Which is healthier: one long walk or several short ones?

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Countless studies have now proven one thing: the more steps you take each day, the greater the effect on your health. Unfit people can benefit significantly from a low number of steps if they have previously been almost entirely inactive.

But is it enough to accumulate steps throughout the day, or does the length of each period of exercise also play a role? A large-scale study has come to an interesting conclusion.

Data from the new study by Australian and Spanish researchers shows that people who are continuously active for at least 10 to 15 minutes benefit more in terms of health than those whose individual periods of activity last less than five minutes. The study was published in the journal Annals of International Medicine.

The health benefits of walking

The study analyzed data from 33,560 adults between the ages of 40 and 79, with an average age of 62. At the beginning of the data evaluation phase, none of the participants had cardiovascular disease or cancer. All of the participants walked less than 8,000 steps per day, with most walking less than 5,000 steps.

Those who took most of their steps in one or two walks of at least 10 to 15 minutes or longer had a lower risk of mortality and cardiovascular disease (such as heart attack or stroke) over an eight-year observation period than those who took their steps in very short units of less than five minutes.

In detail, the study yielded the following results:

People who walked continuously for 10 to 15 minutes a day had a 4 percent risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke over the eight years.
For those who walked continuously for only 5 minutes a day, the risk of a cardiovascular event was 13 percent.
The health benefits of continuous walking were most pronounced in the least active individuals, who walked 5,000 steps or less per day.

In this group, the risk of developing cardiovascular disease was halved from 15 percent among those who walked up to 5 minutes per day to 7 percent among those who walked up to 15 minutes per day. The risk of dying during the study period also decreased significantly.

Longer versus shorter exercise sessions

“For the most inactive people, switching from short to occasionally longer walks can have some health benefits,” co-study author Matthew Ahmadi is quoted as saying in a press release about the study. “Even one or two longer walks per day of at least 10 to 15 minutes each at a comfortable but steady pace can have significant benefits – especially for people who don’t get much exercise.”

It seems to be much better to accumulate steps over longer periods of time.

“We’re not saying that shorter workouts don’t work,” study leader Borja del Pozo Cruz, an epidemiologist at the European University of Madrid, told The New York Times. “But it seems to be much better to accumulate steps over longer periods of time.”

The authors also emphasize that their data only show a correlation (“interdependence”), i.e., a statistical relationship. However, they do not prove that longer walks are healthier than several short walks spread throughout the day—such causality (“cause”) cannot be proven with this type of study.

No clear evidence yet

The lower incidence of illness could theoretically also have entirely different causes, such as a better state of health from the outset in the group of those who reported more extended periods of exercise.

“However, there is evidence that the body needs more time and continuity to fully reap the health benefits of exercise, such as improved heart rate regulation,” the New York Times quotes Robert Gerszten, head of cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who was not involved in the study.

Just recently, sports physician Josef Niebauer from the University Hospital of Salzburg emphasized that for people who are not completely untrained, it is not only the number of steps that matters, but also the intensity: “And here, a good 20 minutes a day or 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise—i.e., brisk walking or cycling at 16 to 20 km/h—is the minimum. This also meets the criteria of the World Health Organization (WHO),” said Niebauer.