Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

prevention.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 65 posts

Re: Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

#11

Post by fdsijo »

farseer wrote: post #6
anonporridge wrote: post #2

Doctors: It's really important that you regularly exercise. Get your heart rate up high a few times a week with some sports! Doctors: Just 10,000 steps of walking every day is fine too! Doctors: Ok, how about 8,000 steps only once or twice a week. Can you do that? Doctors: For the love of god, please just get off the couch every once in a while...

You joke but perhaps we need to (scientifically) find the minimum number of steps for a reasonable lifespan in tabular form for a given weight, lifestyle, diet, occupation and ethnicity. The law of diminishing returns will apply after a certain amount of physical activity. So will negative consequences of too much exercise where you damage your limbs.

Worrying about over exercise is like worrying about starting another ice age fighting global warming.

Re: Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

#12

Post by fifilura »

cozzyd wrote: post #3

I wonder how remote work has impacted the average number of steps per day. I normally get ~5k steps from my commute (walk from home to train, walk from train to office and vice versa) without doing anything else. On days I work from home I'm definitely much more sedentary. Yes I can go on a walk to compensate, but I usually don't...

WFH allowed me to get a dog.

That made me start running every day.

I am now on day 240 of my daily run streak (https://www.runeveryday.com/)

Re: Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

#13

Post by ryanschneider »

cozzyd wrote: post #3

I wonder how remote work has impacted the average number of steps per day. I normally get ~5k steps from my commute (walk from home to train, walk from train to office and vice versa) without doing anything else. On days I work from home I'm definitely much more sedentary. Yes I can go on a walk to compensate, but I usually don't...

I highly recommend “walking to lunch”. Assuming you eat at home just pick a certain location nearby to walk to and back either before or after you eat, tying it to lunch made it more reliable, at least for me. I don’t do it anymore now that I have the habit down and walk plenty every day but it really helped me get started.

Re: Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

#14

Post by wiredfool »

fifilura wrote: post #12
cozzyd wrote: post #3

I wonder how remote work has impacted the average number of steps per day. I normally get ~5k steps from my commute (walk from home to train, walk from train to office and vice versa) without doing anything else. On days I work from home I'm definitely much more sedentary. Yes I can go on a walk to compensate, but I usually don't...

WFH allowed me to get a dog. That made me start running every day. I am now on day 240 of my daily run streak ( https://www.runeveryday.com/ )

Dogs are an excellent reminder to get off your butt twice a day.

Re: Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

#15

Post by MuffinFlavored »

anonporridge wrote: post #2

Doctors: It's really important that you regularly exercise. Get your heart rate up high a few times a week with some sports! Doctors: Just 10,000 steps of walking every day is fine too! Doctors: Ok, how about 8,000 steps only once or twice a week. Can you do that? Doctors: For the love of god, please just get off the couch every once in a while...

> An average person has a stride length of approximately 2.1 to 2.5 feet. That means that it takes over 2,000 steps to walk one mile and 10,000 steps would be almost 5 miles.

Re: Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

#16

Post by notahacker »

farseer wrote: post #6
anonporridge wrote: post #2

Doctors: It's really important that you regularly exercise. Get your heart rate up high a few times a week with some sports! Doctors: Just 10,000 steps of walking every day is fine too! Doctors: Ok, how about 8,000 steps only once or twice a week. Can you do that? Doctors: For the love of god, please just get off the couch every once in a while...

You joke but perhaps we need to (scientifically) find the minimum number of steps for a reasonable lifespan in tabular form for a given weight, lifestyle, diet, occupation and ethnicity. The law of diminishing returns will apply after a certain amount of physical activity. So will negative consequences of too much exercise where you damage your limbs.

Untangling cause and effect (it clearly works both directions) is near-impossible, the intensity of the steps obviously also matters, and anyone trying to exercise to the statistical minimum before diminishing returns kick in probably has other issues.

I don't think many people need to worry about limb damage from over-walking, and the ones who have already experienced limb damage need to find alternative exercise rather than minmaxing steps...

Re: Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

#17

Post by anonporridge »

farseer wrote: post #6
anonporridge wrote: post #2

Doctors: It's really important that you regularly exercise. Get your heart rate up high a few times a week with some sports! Doctors: Just 10,000 steps of walking every day is fine too! Doctors: Ok, how about 8,000 steps only once or twice a week. Can you do that? Doctors: For the love of god, please just get off the couch every once in a while...

You joke but perhaps we need to (scientifically) find the minimum number of steps for a reasonable lifespan in tabular form for a given weight, lifestyle, diet, occupation and ethnicity. The law of diminishing returns will apply after a certain amount of physical activity. So will negative consequences of too much exercise where you damage your limbs.

The absolute worse thing you can do for your knees and other joints is be obese. The constant weight and stress wrecks you. This is also why young, fit males come out of the military with wrecked knees, not because of all the running, but because they march around constantly carrying 100+ lb packs, on bodies that would be at a healthy weight of 150lbs.

There's even evidence that distance running strengthens your knees, contrary to common knowledge. https://archive.ph/utsUF

Worrying about too much exercise for the average person is like worrying about drinking too much water on a desert hike.

Re: Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

#18

Post by qayxc »

farseer wrote: post #6
anonporridge wrote: post #2

Doctors: It's really important that you regularly exercise. Get your heart rate up high a few times a week with some sports! Doctors: Just 10,000 steps of walking every day is fine too! Doctors: Ok, how about 8,000 steps only once or twice a week. Can you do that? Doctors: For the love of god, please just get off the couch every once in a while...

You joke but perhaps we need to (scientifically) find the minimum number of steps for a reasonable lifespan in tabular form for a given weight, lifestyle, diet, occupation and ethnicity. The law of diminishing returns will apply after a certain amount of physical activity. So will negative consequences of too much exercise where you damage your limbs.

Isn't that overthinking it big time? Biologically humans have evolved to walk roughly 10-15km a day.

You really have to overdo it to get to negative consequences of light physical activities such as walking. Just talking a one hour walk every day surely doesn't get you anywhere near the red zone, provided you're otherwise reasonably healthy.

Re: Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

#19

Post by lumb63 »

This just in: the human body, after billions of years of evolving to be a active, walking organism, is not well suited to a sedentary, seated lifestyle.

Seriously, why would we expect the sedentary, monotonous life of office jobs or being couch potatoes to be good for us? This study only looks at duration of life, but quality of life is huge, too. Exposure to sunlight, using your body, socialization, and eating real food, all do wonders for our health, physical and mental.

Re: Walking 8k Steps Twice a Week Could Prolong Your Life, Study Finds

#20

Post by anonporridge »

eminence32 wrote: post #10

Recently a got fairly basic, but fully functional smart/sports watch. It counts steps, heart rate, "intensity minutes", distance, GPS, etc. I got it because I was hoping that having a neat gadget to track this stuff would help motivate me to get in those extra exercise minutes. It turns out that it works for me. Seeing the distance/step numbers go up satisfies the little "make graph go up" gremlin in my brain.

I'm getting this effect even better now with smartwatch tracked runs and activities uploaded of Strava, which has a premium feature that tracks a "fitness score" alongside with a fatigue score, based on the intensity of the workouts you record. https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216918477-Fitne...

It's really motivating to see that number go up, or at least maintain it and build more area under the curve.

The Strava social component is also motivating because it adds some accountability with friends seeing and liking your workouts, and then noticing if you stop.

Post reply on HN