Not all steps are created equal. When you’re just walking down the street, your heart is likely not working too hard, so the improvement to your overall health is going to be limited – even if you manage 10,000 steps.
PAI focuses on the one thing that matters most to your overall health and longevity - your heart. To succeed with PAI, you should try to do activities that elevate your heart rate. For example, a short run can contribute more to your overall health than an hour-long walk. It's possible that a high step count alone will not give you the optimal health benefits that can offer protection from heart diseases.
The PAI Score was derived from one of the world’s largest health studies. Maintaining 100 PAI or more was associated with reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease mortality by up to 25% and an averaged increased lifespan of 5 years amongst the patients. Decades of research has proven that cardiorespiratory fitness is one of the leading predictors of health and longevity. For most people, walking will not elevate the heart rate enough to improve your heart health and overall cardiorespiratory fitness.
Steps are different for different people. Fitter people have to do different activities to get their heart rate up; a high step count alone may do very little to maintain or improve a fit person’s heart.
Lastly, not all activity includes steps. You should get credit for anything that gets your heart pumping. This is another reason why PAI is a more accurate measure of health than step counting - because it counts those activities that don't involve steps like biking, swimming, rowing, dancing and even working in the garden.
Below is actual user data showing that many people can reduce their risk of CVD mortality without reaching 10,000 steps.
