Is it better to track your steps daily or weekly? It depends on these 3 things

Regular walking can help reduce back pain, as well as improve fitness, mobility and mental health. But how regularly should be keeping track of your steps? Does it make sense to always have the same daily step goal or should you aim for a weekly total instead?

“Walking is good for pretty much everybody,” Dr. Natasha Desai, co-director of the Women’s Sports Medicine Center at NYU Langone, tells TODAY.com.

Not only is walking a free, accessible, low-impact activity, but it’s also something “you can self-pace,” Desai says. You can set your own goals and it’s easy to tweak them as you go.

Whether you’re working on rehabilitation, general health or weight loss, the first step in creating a walking routine is figuring out your goals — and the best way to measure them. While some people have better luck tracking their daily steps, others may have more success with a weekly total or average step goal in mind, Desai explains.

Here are some ways to figure out what might work best for you.

Are you recovering from an injury?

For folks in rehabilitation from an injury, a daily activity goal “is very important,” Desai says, “because people don’t realize that bursts of activity are very hard on the body.”

If you’re working your way back from an injury, such as an ankle sprain, staying consistent with small, realistic goals will “keep yourself regulated day to day,” she says. It also helps prevent people from doing too much too soon, which can provoke inflammation, swelling and pain, and ultimately set you back.

There’s a mental component as well. “People are looking for progress,” Desai explains, and it can be challenging to monitor the changes in your condition if you’re doing something different every day.

Are you encouraged by hitting your goal every day?

 “From a fitness standpoint and from a weight loss standpoint, it is definitely beneficial to be very consistent,” Desai explains. And from a psychology standpoint, “If you set a goal for yourself and you meet that goal, it’s very rewarding,” she says.

So, if you find yourself highly motivated by hitting your goal every day, a daily step goal probably makes more sense for you. And, for those reasons, a daily step goal is also likely best for many people trying to lose weight by walking.

Experts recommend aiming for a total of 45 to 60 minutes of walking throughout the day on most days of the week in order to lose weight, TODAY.com previous reported. They also recommend working your way up to 10,000 daily steps, but research shows you can reap some health benefits at lower numbers as well.

But it’s important to start with a step goal that makes sense for you, as TODAY.com explained previously. If you’re consistently falling short of your goal, set your goal a little lower so that it’s more realistic and work your way up instead.

Are you discouraged when you don’t hit your daily goal?

Pay attention to how you feel when you miss your goal one day.

“You have to see what kind of person you are,” Desai explains. “Are you the person who likes to have that check mark next to each day? Or are you the person who gets discouraged if you miss a day and then falls off completely?”

For those who find themselves more discouraged by a day without a checkmark than encouraged on days they do hit their goals, a weekly step goal ultimately makes more sense, she says. You can track your total steps, like 70,000 in a week. Or if you’re able to walk significantly more on certain days than others, you can aim for a daily average.

But there’s a caveat here: Even if you’re tracking your steps on a weekly basis, you should still try to spread out your walking over multiple days, she adds. Spending five days being sedentary and then rushing to get all your 50,000 steps in on the final two days of the week, for instance, will put you at risk for overuse injuries, Desai says.

Instead, aim to walk every other day or three to four times a week, with no more than two days in a row.

Consider other ways to measure progress

Steps are great to measure because they’re easy and evidence based.

But you may prefer tracking your distance or time instead, depending on your goals and how you want to progress. For instance, walking 1,000 steps very quickly is a different type of exercise than walking 10,000 steps at a slower steady pace, Desai says.

Pushing yourself to go a little farther over time, whether by distance or steps, will help improve your endurance. But if you’re aiming to improve cardiovascular fitness or maximize your calorie burn, adding some uphill walking, changing your speed at intervals or challenging yourself to go the same distance as usual at a faster pace can all help.

Of course, if you’re training for a specific milestone event, like walking a 5K, tracking your distance is a must.

In particular, Stephanie Mansour, certified personal trainer and TODAY fitness contributor, generally recommends measuring walking time when weight loss is the goal. By choosing a time-based goal over distance or steps, you’ll be sure to always set aside 15, 30 or 60 minutes for yourself.

No matter your step goal, walking should be just one part of your activity regimen, Desai says. Adding in other modalities, like resistance training, mobility exercises and core strengthening, can help you reach your fitness goals and improve your overall health.