Are You Walking or Sauntering?
People of all shapes, sizes, and fitness levels have told me, “I walk for exercise.”
Let’s make one thing clear: movement is good. Being active beats being inactive in a host of ways.
A post-dinner saunter around the block can lower your blood sugar. A morning stroll can help set your circadian rhythm. A walk anytime can be a stress-reliever.
But there’s a difference between walking and exercise walking.
I worry that some people who count walking as their aerobic exercise may be overestimating the cardiovascular benefits they’re getting from it.
More steps are good but more isn’t everything.
Not so long ago, getting 10,000 steps a day was considered the goal.
It’s achievable, but not easy if your day is spent in front of a computer for eight hours.
You could rack up 10,000 steps wandering around the house, shopping at the grocery store, walking from the parking lot to your office and back, and generally going about your day.
Or, you can take a purposeful walk that gets your heart rate up, makes you breathe harder, and stimulates your cardiovascular system to adapt.
A new study of more than 78,000 people found that it's not just how many steps you take, it's how you take them.
Participants wore activity monitors for seven days, and researchers separated their movement into two categories:
Incidental steps: the casual steps you take just living your life—walking to the water cooler or shuffling around the kitchen.
Purposeful steps: the continuous steps you take when you’re intentionally going somewhere at a brisk pace.
The findings were fascinating.
More steps were associated with a lower risk of death. There was no magic number where the benefit kicked in — going from 2,000 steps to 3,000 helped, 3,000 to 4,000 helped more, with the benefit leveling off somewhere around 10,000.
So if you’re now getting 2,000 steps a day, try gradually inching those numbers up.
I was surprised to see that purposeful steps were roughly twice as effective, step for step, as incidental ones. Taking 5,000 purposeful steps yielded the same reduction in mortality risk as racking up 10,000 incidental steps throughout the day.
That’s great news for time-crunched desk workers!
People who age the best walk the fastest
Walking quickly doesn't just protect your heart. It may protect your brain.
Researchers followed nearly 5,000 people over 80 whose everyday walking pace resembled someone in their 50s, placing them in the top 5-8% of walking speed for their age. They deemed them “Super Movers.”
The study found that super movers were roughly half as likely to develop cognitive decline as their slower-walking peers, even after accounting for age, sex, and lifestyle factors. Any decline that appeared typically progressed more slowly.
That doesn’t prove that walking fastpreventscognitive decline. But it contributes to growing evidence suggesting that how well we move might tell us something about how well we’re aging
Another study zeroed in on cadence, your steps per minute, rather than total steps or total time
People who walked fewer than 5,000 steps a day but kept a brisk pace, around 100 steps per minute, were found to have a lower risk of death than slower walkers with the same step count. People in the highest cadence group overall had a much lower risk of death than those in the lowest group.
Interestingly, people who walked more slowly but for longer — 5,000 to 7,500 steps — saw a comparable benefit. It appears that pace and duration can be interchangeable.
Some people are simply “wired” to move faster than others. I’m like my grandmother, who was a fast mover, but her sister and mother were notorious in the family for being slow movers.
Natural tendencies aren’t the same thing as limitations. If you’re a naturally slow walker, that doesn’t mean you’re stuck there. Walking speed, like strength, balance, and cardiovascular fitness, can be improved with practice and training.
Becoming a slower, less confident walker can be an early sign that something isn’t working quite as well as it used to. Practicing a faster, more purposeful pace, on the other hand, can help you maintain—and even improve—your ability to move quickly and confidently.
When does walking count as exercising?
How fast is fast enough? Federal guidelines define brisk walking as covering a mile in 15 to 24 minutes. For a math-free option, use the talk test: if you can speak in full sentences but couldn’t comfortably sing, you’re in the moderate-intensity zone that counts as aerobic exercise. If you can chat easily without any effort, you’re probably sauntering.
To turn a casual walk into a genuine aerobic session, focus on these upgrades:
Pick up the cadence. Aim for a “purposeful” pace—around 100 steps per minute.
Use the “talk test.”Full sentences, yes; comfortable singing, no. That's the sweet spot.
Add pace intervals. If you can't hold a brisk pace for a full 30 minutes, try interval walking—inserting periods of brisk walking into your regular pace. Studies show that even 15 minutes of faster walking daily significantly reduces mortality risk. I’m using this approach to get my aerobic conditioning back up to speed after my recent surgeries.
Add hills or incline. Hills, trails, or even a treadmill incline raise the intensity without changing your distance.
Walking is a terrific aerobic exercise option when you do it at an intensity that challenges your cardiovascular system.
But it’s only half the equation
Federal exercise guidelines call for at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity each week plus muscle-strengthening activity at least twice a week. Walking can cover the first half. It doesn't cover the second.
Walking won’t stimulate your muscles the way progressively lifting something heavy does. It doesn’t challenge every major muscle group, and it doesn’t build strength, power, or bone density the way resistance exercise does.
Walking is a great tool, but it’s just one tool in the toolbox.
The next time you head out to walk for exercise, ask yourself: “Am I walking, or am I exercise walking?” They're not the same thing.
Now you know the difference!
