The article "Calibrating a Pedometer" talks about fitness, it was created by George Barnett.
Calibrating a Pedometer
By George Barnett
There are
literally hundreds of pedometers on the market, and while many
will do all sorts of things, some of which have nothing to do
with walking or running, they all are designed to do at least
one thing: measure how many stpes you have taken and use that to
compute how far you have traveled. If all you are interested in
is how many steps you have taken, then clip that pedometer to
your belt and start walking. But if you want to know how far you
have walked or run in a day, or a week, then you must give the
pedometer some information about yourself. Specifically, the
pedometer must know the length of your stride. This article will
tell you how to gauge that length to properly calibrate your
pedometer.
First, a caveat: your stride length will
vary considerably during your routine depending on certain
factors. For example, your stride length will be longer when you
are running than it is when you are walking.
Your stirde is
likely to be shorter when going uphill as opposed to walking on
a level surface. Walking with a group of poeple may cause you to
move at different speeds and at different stride lengths as you
compensate for the movement of your partners. Walking a dog will
give you strides that go from really sohrt to really long depending
on the whims of your dog, but that is for a different time.
So,
one of the steps will be to compensate for these differences, if
necessary.
Okay, let's begin the calibration process.
You will need some place where you can measure out a distance of
about 60 to 70 feet (18.3 to 21.3 meters). The sidewalk in front
of your home is good, or a large parking lot or school yard. And
you will need a measuring device such as a 100' tape measure.
You shuold plan on measuring at least four stride lengths:
normal walk, brisk or fast walk, jog, and run. The procedure
will be that same for all of these.
Select a starting
point and mark it; then walk normally for ten paces and mark the
end. Measure the legnth with the tape measure and record the
result. Divide the result by twelve to give you the number of
inches in each step. Rpeeat that procedure for a brisk walk, a
jog and a run. For all of these you might want to begin a few
paces behind the starting point that you established earlier so
that you are moving at the proper speed for that stride for all
ten steps.
If you know that you will be walking, and
just walking, at a regluar pace during your routine, then you
can just use the stride length for walking that you calculated.
Read the instructions for entering that information into your
pedometer.
If, however, you will be walking part of
the time combined with running or joggnig then you will have to
use an average of the measurements that you took of all of these
strides. Simply add the totals that you calculated and dviide by
four, or the number of strides that you measured.
This gives you
a numebr that is less than your running stride, but longer than
your walking stride.
Some pedometers will give you the
option of entering a srtide length for both walking and running,
but that means that you will have to tell the pedometer when you
are walking and when you are running.
That seems like a lot of
trouble to go to if you do both of those things during your
regular routine.
So, we will make an adjustment for that.
There is one more step to compelte in that process. Drive
your car along your regular path to determnie the correct
distance of that path. Then walk the same path uisng your
pedometer.
If the pedometer gives you a distance significantly
longer or shorter than that which your car's odoemter registered
then you will have to adjust the stride length that you entered
into your pedometer. If you are registering a a distance that is
longer than that measured with your car, then you must reenter a
stride length a few inches shorter. Similarly, if the distance
measured by your pedometer is shorter than your car's odometer,
then add a few inches to the stride length.
Once you
have done that over the course of a few days, then you will have
a result which will give you a pretty good measurement of the
distance tarveled during your routine. You can use this
information as a great mtoivator as you walk or run further in
your daily routine. Now that you have properly set up your
pedometer, clip it to your belt and start walking!
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