Using Google Fit - If I get my heart points (from cycling), should I care about getting my steps in?

Question

Just started using Google Fit. I cycle fairly regularly, and quickly hit my target heart points per week - but I'm rarely hitting my steps goals per day. Does this matter? If I'm getting my exercise from cycling, can I just ignore the steps goal?

Answer 1

For health benefits, you can ignore the step count.

The CDC, American Heart Association, and Mayo Clinic simply recommend adults get a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio per week (or 75 minutes of very vigorous cardio). The CDC itself shows one example of what is considered "moderate-intensity" as "brisk walking".

This is just an example though. There isn't a specification of what kind of cardio is necessary. The only important thing is to elevate your heart rate while exercising (as opposed to ingesting a bunch of caffeine pills or something).

Answer 2

10,000 steps is am artificial goal invented as a pun in Japanese. Getting the actual exercise is the important part, with the caveat, of course, that minutes of higher heart rate is also a slightly artificial goal in that increased heart rate doesn't always correlate with increased exercise. That said, it's probably a closer metric.