Hit 12,000 steps a day for a month and I actually feel worse, not better

Everyone told me walking more would fix my energy and my sleep, but after 30 days of hitting at least 12,000 steps on my phone, my knees ache and I'm wiped by 8pm. I was doing maybe 4,000 before, mostly chasing kids around the house. Did anyone else ramp up that fast and regret it, or did you ease in slower?

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kai_webb913d ago

Been there. I jumped from about 3k to 10k in a week and my shins were wrecked for two weeks. What worked for me was bumping up by maybe 1,000 steps a week and taking one rest day where I barely walked at all. Your knees and energy are telling you the ramp was too steep, so back off to like 6 or 7k for a bit and let your body catch up. Also check your shoes, mine were dead and that made the aches way worse. Once I slowed it down the sleep thing actually started working around week 5 or 6.

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the_fiona3d ago

The shoes thing is so real. I was walking in a pair of old sneakers that had probably 800 miles on them and once I got new ones the knee ache dropped off within a week, it was nuts. I did the exact same thing as you two, went from sitting at a desk all day to 9k steps overnight, and by day 5 my calves were so tight I could barely do stairs. Backing off to 6k and adding about a thousand a week was the only thing that stuck for me too. I also started doing a couple minutes of calf stretches before bed and that helped the tightness a lot. Six weeks in now and the sleep part is finally kicking in, so yeah, slow is the move here.

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