That&#x27;s not exactly correct here is a good personal example.
About 8-9 months ago I decided to walk to work only (I live in London, which is bike friendly but not that much) the overall &quot;round trip&quot; I take from home to work and back is 7.5KM (4.7 miles on Gmaps).<p>I split that trip into a shorter path which it use to get from home to work and a slightly longer path all and all it takes me about an hour and 15-20 min (~30-35 min short path, 
~45-50 split longer path) depending on the pace to walk through that which means that I walk at about 5.8 KM&#x2F;H which is a very decent pace for walking in daily cloths not on a treadmill without actually having to jog and even tho I still visit the gym 2-3 times a week this had a very good positive effect on both my mental (I don&#x27;t get cranky to work, and I can blow off steam on the way home, and I don&#x27;t have to cramp myself into the tube during rush hour even if it&#x27;s only 4 stops for myself personally) and physical (better weight management, more energy, can push my self harder at the gym etc.) health.<p>Now could I say replace this with a higher intensity exercise? well yes and no, for higher intensity exercise it will mean that I need to both have a change of cloths and a place to take a quick shower this logistically complicates it sufficiently enough for me to not be that much of a viable solution.<p>Can I say use a bike to cover the same distance at more or less the same intensity? well sure however I will have to buy a bike (which isn&#x27;t that cheap), have a place to store that bike at my work place (and while I might stat my day at the office I might not end it there and vise versa), and most importantly being sufficiently confident in my biking abilities to ride a bike in city traffic (UK drivers are utter cunts to bikes and pedestrians) which I do not have, I&#x27;ve written a bike when I was a kid, I did some cross-country biking when I was older but never had to ride with traffic and I much rather pass on that opportunity because I know it will not end up well for me.<p>10,000 steps isn&#x27;t some mandate it&#x27;s a good baseline for people who are at an average shape or worse and it&#x27;s a good &quot;quantifier&quot; to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the amount of activity you do e.g. 1.2-1.5 hours of walking, vs 50 min of biking vs 30 min of swimming vs 45 min of running etc.<p>P.S.
Getting your heart rate to higher levels isn&#x27;t that important, getting it to an elevated but a sustainable level for the duration of the exercise is.
Go do some deadlift at the gym your heart rate will spike for those 20-30 seconds but it&#x27;s really not that healthy either. So unless you are already at a good enough shape to say bring your heart rate safely to say 130 and keep it there for 30-60 min you better off start doing something less intensive until you can bring your resting heart rate down if not the same intensity that will bring a good shape person to 130 will bring you to 160+ and if you are above 30 that might be a bit risky.