What is a normal walking speed for my age?
About 1.4 metres a second through your twenties, thirties and forties. Men hold that until roughly fifty, then slow to about 1.26 in their sixties and 1.20 in their seventies. Women start slowing earlier, from about thirty, reaching 1.21 and 1.13 in the same decades. Past eighty both sit near 1.0.
To measure it, mark four metres on a flat floor, stand still on the line, then walk at your ordinary pace and time from the moment you move to the moment you cross. Five seconds over four metres is exactly 0.8 metres a second. Walking faster because someone is timing you is how most people get a wrong answer.
A phone or watch figure is measured while you are already walking, which reads about 0.12 m/s faster than a standing start, so the two are not comparable and the clinical thresholds only apply to the standing-start version.
Source: Andrews et al, Journal of Physiotherapy 2023, 51,248 adults
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Answered by the AskDoc Medical Team · Medically reviewed under our Medical Director, MBBS · How we review
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