What is brisk walking?

The short answer

Brisk walking is walking fast enough to count as moderate exercise. The NHS puts it at about 3 miles an hour (4.8 km/h), “faster than a stroll”. The CDC lists walking briskly at 2.5 mph (4 km/h) or faster as moderate-intensity activity. In steps, researchers have found that about 100 steps a minute is where walking reaches moderate intensity for adults aged 21 to 40. Three ways of saying the same thing: a pace where you are working, but not hard.

Three ways to tell if you are walking briskly

The talk test. Both the NHS and the CDC use it. Walking briskly, you can still talk but you cannot sing. If you can sing, speed up. If you cannot say more than a few words without pausing for breath, you have gone past brisk into vigorous.

Your steps a minute. Count your steps for 15 seconds and multiply by four. Around 100 a minute, 25 in 15 seconds, is brisk. The figure comes from the CADENCE-Adults study (Tudor-Locke and colleagues, 2019), which measured adults on a treadmill and set 100 steps a minute as the practical line for moderate intensity and 130 for vigorous.

Your speed. At 3 mph a mile takes 20 minutes, and a kilometre about 12 and a half. If your walks run slower than that, you are walking at an easy pace. Phones and watches that show pace make this the simplest check.

Pace	Speed	A mile takes	Steps a minute
Easy stroll	under 2.5 mph (4 km/h)	over 24 min	under 100
Brisk	about 3 mph (4.8 km/h)	about 20 min	about 100
Vigorous, near a jog	well above	well under	130 and up

How much brisk walking counts?

All of it. The NHS says a brisk 10-minute daily walk counts toward the 150 minutes of moderate activity a week that guidelines recommend, and the US Physical Activity Guidelines, since their 2018 edition, count moderate activity of any length toward that total. Thirty minutes of brisk walking on five days is the 150. Ten minutes three times a day does the same job as one half hour.

Walk to a rhythm

Because brisk walking has a step rate, a rhythm can hold it for you. A song at around 100 beats a minute, one step per beat, keeps you at the brisk line without counting.

Brisk walks, counted toward somewhere

A brisk walk covers about 2.4 km in 30 minutes, and in reTrek that distance carries you along a real route. Pick one, Everest Base Camp is free, and the walks you were going to take anyway become a trek from Lukla to Base Camp, with a short film about the place waiting at each milestone. Walk briskly somewhere.