How do people average 50000 steps per day?

[Emmeli]

Who has the time to average 50,000 steps a day!? How can this be possible?

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[Morgan_anne]

Oh for sure! The more support the better off we will be! We will be able to reach our goals no problem with all the support from this! As long as you are up and moving that is all that matters. Do what you need to keep motivated! 

[Glen1]

Ok Morgan anne tomorrow we will go for it. I have been running in some 5k's but I need to make a half marathon by mid june. So tomorrow I am running 5 miles, I wish you all the best. Stay in touch. have to go now good talking to you.

[Kodera99]

Good morning 🙂 the forum and dashboard is not a competition it is simply a motivation. I am starting to friend people to use as goal setters for my personal motivation. If somEone sets goals that are too high for you to ever achieve then friends someone who is more of your exercise class. I would not friend a marathon runner because their accomplishments are something I could never achieve. I think someone who does 5000 thousand steps a day has accomplished a good goal. I have a desk job and Unless i play tennis that day I will not achieve 10,000 steps. Fitbit has a great tool a great dashboard and a great forum. I Think the original post of 50,000 steps is simply someone being amazed at how that is possible. Nothing more

[dpb222]

Hi.  I know what you mean.  I have wondered about that, as well.  It is more of a curoisity thing than a worry about what others are doing.  I am with you.  Who has the time to do all that?   LOL!  Good question, there!   

[MEACH]

Wow, that is alot of steps.  I believe that some people are cheating and if so, shame on you...

[MikeBuck]

Just a heads up.  55k steps is 22 miles for me.  My stride is 2.6 ft.  That was my high so far.  Doesn't record that I had hit 5 peaks over 10,000 ft and could hardly walk the next day.  In fact, my picture was from that hike.

[Baltoscott]

Nice picture, @MikeBuck  -- Did you have one of the floor counting fitbits for that trip?  5 peaks over 10,000 a day would be a 500 floor day.  Nice!

[acerda]

I don't know if 50K is possible or not. What I do know is that when I see a friend or a person I'm in a Challenge with achieve a high step count, I am both excited for them and motivated to improve my own level of fitness.

[MikeBuck]

My high is 57000 steps. Did it once. 23 miles. Cannot imagine doing it daily. That is a marathon. Even marathon runners do not run that daily.

[acerda]

Mike that puts things into perspective. Of course, there is a significant difference in the wear and tear on a body in running 23 miles and walking it, but it seems extraordinary to be able to maintain an average of 50000. I have not come across anyone claiming to average 50K but I imagine that they would look pretty fit. That would have to be someone who has devoted their life to running. I imagine it would take nearly 8 hours if they never stopped for a rest. My high is just over 20000 and that wore me down. To be fair, I have a neuromuscular disease so I'm not exactly the poster boy for endurance but I do average over 10000.

[SunsetRunner]

they would have to be unemployed/ retired and very fit, and I would imagine they would run it

when I walked 40k steps, it hurt the next few days! granted I am not in the best of shapes, but due to health reasons, I am unemployed etc so have all the time in the world, am now hoping with the Fitbit, to change that, get my health back into shape etc and maybe get the ok from the doc/hospital to at least do part time work

[RobertIII]

1 mile is about 2,000 steps, so 50,000 steps would be around 25 miles.  I do an hour of running almost every other day and i average about 14k steps just from that.  Mix in the steps from the rest of the day and i usually end up between 20K-23K steps.  50k is doable but you are going to need a lot of free time.

[_daniel_]

Several times in this long running discussion I've seen people who don't average 50k a day (not even close), say that 50k is doable. One person in this tread said 50k a day is not hard at all. 

But I haven't seen anyone who actually averages 50k a day join the discussion and say how they make that work and still have a life.  (Remember, the title of this tread is how do people average 50k a day.)

And that's a pattern I've noticed in all these discussions about exceptionally high averages greater than 50k. We never hear from the people who have these exceptional averages. And if you go to their profiles, everything is marked private.  Except one time I found this visible entry from a user who was averaging 80k a day at the time. I think the entry is pretty revealing.  

[PinkRayneDrop]

I can easily get 30,000 a day, 40k is nothing as well. 50k I can get about 4 times a week...... it's not hard & I can easily get 10,000 steps in an hour.

Am I cheating because I can do it faster or because I can do more & not even blink about it?

The moment I wake up I am off stepping away..... till the time I get back into bed. I don't sit, I'm never still...... an injury to my back means I can't sit down & can't stop moving unless I want to not be able to walk much at all for the next few days.

Does that mean I am cheating because I get high numbers & you can't?

I got 101k in 10 hours last week..... no sweat..... not 101k for the week..... we are talking for the day. Today I hit 40k easily. No sweat.

I must be a cheater then.....

Oh by the way I work, take care of my family & still get the high numbers. ....and no I don't have a treadmill & I only run 3 times a week ...my stride is bigger when I run so I actually get less steps anyway.

[prc1977]

Good for you, PinkRayneDrop! The steps/miles you describe are impressive and you ought to be proud.

Still, getting 10k in an hour is approx. 40% faster than a typical fitness walker - If you started walking with the fitness walker, you would be a mile ahead in less than a half hour and would pass the typical jogger shortly after that as well. If it were your 101k day, you'd be rolling at that pace for more than nine hours without stopping unless you did stop here and there in which case you'd be flying past joggers for ten or more hours.

It doesn't mean that you're a liar; it means you are really fast and apparently really dedicated as well. All of what you describe is certainly possible and there are a number of extraordinary fitbit users like yourself and they're not cheaters. But they're not typical and what they do isn't easy.

So, it is reasonable to be skeptical when someone averages better than 50k steps a day week after week. There really are people who do a marathon and a half every day, just not that many.

[PinkRayneDrop]

I was doing a marathon a day in walking for about a year. It was my minimum I set & was not hard at all. Like I said though I physically can't stop.... and yes that 101k was at a faster pace than running. I can see when people add the steps on their account & it's like 150k a day or something huge....... but with the active mins being there you can't add that... you can't fake that so anyone getting the higher steps & the active mins.... is actually getting them.

Dogs dont actually move that much during the day at all & you would have to have it on a better place the the collar cause that would hardly pick up anything. As for a fan...... your steps are not circles & the fitbit knows that....it's a rocking motion .....so people would not get any from that as well.

You can't fake active mins.

[prc1977]

Pink RayneDrop:

In two sentences you managed to state that walking a marathon every day for about a year was 'not hard at all' and that you walked over 100,000 steps in a day at a pace faster than running. Can you see that both of these statements might cause someone to be skeptical?

You went with the sarcastic 'I must be cheating' without even noticing that accomplishing what you so casually accomplish is extraordinary and certainly not easy for most people. I don't think you're a cheater but I also don't think there are many people like you out there knocking out 100k days, walking faster than runners for nine or ten hours.

And of course a person can cheat active minutes. It's silly to think otherwise.

[PinkRayneDrop]

I was getting 10,000 steps an hour..... walking on the spot you can go faster & harder no problem. Well I can anyway. It also means you have no forward motion to help you so you got to lift your feet a little better.

Yep that means walking faster than someone running. I run 10km in 55min...... on the spot I can walk 10km in far less time.

[PinkRayneDrop]

Also love to know how you cheat active mins..... you would have to have the fitbit on for it to measure that.

Take a look at people who have added over 1 million steps in one day...... then take a look at the active mins that are simply not there or the distance either........ you can't add active mins at all.

[_daniel_]

It sounds like someone has a fitbit that wildly overcounts their steps. I've seen more than a few posts from people discussing that kind of accuracy problem with their device. 

The following chart shows daily steps for all fitbit users. Note the highest number of steps on the far right of the chart.  Anything higher is off the charts. Why is that?  I'll give you a hint: Look up the word Outlier.  If it really were "easy" to crank out 10k steps per hour with an accurate counter (which most of us want), you can be certain this chart would look very different. 

(In case it's not obvious, the "You" is me at the time I made this screen capture.)