@sushiritto, good link. Really sticks a pin in the 10,000 step myth. And it appears that the magic 10,000 number came about as the result of the Japanese manufacturer of a heavily marketed consumer pedometer giving the name to its product which when translated from Japanese means “10,000 steps”.
The mean age of the study was 72 though. I was about to say, keeping under 4400 steps takes some effort.
The concept behind getting in your”steps” is that getting in an hour of exercise each day may be great for conditioning and training but that this alone is not sufficient to protect against mortality due to diseases of aging. That you need regular, daily non-exercise related movement to do so i.e. that exercise alone does not offset the perils of an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. Gathering data on a elderly population enables you to track mortality over a reasonable and practical span of years and who better to track this with than with a population that based on age alone would be at risk. There are other studies, not specifically looking at the span of minimum and maximum movement needed to derive these benefits that have reached the same conclusions about structured exercise in an otherwise sedentary day vs getting in regular non-exercise movement. You need both but the latter is what is more important protect against diseases of aging.
Good article @sushiritto . Steps are one measure I use but not the only measure and NOT just steps gained in puttering around in the work and home environment.
I do think the idea of counting steps though has been instrumental in getting lots of people on the fitness bandwagon - especially though who became motivated to do more than those 10K steps or who make sure a fair portion of their steps are at a productive pace and over a productive period of time (so for instance a 30 minute purposeful walk as opposed to 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there.
I started walking further with my little dog when Pokemon Go came out as there are incentives built into the app/game to rack up your kilometers.
Well it looks like 5000-7500 is a better number to aim for. Thanks for posting that, I hadn’t heard about the study. (Though I don’t count steps.)
@sushiritto re: the scale. It’s a corporate Planet Fitness thing from what I read online. Some of their “non-judgy” rules seem awfully judgy to me. But from what I read, our gym is much better than some. Our manager is very much into fitness and married to a hardcore weightlifting guru. When we signed up, she told me I could run and work out as hard as I wanted.
Speaking of signing up… I just signed up for my annual wellness screenings through work’s health fair. Until they made me, I never got any numbers checked. I don’t have a GP or do physicals besides the normal lady stuff. (I’m also not quite 50 yet.) Anyhow, this year I’m skipping my workout and going in at 6:30am. I’m curious how my numbers have been affected by doing a 2 hour workout (run & lift) immediately prior to a fasting blood draw. My numbers are always “in the green” but my total cholesterol is higher than I would think (190+/-), but my bad cholesterol number is very low. Last year it was “too low to register” on the machine. Thoughts?
Today was 61*, muggy and windy at 4:30am => horrible speed session outside. I felt like I was running into a brick wall breathing through a straw with goo running out of my eyes. My lifting workout was much better. P90X chest, shoulders, and tris. Lots and lots of weird push-ups, and my first time with this workout in awhile. I was pleased to get 12 clapping ones in a row. The one arm push-up still eludes me, but I have fun trying!
It was raining (well, maybe) early this morning so I stayed in on the treadmill. My knee did well last night but not so well for this morning’s 3.1 miles, so I am going to try to make myself really cut my mileage back for a few days and see how it goes. It’s nothing really bad not nothing really good at this point.
I like the metrics on my Apple Watch better than the step count, although I try to get 6000-8000 steps over what I run (which I count roughly as 2000 steps a mile, but it’s really a little less). To me, it’s just a way to get myself out of the chair. The Apple watch “Move” ring can be set (active calories) to what you want. Mine is a little high and requires quite a bit of running or activity, and I tend to feel pressured by it. The Exercise ring is 30 minutes and can’t be changed. Purposeful walking (even from the parking garage to my office) gives me a few minutes. The 100 steps every hour for 12 hours of the day is also set, and is easy for me to do.
I agree that there has been a huge benefit in getting people to be more active because of the current focus on counting steps. On the other hand, I think there has been an equal blurring of the distinction between movement for training, performance and fitness vs movement for health. Counting steps is really all about the latter. Remember when having fitbits remind you every 20 minutes to stand up and move around was the “rage”? Now, instead, it’s all about getting in X number of steps per day. The purpose is to protect against diseases of aging, not to become athletically fit although undoubtedly someone who is walking 10,000 steps per day will get leaner and “fitter” (as long as they don’t use the steps as an excuse to eat with wild abandonment, lol). The developing science is really kinda interesting, peeling back the layers of the movement continuum between movement for health and movement for fitness and performance training.
I became a little jaded with my FitBit when I discovered that I was getting my “steps” in by clapping vigorously at a college basketball game.
Since total sums both “good” (HDL) and “bad” (LDL and VLDL), the subparts are important for knowing whether to be concerned.
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The Roman mile was 1,000 paces, or 2,000 steps. Of course, it did vary based on who was marching / measuring, though its length was not too different from the mile used today on land.
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Last year it was "too low to register" on the machine. Thoughts?<<<<<<
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Are you talking about one of those quick machines like a BGL prick vs a blood draw?
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I don't have a GP or do physicals <<< Is that an insurance thing, or are you outside of the US? (I really don't think these yearly things are normal say in the UK or AUs for sure).
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Not sure what you mean by this. Tell us more?
@ClassicMom98 Just seems that removing the scale from a gym/health club is one step too far in the category of political correctness. But I’m not a PF member, so the impact to me is zero.
Are you almost able to do a one-armed pushup? If so, that’s fantastic!
Has anyone ever watched the film “Office Space,” it’s a cult classic from the late 90’s. There’s a character in the film named “Milton,” whose office cubicle is continually downgraded throughout the movie (he mumbles and no one respects or understands him), in terms of location and size. And is eventually moved into the basement of the building and they stop paying him his paycheck. In talking with the two owners of “my” gym, they’re moving my little area (special pull-up bar and rig/rack, open area for Oly lifting, air bike and burpees, etc.) into the FAR corner of the gym in order to make room for more power lifting equipment. 
Instagram fans! @thebarbellprescription is now on IG.
Dr. Jonathan Sullivan, co-author of The Barbell Prescription, retired ER doctor, owner of Greysteel Strength & Conditioning in MI specializing in masters strength training has FINALLY joined the IG world.
We can all look forward to encouraging posts re: Athletes of Aging.
Yesterday? 59 yo female named Debbie presses a single at 68#. Debbie, I’m coming for you. 
Our health fair is a simple set up where we go to 4 stations to get weighed, BP and two blood prick where they give you glucose/cholesterol numbers of the spot. So not a draw/lab result and probably not all that accurate I would guess. Last year, for the LDL the number came up blank and she said it was too low. Prior years it was very low but it did register.
I have no family history of any HBP or diabetes or even significant cancer. All the women in my family lived to be well into their 90s and my parents are in their 70s with no prescription meds. I do cancer screenings and vaccines as required, but haven’t seen a need to have yearly physicals to date. I only participate in these things because they make me to get the lower insurance premium. And I was curious about the exercise because I did read that vigorous exercise can skew the numbers releasing cholesterol into the blood.
Ah. Finger prick, not draw.
I know nothing about differences re: accuracy between the two. Also not sure about the exercise component. It would be interesting to compare your results with exercise plus a draw.
Doing mostly mental health runs lately, four-five mile runs to clear my head. Running is great because it is so portable.
My hdl was barely registering this year on that machine. They told me to exercise more.