Does the Elliptical ‘Count’ Toward Your Daily Steps? Here’s What Experts Say

So you’ve made a goal to hit 10,000 steps a day. Between walking the dog, running your daily errands, and your typical gym workouts, it seems doable. But then you realize: Your fitness tracker stops counting your steps during the half hour you like to spend on the elliptical sweating it out while watching “Drag Race.” What gives? Does the elliptical count as steps?  

The truth is that, even though the basic movements are similar, what we get out of an elliptical workout can be surprisingly different from what we get out of counting our daily steps. So Well+Good asked a couple of personal trainers to break down exactly what the elliptical and counting steps can do for us, and what to keep in mind if you sub one in for the other.  

How using the elliptical compares to counting steps 

An elliptical workout can feel pretty similar to taking steps—your strides on the pedals generally imitate the motion your body makes when walking. “It has that same sort of forceful movement of pressing off of your feet,” says Olivia Lord, CPT, an NASM-certified personal trainer at Crunch Fitness.

Because your feet stay on the pedals the whole time, however, you remove most of the impact of your feet hitting the ground with each landing. This can be helpful for people with joint problems, since there’s less force going through your body, minimizing “wear and tear.” Yet it also takes away the bone-density benefits we get out of walking. “There's not that moment of impact with your foot on the ground that goes through your skeletal system for bone health,” says fitness coach Ashley Selman, CSCS, owner of Evolution Trainers in California.  

But really, the more significant difference between hopping on the elliptical and counting steps is about the approach we take to each. While you could certainly rack up 10,000 steps (or whatever your personal goal is) during a 90-minute power walking workout, most of us get in the majority of our steps from casually puttering around the house or office, doing errands, or otherwise meandering along without really getting our heart rate up.

“There's a big misunderstanding out there that getting steps in is exercise. And it's not,” Selman says. “It's movement. It's activity. But to qualify as exercise, you need to be working your cardiovascular system to a point that you're building it or you’re building muscle.” 

You’re far more likely to get in a solid cardiovascular workout on the elliptical, Selman says, as long as you’re moving at a decent clip rather than just coasting along. If you challenge yourself to take bigger strides or get your arms in on the action, too, even better.   

That’s not to say that aiming for a daily step count isn’t a great goal. “The biggest negative contribution to our health right now is how much we sit,” Selman says. “By tracking steps, it's a way to force yourself to get up and move throughout the day.” Even if you’re not building muscle or cardio fitness, taking steps will get your muscles activating and blood moving during times you might otherwise be lounging on the couch. “When you sit for too long, your blood flow slows way down,” Selman says. That can affect the oxygenation of your brain and lower limb muscles. Research also shows that long periods of sedentary time increases the risk of heart disease—even among people who regularly work out.  

So, can the elliptical count as steps? 

While the benefits you get during an elliptical workout are different from what you get by pushing yourself to take more steps throughout the day, both trainers say it’s technically still fair to consider your strides on the elliptical as part of your daily step count. “I would absolutely say that's a great substitute if someone can't get all of their steps in a day,” Lord says. Hopping on an elliptical will still get your muscles activating and blood flowing the way taking steps would—it’s just a more concentrated bout of movement (and without that bone-building impact of stepping on a hard surface). 

If your fitness tracker doesn’t automatically add up your elliptical strides as steps, there are a couple of ways to figure out how many you did. Lord says that some elliptical machines will include a rep count on the monitor. If yours doesn’t, you can get a general estimate by manually counting how many strides you do during a minute, and then just multiplying that by how many minutes you spend on the elliptical—that’s the equivalent number of steps you’ve gotten, Lord points out. 

Just keep in mind that if you make your elliptical workout harder by cranking up the resistance, step height, or stride length, you’ll likely end up with fewer steps, but you’ll have gotten in a more vigorous, heart-healthy cardio workout. Remember: Your step count is still just one measurement, so don’t treat it as the end-all-be-all evaluation of your fitness efforts for the day.

It’s smart to have a step goal *on top of* your workouts

Counting our steps and hopping on the elliptical serve two different purposes. One is about overall non-exercise activity throughout our day, and the other is about getting our heart pumping for a specific chunk of time. For the most health benefits, it’s best to get in thousands of daily steps in addition to doing 150-plus weekly minutes of dedicated cardio (plus a couple days of strength training). 
“In a perfect world, I would want someone to get their steps in and do the elliptical,” Selman says. “But if you need to compromise a quarter of your steps in order to have time to get a workout in, that would be a worthwhile switch because then you're getting some of both.” So if your smartwatch shows you’re a little short on your step count on a day you used the elliptical, don’t sweat it—you were busy doing something else that’s great for your health.