Achieving 10,000 steps a day is a popular fitness goal for millions of people.
But when it comes to weight loss, experts believe there are less time-consuming alternatives that may be more effective.
Research suggests that walking at a steady pace may burn more calories than walking at a steady pace.
US scientists tracking the movements of 18 healthy adults found that every 1 percent increase in stride length variability was associated with a 0.7 percent increase in energy expenditure.
The results showed that uneven stride length “plays a small but significant role” in the metabolic costs of walking, the experts claimed.
Research suggests that walking with a constant stride length may burn more calories than walking with a constant stride length: US scientists who tracked the movements of 18 healthy adults found that every 1% increase in stride length variability was associated with a 0.7% increase in energy expenditure.
The research team did not measure how many calories participants burned.
But “it’s reasonable to assume that more frequent and larger changes in stride length would increase your metabolic rate while walking,” said Adam Grimitt, an exercise physiology expert at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-author of the study.
In the study, volunteers, with an average age of 24 and weighing 11 stone 1 pound (70.5 kg), were asked to walk normally on a treadmill for five minutes.
The motion capture system recorded the average stride length at a typical speed of 1.2 meters per second.
We then manipulated stride length during a second 5-minute treadmill walk by illuminating the area where we wanted participants to walk.
Posture varied by up to 5 percent shorter or longer than the average stride length.
All volunteers were also fitted with a mouthpiece that measured their carbon dioxide production rate, which increases during exercise.
The findings, published on a preprint website, BioRxivThe researchers suggest that having to work harder to maintain stability from short to long strides, or vice versa, may increase muscle contractions and metabolic costs.
“Our data suggest that a 2.7% increase in step length variability is associated with a 1.7% increase in the metabolic cost of walking,” the researchers added.
“Step length variability plays a small but important role in the metabolic cost of walking.”
The team also said their findings may be most relevant to older people, especially those with neurological conditions, as they “have greater variability in stride length”.
However, the researchers acknowledged that varying length by 5 percent intervals “is not consistent with real-world gait variation.”
Participants “still had difficulty maintaining accuracy” when varying stride length without the additional feedback, the researchers added.
“Future studies should quantify foot placement accuracy and muscle activity in similar virtual projections.”
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