Article by Larisa Dina who is a researcher finishing her PhD at King’s College London. Larisa is writing exclusively for the Purposeful Group companies of which we are a part, and is an expert on digital health.

"Going home for Christmas usually means one thing: catching up with people we haven’t seen since the Christmas before.

This year, a friend mentioned something that had been on her mind. Her parents had recently moved to the countryside for more space and fresher air. Overall, it had been a great decision – they loved the quieter pace of life and being closer to nature. But there was one downside they hadn’t quite anticipated. With work no longer within walking distance, they’d started relying more on the car, and without really noticing, they were walking less and less.

Coincidentally, her parents joined us a couple of hours later. When the conversation turned to daily routines and staying active, they were quick to admit there was probably room for improvement. One example had stuck with them:

“I have a colleague who’s been commuting for years and always parks twenty minutes away just to get more steps in. She’s about to retire and is in great shape. Should we be doing the same?”

Getting older, many people sense they should be moving more – but how much is enough to reap the most benefits and avoid harm? Is adding extra walking always a good idea? Fortunately, in recent years, more high-quality research has started to leverage step counts from people’s smartwatches to help answer this question.

7,000 steps per day

A recent 2025 meta-analysis published in The Lancet Public Health pooled step counts and health outcomes from individual 57 studies, covering 30 cohorts. They reported that going from 2,000 to 7,000 steps daily was associated with a 47% reduction in all-cause mortality as well as reductions in chronic disease risk of 14% for Type 2 diabetes, 25% for cardiovascular disease, 38% for dementia, 22% for depression and 28% for falls, a major risk factor for all sorts of adverse health outcomes as we age. However, their analyses were more comprehensive. Specifically, they investigated if, and the extent to which we can observe health benefits at every 1,000 step increase in our daily averages, up to a total of 12,000 daily steps. The results? There were no harms in increasing steps up to 12,000 – quite the contrary! The risks associated with the chronic diseases mentioned above as well as all cause mortality continued to decline. This means that, compared to taking just 2,000 steps a day, their reference point, incrementally increasing our steps is associated with more health benefits.

These findings hold important implications for public health, as they help provide an initial evidence based benchmark for daily steps. They show that although risk reductions are evident even at lower step counts, they continue to increase with more steps per day, and that 7,000 steps might be a more attainable target than 10,000 or 12,000 steps – even though these might be appropriate targets for those who are already quite active.

If you’re wondering about how quick the walk should be – the evidence here is less conclusive (less studies looked at this), but so far it seems that the pace is not significantly associated with the health outcomes examined here.

Strength training

There is also a case for strength training. This is because an important factor in the loss of mobility, linked to negative outcomes such as falls, chronic disease and mortality, is age-related muscle mass loss (sarcopenia). Muscle power peaks in our 30s, and then starts declining in a linear trend until about 70 years for men, which marks the start of faster decline.

Strength training does not mean heavy lifting, but rather includes any type of resistance training, where our muscles work under some type of tension, including bodyweight exercises such as push-ups or squats, resistance bands, or dumbbells.

Potential harms

If you’re not familiar with the term – weekend warriors are those who cram their recommended daily activity into a few days, typically the weekend, usually because of time constraints during the working week. The good news? A 2023 JAMA study found that older adults who managed 8,000 steps on just one or two days per week – think a long Sunday walk or a day spent golfing – had mortality benefits nearly as good as people who hit that target between 3 and 7 days per week. It suggests that even irregular movement matters, as long as it is substantial.

However, there is a risk associated with this – and that is the sudden intensity. A 2026 Journal of Epidemiology review investigated what happens when older adults engage in vigorous activity after being largely sedentary, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, reported that not building up to this higher intensity is associated with more joint injuries, falls, and even cardiac events.

There’s also the recovery issue. Especially as we get older, we need more time to recover between strenuous physical activities. Therefore, the evidence to date indicates that whilst being moderately active is generally beneficial for all sorts of health outcomes, from cardiovascular health to diabetes, depression and falls, it is crucial that we allow plenty of time to rest in between more intense sessions, and that we build up resistance in increments (i.e., not aiming for 7,000 steps from the start if our daily averages are in the 2,000 range).

If becoming more active in 2026 is one of your goals, the evidence so far suggests to:

• Aim for 7,000-10,000 steps most days. If that’s not realistic, even a few more active days per week are better than sedentarism, with the caveat that we should progressively build up to more steps and not overexert ourselves.
• If possible, consider adding strength training twice a week, keeping it simple – bodyweight exercises are a great place to start.
• Don’t sit for hours on end. Breaking up sedentary time seems to matter as much as total activity. Smartwatches are great at reminding us of this, but of course you don’t necessarily need one – just try to be mindful of time and get up to stretch your legs around the room every hour or so.

External content is for information only. If you have any health concerns connected to this article please contact your GP."

- Larisa Dina