how many steps, for. 74 year old fit man?

[Alexis1st]

they say 10,000 steps is only for a really fit person. As you get older ( I am 74 years old man ) lowering your step rate is more beneficial for, us oldies

[nowster]

10,000 steps is a totally made up thing. It was a selling point conjured up by a Japanese manufacturer of pedometers, it being a nice round number.

I'd suggest anything that makes your heart rate get a little higher for at least ten minutes a day is sufficient. (Hence the name of this forum.)

Can I also suggest chbnradio.org/10today

[Alexis1st in reply to nowster]

thanks for your interesting information. Will take it on board cheers

[CBDB Administrator]

Well done for getting out there! The Active10 app (linked at the bottom of this forum) measures the number of “active 10 minutes of walking” one goes, with every walker being able to set their own goals of 1 times active 10 daily, 2 or 3 times active 10s.

Have a look at the app, it might just be the perfect tracker for you!

Welcome and well done!

[Alexis1st in reply to CBDB]

Thank you very much, for all your information cheers

[GoogleMe]

Who are 'they'? There are massive variations between different individuals in their 70s - and of course a wide variety of circumstances. I don't know why someone would deliberately lower the number of steps they aim for just because of their chronological age... different if it is feeling too much (and in particular if you are prioritising achieving that over other key things to promote a healthy old age such as social interaction - I have seen that happen).

People both want to have but love to argue with guidelines! (How much alcohol, how much fruit and veg and so on) [When I was in professional practice there were people who wanted me to tell them what to do seemingly for the joy of telling me why they weren't going to!] The arguing against numbers is not entirely unreasonable because they are often chosen for random reasons, simply because an artificial kind of precision needs to be used for research purposes (which will be looking at selected outcomes), because some committee members were tired and wanted to go home, and more about sounding catchy than anything else. Few things in biology are going to be that precise, especially for the individual (apart from the 'Just don't' things). If you are someone for whom 10,000 steps works as a goal to encourage a helpful level of activity (whether you achieve it or not) use it, if it is just another stick to beat yourself with (either flogging yourself to do it or berating yourself if you don't) then don't.