Stepping into health

For the month of February veterans, their families and Mates4Mates staff are putting their feet into action as part of our 10,000 steps challenge. This might be the first time you've heard of this challenge or maybe you've had friends and family take part in something similar and wondered where this number of 10,000 steps per day come from.

On average we will gain between 4,000 to 6,000 steps a day from everyday activities such as moving around the house, workplace, garden or shops. To get those remaining steps it will take around 30 minutes of purposeful walking. Government guidelines recommend doing 30 minutes of activity per day, so when you combine  the 30 minutes of purposeful walking with the 4,000 to 6,000 incidental steps per day and you’ll soon reach 10,000 steps! 

There are hundreds of benefits to daily movement, walking and hitting 10,000 steps per day. Here are our top ten. Walking can:

1. Improve respiration/pulmonary function
2. Improve health function and reduced heart disease risk
3. Improve and reduce the risk of diabetes
4. Improve cognition and memory recall
5. Improve your mood, stress levels and assist with emotional regulation
6. Lead to good bone loading for reducing risk of osteoporosis
7. Improve vitamin D production — remember to be sun safe
8. Improve balance and reduced risk of falls by improving leg strength and speed
9. Improve digestion and metabolism
10. Provide social connection opportunity —get moving with your family and friends.

If this isn’t convincing enough, consider your afternoon after having a lazy day. Do you usually feel like getting up and out of your space?  Your body will prompt you to fidget, stand, move around during periods of long sitting  — take this as a sign to get some steps in!

So how can you measure if your walking is improving? Our exercise physiologists commonly use the 6-minute walk test. It gives feedback on how fast and far you can walk. Remember single walking distance tells us a lot about your health. This give us a really good indication of how effective your exercise and physical activity regime is! Want to give it go? Get in touch with one of our team and find out how to get your appointment today.