Wellfie Wednesday Tip #71: Lets Pick Up the Pace!

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     Happy Wellfie Wednesday! Welcome back! This week is brought to you by the Wellfie Crew's newest crew member, Alyssa Kuhn, SPT (@kuhnalyssa_spt), whose a 3rd year doctor of physical therapy student at The Ohio State University. She has a strong interest in the prevention and wellness aspect of PT, especially in the geriatric population. She loves continuing to find ways to help people get up and stay moving! As well as an avid crossfitter and a lover of all things Michigan State. Go green!

It’s time to pick up the pace with step counting!

     How many times have you heard people trying to reach 10,000 steps each day? Hopefully quite a bit because this is awesome! Keeping people moving is one of the easiest ways to stay healthy and combat chronic disease. But is this actually helping us meet our health goals? What if there was another way to approach this theory? Some are questioning whether intensity and duration of intensity when walking can lead to greater health benefits than simply the number of steps taken or the distance you’ve walked.

     Glancing at the current Physical Activity and Public Health guidelines from the American College of Sports (ACSM) and American Heart Association (AHA), it is recommended that American adults aged 18-65 years should continue to accumulate at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity 5 days per week (instead of "most days of the week") OR engage in 20-minutes of vigorous activity 3 days per week. These have been around for a while now and guidelines for older adults are almost identical.

     Interestingly though, in 2007, the ACSM and American Heart Association (AHA) released clarifications to the recommendations further stating… 

Activity must be at least 10 minutes in duration to count towards daily goals (30 minutes) and that a combination of vigorous and moderate-intensity physical activity is acceptable

     Want to know a SUPER SIMPLE way to make sure you are hitting these 10-minute bouts? Public Health England has you covered. They have created a FREE app titled Active 10 through their health promotion campaign, “One You”, that is available on most Android and iPhone models to specifically track how much time you spent in “brisk” walking. They define brisk walking as a pace in which you are beginning to become slightly out of breath, a likely average speed ~3 miles per hour. They have coined these bouts “Active 10s” when you have reached 10 consecutive minutes of brisk walking tracked using the motion sensors on your phone. Many people find it much easier to stay accountable when they know their results are being tracked. I propose that even physical therapists or other health professionals can use this as a way to easily track their patient’s activity levels.

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     Don’t have a smart phone? You can easily use a watch to time yourself walking at a slightly quicker pace!

How can more walking easily fit into daily life?

  • Taking breaks at work to walk at lunch, outside, or around the office
  • Parking in the furthest spot in the parking lot
  • Walking with pets
  • Walking with children to the bus stop or to the park
  • Walking to class on a university campus
  • ….there are so many ways!

ITS TIME TO GET MOVING (BRISKLY)!

Don’t get me wrong, getting people to move is the ultimate priority and this is just a way to take it a step further.

I am by no way endorsed or have any involvement with this campaign or with Public Health England, I just think this app is awesome 😊 - Alyssa 

     So pick up the pace the week! Thanks again for all of the #WellfieWednesday support, be sure to post your pictures this week and tag the WW crew members in your post (@TheFuelPhysio, @Eric_in_AmERICa, @AaronPerezPT, @DianaKlatt, @kuhnalyssa_spt) and keep the wave of healthy change going!

- WW Crew

 

References:

Haskell WL, Pate RR, et al. Physical Activity and Public Health: Updated recommendations for adults from the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2007;38(8):1423-34.

To find out more information about Active 10: https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/active10/home#G4VTwkQcEL6y1wWI.97