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All in your stride: Scientists give a step by step guide to the walking method that burns the most calories
Hitting 10,000 steps a day is a popular fitness goal for millions.
But a less time-consuming alternative may be effective when it comes to losing weight, experts believe.
For walking with an uneven stride could help burn more calories than consistently sized steps, research suggests.
US scientists, who tracked the movements of 18 healthy adults, discovered for every 1 per cent increase in step variability, there was a 0.7 per cent rise in energy used.
Results showed uneven strides 'play a modest albeit significant role' in the metabolic cost of walking, the experts claimed.
Walking with an uneven stride may help burn more calories than consistently sized steps, research suggests. US scientists, who tracked the movements of 18 healthy adults, discovered for every 1 per cent increase in step variability, there was a 0.7 per cent rise in energy used
The team didn't measure the calories the participants burned.
However, study co-author Adam Grimmitt, an expert in exercise physiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said: 'I think it would be fair to assume that more frequent and larger variations in stride length would increase your metabolic rate while walking.'
Under the study, the volunteers — aged 24 and weighing 11st 1lb (70.5kg) on average — were told to walk as normal for five minutes on a treadmill.
A motion capture system recorded their average stride length at a common speed of 1.2 metres per second.
They then manipulated their steps during a second 5-minute treadmill walk by lighting it up where they wanted participants to step.
Positions were varied by up to five and 10 per cent shorter and longer than average stride length.
All volunteers were also fitted with a mouthpiece measuring their rate of carbon dioxide production. This rises during exercise.
The findings, published on pre-print website, bioRxiv, suggested when people have to work to maintain their stability from a short step to a long step, or vice versa, it can increase muscular contraction and then metabolic cost, researchers said.
'Our data suggest that a 2.7 per cent increase in step length variability would increase the metabolic cost of walking by 1.7 per cent,' they added.
'Step length variability plays a modest, albeit significant role in the metabolic cost of walking.'
The findings could be most relevant to older adults, particularly those with neurological conditions, given they walk with 'greater step length variability', they also said.
Researchers, however, acknowledged that changing lengths by 5 per cent intervals is 'different to real-world gait variability'.
Participants 'still had trouble maintaining accuracy' in changing their stride lengths without additional feedback, they added.
'Future studies should quantify foot placement accuracy and muscle activity across similar virtual projections.'