I blogged recently about counting steps while at conferences in Europe. Short story? Good, because Europe. Bad, because conferences.
But still I got over 10, 000 steps in everyday and while in Scotland hit some new highs.
That’s a lot of walking.
But there’s at least two ways that this number doesn’t tell the whole story.
The first is altitude. I reached 25,000 steps the day Sarah and I walked up to Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park. What’s Arthur’s Seat?
Holyrood Park is a short walk from Edinburgh’s Royal Mile in the heart of the city. It is a 640 acre Royal Park adjacent to Holyrood Palace.
The parks highest point is Arthurs Seat, an ancient volcano, and sits 251m above sea level giving excellent view of the city; it is also the site of a large and well preserved fort. This is one of four hill forts dating from around 2000 years ago. With its diverse range of flora and geology it is also site of Special Scientific Interest.
Hill climbing isn’t just about the number of steps! By the time we were halfway up we were tired in a way that you’re not when you’re just strolling on the flats. It was also foggy and very wet!
So that’s one issue with the step counting thing. Hills matter.
But here’s another. We had packed our running gear with great intentions of running at the end of the day. So the second problem with step counting is that it may not leave much energy for more deliberate structured athletic training. I began to understand why athletes are often sedentary when they’re not running, biking, or swimming. Certainly at the end of our 25,000 + step day we didn’t feel much like running!
Now I’m back home I think I’ll set the step counting aside and return to our regularly scheduled program of lifting, riding, running, and Aikido.
How about you? How do you combine step counting with workouts? Do you do one or the other, or both?
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One of the things I like about the fitbit is that it tracks stairs (altitude, really) and “active minutes.” As I’ve been recovering form some health issues, the activity minutes has been a great way to make sure that I’m getting some actual movement in (it requires a little amount of speed for at least 10 minutes. A 20-minute mile seems to be fast enough).
Yeah, on a fitbit, if you ascend 10ft, it counts as one floor. Actually, it picks up this ascent even when you’re not on foot. Even being in a car that’s climbing a hill reflects in your ‘floor’ count.