Walker Tracker Blog

Here’s the survey we’re going to post in our newsletter that goes out tomorrow.

Who is using an iPod Nano pedometer? How accurate is it? Are you using Nike+? Should we find a way to automagically pull in the data?

iPod Nano Pedometer Survey >

Feel free to get a jump on the responses! The responses are open – so you’ll be able to see the results (of multiple-choice questions, not the text fields)

I’ve been asked this question a ton of times — here’s what I usually tell people:

Depending upon your budget, I’ve definitely found that nicer pedometers encourage people to stick with walking. A pedometer is a cheap investment already — and so I would encourage everyone to bypass the $1 – $5 pedometers and go for something that will:

1) Last you

2) Not count a bunch of steps for non-walking activities

3) Be very wearable (most of the people on Walker Tracker wear their pedometer all day, every day)

A pedometer like this is going to cost you in the neighborhood of $10 – $40. Walking really is one of the cheapest physical activities.

My favorite pedometers are the ‘pocket pedometers’ — you don’t need to clip them on, you just put them in your pocket and they’ll count fine from there. The cheapest of these is the Omron HJ-112, which is about $20 at Amazon. Its big brother is the Omron HJ-720ITC. If  you are ordering in bulk, you might try onlinefitness.com for a discount.

For cheaper options – the Omron HJ-150 and HJ-151 are both decent, sturdy pedometers. It’s also worth checking out  what pedometers our community likes here —  it looks like other highly-rated pedometers according to our community are the Sportline 345, Sportline 350, Yamax DigiWalker CW-701, New Lifestyles NL-2000.

In order of features, I like:

• wearable in a pocket. If you don’t wear it, it’s not going to do you any good.
• memory (usually 7 days – I like to see how I’ve done over a week, and it’s useful for entering on Walker Tracker)
• resets at midnight
• sturdiness
• can’t ‘fake’ steps (uses an accelerometer over a pendulum. Or rather, it’s much harder to fake steps)
• a continuous activity measure (on Omron pedometers this is called ‘aerobic steps’ (in the newer ones, for some reason they renamed this to ‘moderate steps’ - it measures when it feels you’ve been walking long enough to benefit your heart)

There are lots of other metrics that pedometers can calculate — miles walked, calories burned, etc, but most of these are just mathematical calculations based on the number of steps you’ve walked. They’re useful features, but not absolutely necessary.

Best of luck!

“The garage next to mine is empty,” volunteered my apartment manager the other day. “If you want to switch to it, it’s a lot closer to your back door. It’d be easier with the kids.”

It’s true. It is closer. About 25 (I just ran out and checked) steps closer. On first thought, it sounds nice. It would make my life a little easier. But at what cost? On reflection, I keep coming back to a post I read in one of the Walker Tracker forums, which said, in essence, “I don’t look for shortcuts anymore. Now I look for long cuts.”

That is one of the benefits of walking with a pedometer. We know, we all know, that walking is good for us, that each increment of activity we can add to our daily routine is helpful. But it can be hard to remember, sometimes, that taking 25 extra steps from the garage, or 120 extra steps to the next bus stop, is truly valuable. In fact, without a walking program, or even the idea of one, it’s probable that you don’t think of those distances in terms of steps but as obstacles in between Point A and Point B.

Now, however, pedometer in tow — even on the days I don’t check it, I’m aware of it adding to my step counter — I welcome these former obstacles. More steps! I think, as I plug away haphazardly toward my goal of 10,000 steps every day. I, too, look for long cuts. I won’t be moving our bikes and boxes to the closer garage. Last night I walked to the video store, even though the car would have had me watching that much-anticipated episode of The Wire a lot faster.

Every step does add up, and a pedometer makes it more obvious.

What are some long cuts you’ve started taking as you’ve added the pedometer to your life?

St. Patrick’s Day saw the release of a fascinating pedometer-based study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

A small group of researchers was interested in translating the public health recommendation that all Americans should engage in 2.5 hours of moderate activity each week into an easy-to-follow “pedometer-based guideline.”

After clipping pedometers to 97 adults and tracking their metabolic rates at different speeds of walking, the researchers came to the conclusion that walking 100 steps a minute, or 3,000 steps in half an hour, is an ideal pace to meet the guidelines. There were slight differences in exactly what the ideal rate was for men compared to women, and for overweight or obese persons compared to normal weight persons. However, the 100 steps a minute rate is accessible and easy to remember for all, and, the study concludes, close enough for all groups of people to be effective in reaching the goal.

The study was performed on treadmills, which I had long heard were not as beneficial as just plain walking outdoors, but the paper takes pains to lay my qualms to rest, saying, “evidence does suggest that walking on a treadmill and walking overground are kinetically and kinematically equivalent in healthy subjects.”

I took a look at the chart breaking all the proposed ideal step rates down into categories, and was a little surprised to see that though most of the categories did fall into the “approximately 100 steps a minute” range, under one of the three analyses available, adults of “normal weight” would more likely benefit from walking at a pace of 127 steps per minute.

I know that I’m going to dig up a watch with a second hand and go for a walk today after I finish planting tulips. I’d like to see how fast it feels to walk 100+ steps a minute!

The full paper is available on the American Journal of Preventive Medicine’s website. Its complete title is: Translating Physical Activity Recommendations into a Pedometer-Based Step Goal: 3000 Steps in 30 Minutes