The way you walk can provide information about how your body is functioning.

Do you prefer to swim fast or slow? This may seem like a trivial question, but the reality is that your walking speed reveals information about the rate of brain aging and the inner workings of your brain.

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Indeed, research has shown that the pace at which a person travels from point A to point B can provide clues about the likelihood of hospitalization, heart attack, or other health-related situations.

To give you an idea, the walking speed test is a way to assess a person's functional capacity. It can even predict how well they will respond to rehabilitation after a stroke.

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How does it work?

For this exercise, all you need is a stopwatch and a means of measuring distance, such as a tape measure. Alternatively, there are some apps that can measure your walking pace , including fitness trackers.

Now, if you're outdoors, you can test this by setting a 10-meter boundary. First, measure 5 meters, followed by another 10 meters, and when you're done, simply divide 10 meters by the number of seconds it took you to walk that distance.

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If you need to compare the results, the average walking speed for a woman aged 40 to 49 is 1.39 m/s and 1.43 m/s for a man of the same age. For those older than 40, the average walking speed is 1.31 m/s for a woman and 1.43 m/s for a man aged 50 to 59.

For people aged 60 to 69 , the average walking speed drops to 1.24 m/s for women and 1.43 m/s for men; while for people aged 70 to 79, the average walking speed is 1.13 m/s for women and 1.26 m/s for men.

While it's normal for people to walk more slowly as they age, a sudden decrease in someone's walking speed could indicate something else is going on, so it's always a good idea to get medical checkups to be on the lookout.

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