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Why Is 10,000 Steps Per Day A Recommended Goal? Innermost Investigates

21st March 2022

Fitness Health

21st March 2022

By Beth Shelper

We’re not sure about you, but recently, it seems like everyone is obsessed with ‘getting their steps in’. We’re not mad about it, as here at Innermost we love to encourage people to have healthy fitness goals that they’re working towards, but it got the team here wondering… why 10,000 steps a day? Where did this goal and recommendation come from?

Surely, right? All movement is good movement, after all. If you’re looking to tone up, lose weight and up your stamina, this challenge could be for you. The Tone Capsules could be, too.

The 10,000 steps per day challenge

Invented in 1960, the 10,000 steps per day challenge was first conceptualised in the 1960s. It derives from the branded name of a pedometer sold called “Manpo-kei”, in Japan, which translates to ’10,000 steps supplied’. The rest was history.

Why 10,000 steps per day?

Aside from being a great competitive metric and the ultimate motivation to get you up and moving, the 10,000 step recommendation isn’t just another fad trend. It’s now even been endorsed by the World Health Organisation… and it’s hard to argue with them. They kind of know what they’re talking about.

Notable charities have also adopted the challenge to raise funds and awareness for their cause, including the Walk All Over Cancer campaign implemented by Cancer Research UK. The challenge requires supporters to walk 10,000 steps a day for a month, citing the following benefits:

10,000 steps a day for a month straight equates to 150 miles, too! But what does that mean day-by-day? Let’s take a look.

10,000 steps: the metrics

So, now we know that walking 10,000 steps is pretty beneficial after all, we thought it would be interesting to check out the metrics around walking 10,000 steps. We’re talking about the all important questions: how many calories is 10,000 steps, how long does it take to walk 10,00 steps, and what is 10,000 steps in miles? All highly important questions, obviously.

How long does it take to walk 10,000 steps?

Let’s start with perhaps the most burning question of them all. Time is precious, we know that, so it’s all about finding out what the most efficient way to walk 10,000 steps would be.

Maybe you want to stretch it out throughout your day, or maybe you want to smash out your 10,000 steps all at once! And either is fine.

In answer to your question, it would take the average person around 90 minutes (an hour and a half) to get 10,000 steps in in one go. The absolute perfect excuse to get out the house during that next football game on a Sunday, am I right?

How many calories does 10,000 steps burn?

The answer to this question is slightly more ambiguous. Calories burnt depends on several factors, but, if you were to walk briskly (aka, not jog, but not a slow slump either) for around thirty minutes, you can burn around 400 calories. Nice work!

What is 10,000 steps in miles?

Again, this depends on factors such as stride length and overall fitness level, but on average it takes around 2,000 steps to walk a mile. So let’s call 10,000 steps around 5 miles. Not a bad shift!

If you’re trying to get your daily steps up to 10,000 and have some time to burn, why not work out the average distance to your local store (or maybe one a tiny bit further away?). If there and back, the round trip totals up to around 5 miles, you’ve got your steps in… and your bread, cheese and milk, all in one. Can’t complain with that one.

What is 10,000 steps in kilometres?

If you don’t work in miles and want to know how long that is in kilometre, don’t worry, we’ve got you. Five miles is around eight kilometres. Some good training for the upcoming local 10k fun run!

How can I track my 10,000 steps a day?

Tracking your steps has never been simpler. In fact, anyone with a smartphone will have been tracking their steps (subconsciously) since the day you started using it!

Whilst our phones are somewhat glued to our hands at all points of the day it seems, one time in which this isn’t true is at the gym, and this is where fitness watches come in. Whichever brand you opt for, all of the mainstream fitness watches will have a step-tracking feature installed so that you can work your way to 10,000 steps with ease.

Our top tips for walking 10,000 miles in a day

Now you know just how far 10,000 steps is (five miles, just in case you’d forgotten already), you might be after some tips and tricks for getting to that all-important 10,000 step mark. Especially if you want to break this goal up throughout your day.

Here’s some inspiration to get you going:

  • Walk and talk on the phone (but remember to watch where you’re going)
  • Go the wrong (or the long) way
  • Take the stairs (don’t be lazy, now!)
  • Walk, don’t drive
  • Set an alarm to get yourself moving every thirty minutes
  • Take the dog for an extra walk each day (they’ll love you for it)
  • Park further away than necessary
  • Add steps to your daily chores
  • Start and end your day with a walk around the neighbourhood

Here's what the studies have to say

Don't just take our word for it: the science backs us up, too. A meta analysis recently published in Science Daily reviewed 15 studies that had investigated the impact of a daily step-count and the benefits of the strategy. 

Reviewing the results of studies that covered over 50,000 people, this meta analysis into daily step count conducted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that the number of steps you walk a day does in fact have a positive impact on your health. 

The interesting part? That optimum number changes depending on your age. Yes, really.

    The younger you are, the more steps you should be doing. Of course, taking your abilities into account, those in the groups who got a greater number of steps in in a day saw a much lower risk of death (of up to nearly 50%), compared to those who walked fewer steps. 

    Summary

    Looks like a pretty good recommendation after all, right? Let us know how you get on with your 10,000 steps a day challenge over on our Instagram @liveinnermost. We'd love to hear from you!

    References

    • University of Massachusetts Amherst. (2022, March 3). Meta-analysis of 15 studies reports new findings on how many daily walking steps needed for longevity benefit: Spoiler alert: It’s fewer than 10,000, especially for older adults. ScienceDaily. Click here.
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    It’s that time of the year again - the New Year's fitness buzz. A time where motivation is high, new workout plans are made, gym bags make a return, and everything feels full of possibility! And yet, for many people, this momentum is short-lived. By mid-February, routines can start to slip. Sessions get skipped. Motivation fades. The resolution quietly dissolves, something often accompanied by frustration or guilt. If that sounds at all familiar, it’s firstly worth saying this upfront: it’s not a personal failure. In most cases, it’s a structural one. It might sound strange, but having a long term and consistent fitness routine isn’t solely about having the most ‘willpower’, or forcing yourself to run just because it’s ‘new year, new me’, it’s about building an individual routine that works for you and sets you up in the best position to hit your workout goals in the long term. To make things easier, we’ve put together this nifty guide diving into the science of new year’s fitness, why traditional workout resolutions so often fall apart, and what genuinely helps when it comes to building habits that last for the long term. Right, let’s get into it. Why New Year’s fitness resolutions don’t succeed  Before exploring how you can set your fitness goals for the long term, it’s important to understand why so many fall short.  The main reason comes down to something psychologists call the “fresh start effect”. This is a period that interrupts the calendar schedule (such as New Year's), creating a mental separation between the past and the future. Such a fresh start makes change - like the restarting of a fitness routine - mentally easier to overcome because the past feels neatly boxed away.  While this sounds good on paper, the problem is that motivation alone isn’t enough to sustain long-term behavioural change.  Many New Year’s fitness routines struggle to last because they often: Focus on outcomes instead of training plans and sustainable behaviours. Target instant change Focus on unrealistic fitness goals Shall we run from the top? Outcome-based targets One pitfall people often find themselves in is setting a New Year’s fitness goal that is driven by outcome without proper planning.  Some examples might be: Losing weight  Getting fit  Running a marathon All great targets to strive for, yet without a training plan or strategy to achieve them, they can quickly feel unattainable and therefore interest drops off. This makes creating and sticking to a new year’s exercise plan key to achieving your goals, asking: what do you want to achieve? What steps are you going to take to achieve them? And how will you measure your progress? Too much change and unattainable fitness goals With the fresh start effect, it can feel productive to try and overhaul all your health practices. A new training plan. A stricter diet. Earlier mornings. Fewer social plans. Better sleep. More productivity. Individually, these changes are all positive (we’ve spoken about the positive effects of many in the past ourselves). Making all these large life changes in a short space of time, however, can lead to something called ‘cognitive overload’. Each new habit requires attention, decision-making, and self-control, leading to decision fatigue buildup and increasing the likelihood that behaviours will be dropped rather than maintained. Sustainable change tends to work the opposite way. Small, manageable shifts layered gradually over time allow habits to stabilise before new ones are added. Instead of replacing your entire lifestyle in January, long-term routines are built by choosing one or two priorities, letting them settle, and then building from there. Unrealistic fitness goals Another common reason why new year workout plans don’t work is that the end goals being set aren’t realistic to achieve in the time frame given. Training every day. Completely overhauling diet. Expecting visible results within weeks are just a few sure-fire ways to see your fitness plans gone by the end of January. This is because when progress isn’t immediately visible, individual motivation drops. Any missed sessions start to feel like failure, and the routine becomes something to avoid rather than return to. This can lead to a plateau in motivation and a workout rut that sees you lose all motivation to continue your fitness plan. The best way to avoid this? 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Instead of asking your body and mind to adapt to a dramatic shift all at once, you allow both to adjust gradually - which is exactly how sustainable habits are formed. Personal, not performative goals A common reason New Year's fitness routines fall apart is that the goal itself was never truly personal.  Many resolutions are shaped - often unconsciously - by external pressures: how we think we should look, what others are doing, or what feels ‘socially impressive’. These goals can create a strong initial push, but they rarely provide enough depth to sustain effort in the long term. Personal goals, by contrast, are rooted in lived experience. They’re connected to how you want to feel day-to-day, not how you want to appear to others. Wanting more stable energy through the afternoon, fewer aches and pains, better sleep, or improved resilience during stressful periods may not sound as dramatic as a body transformation, but they’re far more motivating over time.  This is supported by behavioural research showing that exercise routines rooted in intrinsic motivation - feeling better, moving more easily, managing stress - are significantly more likely to be maintained long-term than goals shaped by appearance or external pressure. These outcomes are felt quickly and repeatedly, which reinforces the habit itself. Fitting fitness into your routine Again, seems counterintuitive, but a workout routine that only works under perfect conditions won’t survive beyond January.  You can’t change things like long workdays, family responsibilities, travel, and low-energy weeks, and you shouldn’t try to. Your regular workout routine should function around these things. The key here is that fitness is flexible. It allows for shorter sessions, longer sessions, varied training styles, and a broader definition of movement that can all be tailored to your day-to-day routine. Your also not limited by location, you could workout at home, at the gym, with groups, whatever fits into your routine.  The role of recovery in New Year’s fitness One of the most overlooked reasons people struggle to stick to New Year’s fitness routines is actually physical and mental fatigue. While this is to be expected to some extent - and you can control fatigue by following the above tips - you also need to consider the importance of effective recovery and how you are fuelling your body between workouts. Just some of the ways you can improve recovery are: Sleep quality: Quality sleep is when the body actually recovers, repairs tissue, and resets energy levels for the next day. Without it, even light training can start to feel disproportionately demanding. Effective hydration: Staying properly hydrated helps support circulation, muscle function, and focus, making both workouts and recovery feel smoother and more manageable. Complete nutrition: Providing the body with enough protein, carbohydrates, fats, and micronutrients gives it the building blocks it needs to repair, adapt, and maintain steady energy over time. It’s also worth considering tailored nutrition-focused supplementation such as Innermost’s The Recover Capsules and The Hydrate Blend. Reframing New Year fitness: from resolution to routine An effective mindset shift you can make this new year is moving away from the idea of a “resolution” and towards a routine. Resolutions are often outcome-focused - lose weight, build muscle, run faster. Routines are behaviour-focused - train three times a week, walk daily, prioritise recovery. This reframing is also key when thinking about how to stick to your New Year’s fitness resolution. Instead of asking, “Am I seeing results yet?”, the more useful question becomes, “Can I repeat this next week?” Remember, the most effective fitness routines aren’t created in January - they’re carried through February, March, and beyond. References Dai, H., Milkman K.L., Riis,J. (2013).The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior. Management Science. 60 (10), 2563-2582. Click here. Cezar, B., Macada, A. (2023). Cognitive Overload, Anxiety, Cognitive Fatigue, Avoidance Behavior and Data Literacy in Big Data environments. Information Processing & Management. 60 (6). Click here. Ntoumanis, N., Healy, L. et.al. (2014). Self-Regulatory Responses to Unattainable Goals: The Role of Goal Motives. 13 (5), 594-612. Click here. Cleveland Clinic. Overtraining Syndrome. Click here. Sebire,S., Standage, M., Vansteenkiste,M. (2011). Predicting objectively assessed physical activity from the content and regulation of exercise goals: evidence for a mediational model. 33 (2), 175-197. Click here.  
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