Background/Purpose: To assess the contributions of walking a round of disc golf to achieving the recommended 10,000 steps per day to maintain cardiovascular fitness and to investigate the impact of four variables on the number of steps walked.
Method: Data from men (n = 228) and women (n= 112) participants (M age= 36.58 years, SD= 11.39) playing rounds of disc golf on 15 different courses were analyzed to determine if gender, age, score or playing format (doubles or singles) had an effect on the average number of steps walked per hole. Each participant wore a Walk4Life Inc. model LS 2525 pedometer while playing. The LS2525 pedometer provided an indication of the number of steps taken and has been shown to be a valid and reliable tool for assessing physical activity (Crouter, Schneider, Karabulut, & Bassett, 2003).
Analysis/Results: Participants averaged 314 steps per hole which equates to 5652 steps for an 18-hole round of disc golf. An ordinary least squares multivariate regression with robust clustering on the course variable yielded significant effects for gender (p= .033) and score (p< .001) but not for age (p= .612) or format (p= .454). Controlling for all other independent variables, women took 69.2 fewer steps per hole than men and each additional throw resulted in 3.8 additional steps per hole.
Conclusions: Walking 18 holes of disc golf provided 56 percent of the recommended 10,000 steps per day for healthy living. Both gender and score may have a significant impact on the number of steps walked.
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