Take It Into Stride

According to Dr. Beth Frates 100 steps per minutes might be a great goal for one who is a middle aged relatively healthy person, but that pace may seem slow for a for person who exercises regularly, or too fast for people out of shape, injured, or ill. This is why she recommends that people use the rate of perceived exertion scale AKA the modified Borg scale to estimate how hard they are exercising.

To estimate the number of steps per minute that correlates with moderate or brisk walking researchers reviewed results from 38 high quality studies which tracked walking pace as well as other measures of effort including increases of breathing and heart rates. Studies involved participants that were 18+ years of age with a range of body weights and fitness levels. A brisk or moderate walk consistent across the studies was found to be 100 steps per minute. It was noted that results may not apply to older adults, and factors such as height that affect length of stride and health status may influence step count; as published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The Borg scale requires one to pay attention to breathing as an indicator of how hard the heart and body are working to aim for an exertion level around 5-6. Measuring the heart rate is another way to assess how hard the heart and body are working, but it has a few drawbacks such as it can be hard to find and count pulse with the fingers, and beta blockers will lower heart rates.

Just tracking the time spent while walking is another good option. For starters 10 minutes a day is good, gradually add a few more minutes each week. Count how many steps you take in 10 seconds then multiply by 6 to find step per minute, if the number is not close to 100 don’t worry too much about it as long as you listen to your body and use the Borg perceived exertion measure.

The Borg scale is fairly easy to follow to help measure whether you are exercising intensely enough: