A Pedometer & Running

A pedometer, an electronic device that most people wear on a waist clip or their wrist, tracks your level of exercise by counting every step you take. While the purpose of original pedometers was to count the steps people took in everyday activities and walking, more advanced models also work for joggers and runners.

Function

Pedometers originally became popular as a way to keep track of steps, with 10,000 steps a day qualifying as a sign of an active lifestyle. You can use a pedometer to count your steps per minute while running and, once you determine your ideal pace for maximal fitness gains, make sure you stay at or close to that pace. Many of the latest pedometer models allow you to also view the distance you have run in miles or kilometers and the calories you have burned.

Features

At their most basic, pedometers clip onto your waistband or belt, where they track your strides by reading the movement of your hips. Advanced models may resemble a stopwatch, allowing you to wear them around your wrist. Some have an accelerometer -- an electromechanical device that you hold in your hand or keep in your pocket. It measures acceleration and provides an even more reliable step count than basic pedometers. Some state-of-the-art pedometers even allow you to download your running data to a computer.

Considerations

If you want to buy a pedometer, look for models that are made specifically for runners. Pedometers for running must be sturdier to hold up to the more vigorous strides a runner takes. The basic models for walking also tend to be less precise when used by runners, because stride length may vary considerably during the course of a run. Keep in mind that pedometers for running typically are more expensive than the more traditional pedometers for walking.

Benefits

Pedometers provide direct, objective feedback to how you are faring with your exercise program. Seeing the numbers in front of you may be a motivating factor to help you set goals in your running program and strive to consistently increase the total number of steps you take during a run. Those were some of the findings in a study by the Delta Obesity Prevention Research Program on the use of pedometers by sedentary individuals. Although walking was the mode of exercise for the people in the study, some of the same psychological benefits should apply to running.

Misconceptions

Although the pedometer may accurately reflect your exercise level by counting your steps, it does not take into account critical factors such as heart rate and the frequency of your running sessions. The calorie-counting mechanism in some pedometers also may not be as precise as the step-counting mechanism. Pedometers, at least the ones that go on people's waists, may not accurately count steps for overweight or obese runners. The issue in that case is the difficulty of keeping the pedometer perpendicular to the ground, which is the position it must be in to accurately count steps.