The Harley Pasternak daily step count argument is simple: for the vast majority of people, knowing how many steps they take in a day is more actionable, more motivating and more relevant to long-term health than chasing elite athletic metrics like Zone 2 training or VO2 max. Pasternak, who holds a Master’s degree in exercise science from the University of Toronto and has trained clients including Rihanna, made his case in a recent conversation with Business Insider.
Why Zone 2 and VO2 max miss the mark for most people
Zone 2 refers to exercise performed at roughly 60 to 70% of maximum heart rate, a sustained aerobic intensity associated with improving the body’s ability to use fat for fuel. VO2 max measures how much oxygen the body can consume during intense exercise, and is widely used as a proxy for cardiovascular fitness and longevity. Evidence does suggest that improving both metrics is associated with a longer life. But Pasternak’s argument is not that these numbers are meaningless in every context; it is that they are generally only relevant to elite athletes, performers, or those recovering from cardiac events.
‘We’ve overcomplicated our approach to health and physical activity,’ Pasternak said. ‘I want to wake up pain-free. I want to be physically healthy. I want to live a long time. I want to be able to play with my kids. I don’t know why my VO2 max is relevant for that.’
His position sits against the backdrop of a broader longevity and health-optimisation culture that has brought these terms into mainstream conversation. Wearables such as the Oura ring and WHOOP strap now surface VO2 max estimates and heart-rate zone breakdowns as standard features. Pasternak’s scepticism extends to that trend. ‘I think people are enamoured with data without even being able to understand what that data means, and then what they’re going to do with that data,’ he said.
The Harley Pasternak daily step count case
Step count, Pasternak argues, sidesteps all of this complexity. It quantifies total movement across an entire day rather than isolating a single bout of structured exercise, and it translates directly into something a person can act on. ‘I think that’s a metric that makes sense to people that they can do something with,’ he said. From a practical standpoint, a person can simply check their count at midday and decide to go for a walk.
Pasternak’s step-count commitment goes beyond rhetoric. According to WAGM-TV, Pasternak works with Fitbit and sets a target of at least 10,000 steps for his clients. That figure has a complicated history in public health circles, it originated in a 1960s Japanese marketing campaign rather than peer-reviewed research, but Pasternak’s endorsement of it as a practical floor rather than a precise physiological threshold is consistent with his broader argument: a metric that nudges behaviour matters more than one that requires laboratory measurement.
HAWAI’I Magazine has reported that Pasternak designed the fitness centre at Four Seasons Resort Hualālai, which speaks to a philosophy of embedding movement into everyday environments rather than confining fitness to highly monitored performance contexts.
A parallel view from Dr. Suzanne O’Sullivan
Pasternak’s position finds an echo in the views of Dr. Suzanne O’Sullivan, author of The Age of Diagnosis, a book that examines the costs and benefits of health data. Speaking on the Intelligence Squared podcast in April, O’Sullivan said she tracks her step count but argued that healthy people should not buy into other metrics. The convergence of a fitness practitioner and a medical author around the same single metric is, at minimum, a useful corrective to the crowded world of optimisation advice.
For those who want a framework beyond step count, established public health guidance remains straightforward: 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and several cancers. ‘Let’s not worry about what your zone is,’ Pasternak said. ‘Let’s just do more physical activity in a day.’ The 10,000-step target he sets for his clients is one concrete way to do exactly that.