during setup in order to calculate distance based on your step count.
A pedometer takes the number you have entered as stride length and divides a mile by that number to calculate the distance you have walked. If you find that your pedometer is telling you that you have gone farther than a mile in a measured mile, then increase the stride length programmed in the pedometer. If it is telling you that you have gone less than a mile in a measured mile, then reduce your stride length programmed into the pedometer. For Fitbit fitness bands and pedometers , you can adjust your stride length via the Edit Profile function on the online Dashboard.
You can set different lengths for walking and running strides. Fitness trackers you wear on your wrist may be counting arm motion rather than steps. Read the instructions to see how to set its sensitivity, so it isn't over-counting steps.
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