How fast do you walk?
Four metres and a timer.
Sex
How are you measuring?
Mark four metres on a flat floor. Stand still on the line, then walk at your ordinary pace, the way you would down a corridor. Start the timer as you move and stop it as you cross. Do not walk faster because you are being timed.
Usual walking speed by age and sex
| Age | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| 18-29 | 1.36 m/s | 1.38 m/s |
| 30-39 | 1.39 m/s | 1.38 m/s |
| 40-49 | 1.4 m/s | 1.34 m/s |
| 50-59 | 1.34 m/s | 1.25 m/s |
| 60-69 | 1.26 m/s | 1.21 m/s |
| 70-79 | 1.2 m/s | 1.13 m/s |
| 80+ | 1.05 m/s | 0.97 m/s |
Pooled from 51,248 healthy adults. The rows under forty rest on a few hundred people each against tens of thousands in the sixties and seventies, so read the young figures loosely. Women slow from about thirty, men from about fifty. Source: Andrews et al, Journal of Physiotherapy 2023.
All six together
nothing measured yetThree things the six tests measure, each against a published cohort. Two minutes apiece.
Results stay on this device unless you save them.
Usual walking speed averages about 1.4 m/s in your twenties and thirties and falls to around 1.2 m/s by your seventies, with women slowing from about thirty and men from about fifty. In adults over 65 it is a clinical vital sign: across 34,485 of them, every 0.1 m/s faster went with roughly 12 percent lower mortality, in a smooth gradient with no breakpoint anywhere on it. Under sixty those thresholds have no validated meaning, which most pages quoting them do not mention.
How much walking is enough
Where 10,000 steps came from, why 7,000 is the better target, and the finding that half the recommended dose buys three quarters of the benefit.
Common questions
What is a normal walking speed for my age?
About 1.36 to 1.40 m/s for men and women in their twenties to forties. Men hold that until about fifty then slow to 1.26 in their sixties and 1.20 in their seventies. Women slow earlier, from about thirty, reaching 1.21 in their sixties and 1.13 in their seventies. Past eighty both drop to around 1.0 m/s.
What do 0.8 and 1.0 m/s actually mean?
They come from a pooled study of 34,485 adults aged 65 and over. 0.8 m/s is the speed at which predicted survival matches the median for your age and sex, which makes it a break-even marker rather than a danger line. 1.0 m/s and above is where survival runs better than age and sex alone would predict. Both figures are for over-65s and neither transfers to a forty year old.
How do I measure my walking speed?
Mark four metres on a flat floor. Stand still on the line, then walk at your ordinary pace and time from when you start moving to when you cross. Four metres divided by the seconds gives you metres per second, and five seconds over four metres is exactly 0.8 m/s. Do not walk faster because you are being timed, which is the single commonest way people get a wrong answer.
Why is my phone or watch speed different?
Because it measures differently. The clinical test starts from a standstill over a short course, which includes the time you spend getting up to speed. A phone measures you already walking. Over four metres that difference is about 0.12 m/s, which is larger than what counts as a meaningful change, so the two numbers are not comparable and the clinical thresholds only apply to the standstill version.
Does walking speed matter if I am under 60?
You can tell whether you are fast or slow for your age, and that is all. The survival and frailty thresholds were built in older adults. There is interesting research showing that slower walkers at 45 have measurably different brain scans and cognitive scores, but part of that was already predictable from testing done at age three, so it is partly a lifelong trait rather than accumulated damage.
Can I make myself walk faster?
You can train the things that produce the speed, which are leg strength, ankle power, balance and aerobic fitness. Walking faster on purpose during a test does not move you along the survival curve, because the speed is a readout of those systems rather than a way of changing them. The gains come from what makes the number, not from the number.
Written and checked by the AskDoc Medical Team under our Medical Director, MBBS. How we review. Health education, not medical advice.