[jrockway]

The problem is that it takes time; for the same amount of time you can have a better "training effect". For less time you can have the same training effect. An hour sauntering around the city takes as much time as an hour biking at your lactate threshold. But your heart works a lot harder for that hour of biking compared to standing around waiting for traffic lights to change.

Both are better than an hour spent replying to comments on HN, though!

[Thlom]

I don't excercise at all and usually get 10-12k steps. You should be able to integrate about 10k steps in your day to day life. Stop driving everywhere, walk while on the phone, walk the dog(if you have one).

[dogma1138]

That's not exactly correct here is a good personal example. About 8-9 months ago I decided to walk to work only (I live in London, which is bike friendly but not that much) the overall "round trip" I take from home to work and back is 7.5KM (4.7 miles on Gmaps).

I split that trip into a shorter path which it use to get from home to work and a slightly longer path all and all it takes me about an hour and 15-20 min (~30-35 min short path, ~45-50 split longer path) depending on the pace to walk through that which means that I walk at about 5.8 KM/H which is a very decent pace for walking in daily cloths not on a treadmill without actually having to jog and even tho I still visit the gym 2-3 times a week this had a very good positive effect on both my mental (I don't get cranky to work, and I can blow off steam on the way home, and I don't have to cramp myself into the tube during rush hour even if it's only 4 stops for myself personally) and physical (better weight management, more energy, can push my self harder at the gym etc.) health.

Now could I say replace this with a higher intensity exercise? well yes and no, for higher intensity exercise it will mean that I need to both have a change of cloths and a place to take a quick shower this logistically complicates it sufficiently enough for me to not be that much of a viable solution.

Can I say use a bike to cover the same distance at more or less the same intensity? well sure however I will have to buy a bike (which isn't that cheap), have a place to store that bike at my work place (and while I might stat my day at the office I might not end it there and vise versa), and most importantly being sufficiently confident in my biking abilities to ride a bike in city traffic (UK drivers are utter cunts to bikes and pedestrians) which I do not have, I've written a bike when I was a kid, I did some cross-country biking when I was older but never had to ride with traffic and I much rather pass on that opportunity because I know it will not end up well for me.

10,000 steps isn't some mandate it's a good baseline for people who are at an average shape or worse and it's a good "quantifier" to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the amount of activity you do e.g. 1.2-1.5 hours of walking, vs 50 min of biking vs 30 min of swimming vs 45 min of running etc.

P.S. Getting your heart rate to higher levels isn't that important, getting it to an elevated but a sustainable level for the duration of the exercise is. Go do some deadlift at the gym your heart rate will spike for those 20-30 seconds but it's really not that healthy either. So unless you are already at a good enough shape to say bring your heart rate safely to say 130 and keep it there for 30-60 min you better off start doing something less intensive until you can bring your resting heart rate down if not the same intensity that will bring a good shape person to 130 will bring you to 160+ and if you are above 30 that might be a bit risky.