5 min Facts: Small Steps Big Rewards- the surprising benefits of 10,000 steps

This is episode 238 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Welcome to Performance Power. This is our episode that I produce once a month. It's all about the science behind a particular topic that will really boost your health. So typically I dive in with our five minute facts and then I open this up to questions because I am often recording this live and today I'm not recording it with a live audience. Instead, I've brought in a few questions and I'll go a little deeper on our topic today because I think it's one of these hidden gems that people really don't realize how impactful it can be. So here it is. Today's topic on performance power is all about our 10,000 steps. So you've probably heard at some point or another that 10,000 steps is good for you and that might be the goal. And maybe you've noticed on some sort of fitness tracker, whether it's a Fitbit, your Apple watch, some, a Garmin, some tracker that you have a sense for how many steps you're getting in a day. And maybe you're getting 6,000 one day and 3,000 the next day. And you don't really know whether or not this is doing you a service or whether you should be trying for more. Or maybe you're seeing that you're getting 20,000 steps on the weekend and 5,000 steps on a weekday. So let's explore this. Let's peel this back. So let's get into the five minute facts. So the history here is that this concept of taking 10,000 steps per day was actually originated in Japan in the mid-1960s, and the term was manpo kei. Manpoke was coined by this Japanese company who was producing pedometers. And the interesting thing about this is that back when I was doing research in heart rate variability and in biomechanics, I was in a lab that was doing research on steps per day, especially for children's activity, and they were using pedometers to do it. So I got to be looped in on some of these experiments as a bit of a lab rat. And I would be wearing pedometers and discovering how many steps I'd get. And I would put a pedometer on my child and send her to school and see how many steps she would get and just be part of these research studies that were really groundbreaking at the time. And this was around 2004, around there. And so these pedometers this company was using, they would. The term manpoquet was meaning 10,000 steps meter. So they used that to market their pedometers. And then over time, that concept became popularized as a world guideline for improving health and physical activity levels. The thing was though, is that at the time was that 10,000 steps, this was popularized. But then what research does with almost anything is then research validates that claim. So what happens, especially in the sporting world, is that people notice what it takes for performance, what it takes for optimal health, and then they might make a guideline or structure around that. This has happened in interval training, in track, this has happened in the 10,000 steps, for instance. And then research comes a bit later. So the scientific proving of that thing often happens after the discovery that this thing might be useful or helpful. So that's what happened in the world of 10,000 steps, in that people then were researching it, and especially in a couple labs in Canada, they were researching it specifically for children around the time I was doing research in those labs. So here is fact number one. 10,000 steps per day has been validated as a great help optimal health metric. So what it can do is it can help reduce the risk of various health problems such as heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. So that's fact number one. Fact number two, children and adolescents age 6 to 17 years should aim for at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity, physical activity each day. That can include activities such as walking, running, or playing sports. But for children 6 to 17, their target is not 10,000 steps. It's actually around 12,000 steps or more. So for instance, around the time I was doing research for kids, the recommendation was 16,000 steps. These little kids are zipping around, their legs are shorter and they're really active. They go, go, go. It's part of their development, both physically and mentally. And so typically back then, the recommendation for kids was 16,000 steps. Right now, after more research, it's around 12,000 steps. Now, I personally don't know whether this is because we have more of a sedentary population, so. So the recommendations are accommodating that or whether more research has been done. So I haven't been able to find out the answer to that, whether the 12,000 steps, why it's different from the 16,000 steps. So that's fact number two. Fact number three is that accumulating steps doesn't have to be in one big bout. So for me, if I were to get 10,000 steps, it would take me probably around an hour to an hour and a half of walking, depending on the surface and the, the, the pace that I'm going. So if I'm walking fast on concrete and it was a cool day and I could keep that pace really easily, then I could probably get 10,000 steps in a little over an hour. If it was hiking, then it's going to be a longer span of time. So. But the point is, is that the 10,000 steps or 12,000 steps for kids and it's not optimal to have it all in one go. What's actually optimal and has been shown to be associated with a lower body mass index, and there are caveats to that, but it's been shown to be associated with a lower BMI and better cardiovascular health while breaking up the sedentary time with these short bouts of activity. So the benefit of these short bouts of activity is that it lowers the level of insulin sensitivities or improves insulin sensitivity, I should say. And it also helps break up the mental stagnance that comes with sitting for long periods of time. It lowers body fat levels. So it's not preferred to have these steps all at once, but taking something like 3,000 steps in a short little walk. So for me to take 3,000 steps, it would take less than 30 minutes. And that is particularly beneficial for improving health outcomes, especially in women. So the beauty about this, especially with fat burning mental acuity, that just breaking it up throughout the day is a massive, massive health and performance beneficial activity. That came out a little weird, but that's okay. Another study that I found was that this is in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health and it's a recent study in 2021 that breaking up sedentary time with short bouts of activity, such as a few minutes to walk around every single hour, is associated with lower levels of body fat and the insulin sensitivity in middle age adults. So the reason I repeated that is that these studies are done in different demographics. So the previous one was in women specifically. And it's important that it separates out women from men because our hormonal profiles in women are much different than men. Okay, so let's go on to step number four or five minute fact number four. The optimal number of steps per day will vary based on the individual. So this is going to vary based on age, fitness level, overall health status, what the goals are. So when we say 10,000 steps for adults and 10 and 12,000 for children, that is really broad and extremely general. The steps have nothing to do really with the fitness or training or physical optimal performance in a sport, but rather about activity and health. So it's more about healthy activity. And this is an incredible correlation and monitoring tool that can be prescriptive. What I mean by that is that if somebody's baseline of steps per day is 5,000, it's really easy to use this metric to slowly improve without overwhelming someone and without having them feel like they can't keep going. Whereas when you can show them that, okay, they've just tripled their steps in a day, they can often see more easily that it's not sustainable. When they can see they've gone up by 2000 steps one day and they've gone up by another thousand steps the next day, they start to realize that it's not only achievable, but it's something that's pretty likely to be repeated, so it's repeatable. So this ends up being really important in all kinds of scenarios. And I know that even in a highest level athlete, I used it with athletes like I had a national level triple jumper and she had some Achilles issues and we were rehabbing from a little tweak so she could get back to her practice and performance. And one of the ways we did it by looking at the metrics and numbers of steps. Steps, because if we overshot the number of impacts, the number of steps she was taking in in a day, then we weren't going to gradually return her to play in a way that, in a way that was going to heal her at the same time if, if we return her too fast, which sometimes is hard to tell if you don't have a metric like steps. Okay, fact number five, this one is all around some other outcomes. So one study in 2018 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that accumulating these steps, like we said before, in multiple bouts throughout the day, it's associated with so many different things such as sleep quality, lower levels of anxiety and depression. And this is in college students. They also noted that these benefits were seen regardless of whether the steps were accumulated in short bouts or all at once. So it does so much more. It can help reduce the health risks, heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and it also contributes to other health outcomes as well. The thing about steps is that it's so easy, extremely easy. And the studies and the validations that have been done in research are massive. Even in larger groups of people like 4800 middle age adults. If 4800 middle age adults took 10,000 steps or more per day, those people had significantly lower risk of all cause mortality compared to those who took fewer steps per day. Another one in the British Journal of Sport Medicine in 2020 found that 10,000 steps per day or more was also associated with lower levels of body fat, blood pressure and insulin resistance in a sampling of young adults. It's a profound, simple activity that can be done. It's not training, it's not working out, it's activity. And it's what we would call adl, an activity of daily living. And the way Paul and I personally work this into our lives is pretty simple. It's our dogs. You might have heard them in the background on this podcast because they follow us around, they need activity, they're highly energetic, and we've chosen to walk our dogs instead of just letting them out in the backyard and having them get their activity that way. And what that looks like for us is, is he or I will walk the dogs first thing in the morning for maybe 10 minutes just to get them out, get them into nature, get some activity and let them go to the bathroom, and then we come in or one of us will have done it. And then at lunchtime we might let them out, we might not. But every single day after work, I use that time to get some steps to clear my head, get my body moving, especially if I've been at a computer most of the day or sitting most of the day. And I'll use that time to get them for a walk for 20 minutes, but it's needed for me. And then we'll typically go for a walk together later, after dinner. Now, if you look at the timing of these bouts first thing in the morning, maybe at something at lunchtime, definitely at the end of the workday, and then definitely after dinner. If you look at the timing of these bouts, they are ideal for keeping blood sugar levels stable. They are ideal for fat burning and keeping the brain rested and recovered from intense bouts of work. So that's what we just have fallen into those habits. But research backs that up as being ideal for performance and productivity as well as health. And it's easy then to accumulate the number of steps throughout the day without having to put in a conscious 45 minute walk that seems daunting when you're tired or exhausted, versus 10 minute bouts of taking the dogs out, or 20 minutes or 30 minutes of chatting and catching up on the day while you're walking. So this habit has turned into something that's very powerful for not only our mental health and recovery, but also physical activity and overall health markers. So I know that this particular topic is more than five minutes. I've gone over the five minute facts. I typically try to be very succinct. However, this is something that I think most people don't give enough weight to because it is an easy activity and you don't really often know whether, you know, this 10,000 steps thing is just a fad. So that's why I'd like to share this with you. So you really have the sense of how impactful this can be on your overall whole life and, and get multiple benefits from it. Not just some activity, not just some, a break from sitting, but real, real solid health benefits. So that is the five minute facts for today. I'm going to answer a couple of questions that I've received that have come in that I think others would be interested in hearing some answers to as well. And one of them is around one person asked how do I, how do I decide what to focus on when there is so much information that bombards me when it comes to health and fitness? And I inquired further about this question. I said, well, you know, that can seem pretty big. Well, what do you mean? And they just found themselves becoming extremely overwhelmed with so many things coming their way when it, when it came to nutrition suggestions, workout suggestions. And this is a person, I know this person. This is a person who works out and is active every day, but then has a hard time discerning what's most important. And what I'd like to offer is upon this particular topic is that adding something simple in your life that can go anywhere with you, whether you're on vacation, whether you're traveling for work, or whether you're at home. That's built in as a lifelong habit. A daily constitutional is something that has far more invested benefits compounding interest than doing a particular special one food or trying that out, or doing a particular workout that seems to be the best flavor of the month or the new workout fad. Because I know that although, you know, pelotons can be great and great for working out at home, then what do you do when you're traveling? So picking something that can be part of you and your routine and something that really has longevity and sustainable impact in your life can be something that is far better than not knowing what to pick with the flavor of the month. Now, I'm going to say that with an asterisk, meaning I'd like you to be adventurous, I'd like you to try new things, I'd like you to explore and see if you Know, pickleball might be the new sport that you're really into. However, make sure you have some standard go tos that you've discovered that work for you. Find what works for you, find what feels really good, find what makes a difference. And, and that's not the easy answer that most people want to hear. They want to hear from me, do this. And what I'm here to say is that we're all very, very different. And if we don't take the time to discover our preferences, then even if I tell you do this, you will do it. But it won't last if it's not something you enjoy and it's not something that you find real value in. So that's where I say when it comes to foods, when it comes to activities, and when it comes to workouts and sports, treat it like you are trying on in a change room new pairs of jeans. Because you're not going to buy those expensive jeans unless they feel fantastic and they look really good. So try some things on. You're not going to actually invest in something or commit to something until you've tried it on. Find out whether you like it and see whether it's something that would work for you for the long term. And that's something that with years and years of working with hundreds of different people, from the highest level of athlete to the most driven achiever in business, there's one thing I don't do. And it suggests that everyone has to do this one thing because that would not meet their particular life, lifestyle or preferences. So, so this is something that the one piece of advice would be try things on to find out what you really, really enjoy. Because that's going to be one of the biggest factors that keeps it in your life with sustainability. The second question that I had come in recently was around, this is a person who is very lean, fairly fit, active and small and female. And this person writes, I would maybe find my weight going up or feeling a little softer, meaning not as much muscle definition or tone. And then all I needed to do was adjust my food for a couple days, maybe a week, change my activity a little bit mild, tweak and see myself get right back to normal. And they noted that now as they're a little bit older, in their late 40s, but very fit, very active, that they're just not finding that they're able to bounce back to their normal, normal body look or tone, muscle tone that they would experience. So this is the bad news I'm going to share when it comes to women especially, and men as well. When we get into our 40s and into our late 40s, our hormones are changing. And there is one hormone that can be really impacted. And when it's impacted for women and men, this hormone tends to make a real shift in terms of how we carry our muscle mass. And I've personally experienced this. When our testosterone goes down or is very, very low, almost non existent, then it's harder for us to grow muscle. And when our growth hormone goes down, it's harder for us to maintain muscle as well. And we'll notice some other side effects. We may not feel as energetic, we may not feel like we have as much of a libido. So these things will naturally occur to some extent, but also can occur because there's an imbalance of hormones somewhere else. Maybe there's been a stressor, maybe someone's gone through menopause. Maybe for men it's just been more stress at work, or maybe it's just been slow decline in testosterone and then finally it just becomes noticeable when before it wasn't really noticeable. So this is often, and when I say often, I've seen this many times throughout hundreds of clients where this little dip or maybe a very low result in testosterone results in feeling all these other physical symptoms. So what I would suggest for someone is to get a hormone panel done. You can get Dutch testing done. You might need to talk to a naturopath. You might have to pay out of pocket for something separate that your healthcare provider won't, won't cover. However, it may be worth just discovering what's going on. The problem with these is that when you've done one test, it's typically not enough to understand what's going on. So for instance, if someone's going through menopause, their hormone profile is going to be changing for a span of time and you want to get another test or third or fourth test to see how you are affected over time and knowing that life factors, circumstances outside will also affect how these hormones are adjusting throughout your, throughout your body. Because if one goes up and another comes down, it usually causes another one to come onto the scene. If someone's going through menopause, they're going to experience that their, their estrogen is dropping, their progesterone's going up, they might feel a massive amount of adrenaline as well. That's not expected. They might feel like their testosterone is going down. So these are some things that happen. And for men it's often a pretty simple look. They're going to feel A little bit different. They're not going to feel quite as energetic and maybe their libido has dropped a little bit and then they might notice that their testosterone has gone down. However, sometimes when men will then get some supplementation, some small amounts of small doses of testosterone, to see a little bit of a difference, if it's too much, they might feel easily triggered. They might feel really angry, they might. They might feel that some of the other effects of increasing that testosterone outweigh the positive effects. So it's different for every single person. Whereas I've had clients who have noticed that they've started on small doses of exogenous testosterone and they find that it feels amazing. They have more energy. However, note in those cases, and I am not the expert in the field I'm reporting on, on the experiences that I've had personally and with hundreds and hundreds of different clients. So what I would suggest is figure this out. Just like the other recommendation is go and get a test. Find someone that you trust, usually a naturopath, a functional medical doctor or practitioner, and they will spend more time going through the results with you and that the regular MD often does not have time to go through. So spend the time to get the test, spend the money to get the test, and then you're probably going to have to retest to see what your options are. And there are options of small supplementation with testosterone or other options. However, you also have to realize that adding, adding one hormone will also affect your other hormones. So it might take a little bit to find the right amount or the right type of supplementation for you. The other thing about it is that once you introduce testosterone, that's something that when it's introduced exogenously or outside the body, then your body doesn't have an inclination to produce it itself. So know that if somebody is a male and they decide to take some testosterone and they're taking small doses, it makes a real big impact. They've found the sweet spot. They think that this is going to be great for them. They'll probably have to take it for the rest of their lives to still, still feel and experience those same results. So I say this and share this with the, with the same emphasis of don't be afraid to explore and be curious and really aim to try things on and figure out what is best for your body that meets and aligns with your own values that is congruent with who you are and what you believe. In that way, you will go through a little bit of a journey, but that journey will be so valuable and in learning so much more about your body and being able to find the resources faster, I would much rather me and anyone I know to spend a little more time and money initially to really figure out what's going on than to be hit hitting and missing and hitting and missing for years before finally spending the money on a naturopath or a FL functional medical doctor or more extensive tests that our regular system simply won't provide. So I'd rather someone spends the money or takes the time initially and figures it out faster has a better quality of life than trying to deal with what is often a broken system that does not deal in proactive medical care, but rather deals in sick care. So I would emphasize to go and do the tests, figure some things out. There are some natural remedies that can help support increased testosterone or increased other health benefits, especially if you are deficient in in a certain micronutrient as well. So I know that's a general response. However, when people are going through something like this initially it feels like a very lonely path. And I've been down that path. And when you don't have other people around saying hey, try this or try that, then, and you don't know who to trust, then it's important to hear that you may have to splurge on a practitioner that isn't your normal medical md, but perhaps a specialist who can go a little deeper and help a little more and spend a little more time with figuring out the specific thing called you. Because you are very unique. You are not the same as everyone else your age or everyone else your gender. And it's worth figuring out what's going on for you and I will likely share a little more about my personal journey in the near future as I'm making more discoveries around what I'm managing and actively healing and an autoimmune disease called Graves disease. So this is our performance power. We believe in figuring out what it takes to create your optimal performance and that's why we include this in our Empowered Team podcast, simply because we know that as individuals you will need to do a few things and figure out a few ways to optimize your performance. You are different than everyone else out there, and figuring out your magic code is going to be one of the many things that allow you to continue to perform at your optimal best. And that is what I wish for you. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Keep doing what you do. 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