Questions about steps for individuals in the Samsung Health challenge

[scruffy33]

I am a fairly active individual and normally get between 13K and 18K steps a day.  I noticed that the top individuals in the challenge average over 90K steps in a day.  Allowing for sleep, this is about 6K steps an hour.  I question that someone can make that many steps.  I realize this is a fun challenge, but I don't know how these individuals get that many steps legitimately.

Does anyone else question this?

[AdeptMaven]

Most smart watches count "steps" by measuring the swing of one's arms that occurs naturally from walking or running. But you dont have to be walking to swing your arms. You could stand still or sit and swing your arms back and forth and watches will still register that motion as "steps". So long story short alot of people simply cheat the system. There are of course some legitimate marathon runners and hyper active people that register 50,000+ steps a day. But some are simply cheating the system

[scruffy33]

How about 97,000 steps a day? That's a lot even if you're swinging your arms.

[progamer1]

So you could cheat the system by just swinging your arms back and forth LOL

[TBrat674]

I just checked 1 day of the April challenge and the top 10 "players" all have over 200K steps. There is NO WAY someone can do 200K steps on ONE day!! This is supposed to be a fun challenge...its not like you WIN anything so why be so shady?!?

[scruffy33]

I agree totally.  I would like to see a challenge with people who really compete, not put their watch on a machine for a month.  Do they actually use the watch or did they buy it to see how long it would last at 200k a day?  LOL

[scruffy33]

So we have a group of world record setters participating in the Samsung monthly challenge. Too funny and very unlikely. I'm still going with the assumption that they've put their watches on some kind of mechanical device. I guess I'm the skeptic.

[VerbumVeritum]

I have no doubt that certain individuals are abusing the metric for prestige alone. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to actually prove.

[scruffy33]

Who really cares. I originally just wondered if anyone else noticed the incredulousness of a bunch of the participants. Really, the only ones they're cheating are themselves.

[TBrat674]

But at the end of day 1 to have TEN of them? Give me a break. This is supposed to be for fun, to challenge yourself to be healthier but someone (or some people) always take it too far. Heaven forbid honesty is involved.