Walking is a natural exercise, much like running, which helps to improve basic health and keep us fit. People don’t walk the same way, while it is normal to walk around the home and drive to grocery store, a few people have set a goals as to how much distance they must cover. The time to travel the walking distance also varies. So how long does it take to walk 4 miles to stay active, burn calories, or lose weight?
What is 4miles walking distance
How far is a 4 mile walking distance? 4 mile is equivalent to 6.4 kilometers (km) distance. The value is calculated from considering that a mile is equal to 5280 feet or 1609 meters (1.61km). In another way, 4 miles is similar to walking on 16 full laps of standard 400-meter running track.
What is 4 miles in minutes then? 4 miles is also an equivalence of 7-10 minutes driving distance, which might vary depending on traffic signals, construction and accidents.
The 4 miles distance is about 10k steps walking. The number of steps that make up 4 miles varies depending on your height and stride length. For example, 4.7 miles is equal to 10,000 steps for a man with average step length of 2.5 ft.
Related: How long to walk a mile on treadmill?
How long does it take to walk 4 miles distance?
On average, most people with average fitness levels take about 60 minutes or 1 hour to complete a 4 mile walking distance. Heavy walkers, obese people, and persons with lower fitness levels would take longer than 1 hour to walk 4 miles, while active walkers, and guys with higher fitness level and take 30 minutes to 50 minutes to finish the same 4 miles distance.
Overall, the time to walk 4 miles depends on individuals fitness level, gender, age, terrain, health and walking pace. Take for example, a 40-year adult man would walk pretty faster than a 40-year adult woman, so they are gonna take different time to finish a walking distance of 4 miles.
Factors that affect 4 mile walking time
The time you can take to walk a mile or 4 mile is not a single figure for everyone. A lot of circumstances have to be considered, but let us check some of the critical factors.
1 Walking route – terrain or surface
Walking 4 miles up an elevation or hilly road takes pretty more time than walking 4 miles on a flat surface. Walking downhill takes less time per mile. The reason is simple. You will put more efforts to overcome the resistance when walking up a steeper inclination or steeper slope. Again, you make shorter step length uphill than when you’re going downhill.
Air resistance also reduce your walking pace and walking time. The problem with resistance, and hillside walking is that you will use more efforts and get fatigued so easily and will contribute to slow velocity.
The nature of walking route – surface or terrain also matters. You will take varied walking time to cover a 4-mile distance walking on sand, muddy tracks, gravel roads, concrete or treadmill deck. Your stride length would change on these surfaces.
If the terrain is uniform, you can sustain regular stride, maintain a steady velocity to cover the 4 miles for your entire walking time.
2 Walking speed/pace
Your walking pace greatly determines if you will cover 4 mile distance in a shorter time or longer time. Whether outdoor or on a treadmill, it would take you less walking time to complete 4 miles distance at 3.5 mph (brisk walking pace), and a longer walking time if you are going at a leisurely pace of 2 miles per hour. Your total walking speed will highly be affected by difficult terrains – uphill or downhill.
3 Your body weight
It is sad to say, there are scary overweight or obesity statistics coming from United States. What is clear is that if you gain more body weight, you are simply slowing down your walking pace. You know, 100 lb skinny, lighter adult walks speedily and can complete 4 mile distance faster than a 300 lbs person. An obese person carries extra weight and that means a lot of loan placed on the legs and feet. That makes them, walk very slowly, and would take more time to log in 4 miles distance.
4 Your fitness level
If you are somebody who rarely walks, you are likely to finish a 4miles stretch of a road, at a slower rate, as you’ll take much time. If you have been working out for some months or years, your previous walking workout experience is going to count a lot. Your fitness and endurance level would obviously be higher and you are going to have a faster velocity walking 4 miles on any terrain.
Related: How long to walk 10 miles on treadmill?
How long does it take to walk 4 miles on a treadmill?
How much walking time does it take to finish 4 miles walking on a treadmill? At normal walking pace of 4 miles per hour, you can finish a 4mile distance in 50 to 70 minutes. It would take more than 60 minutes if you set your treadmill walking surface to over 3 percent incline. It would take a beginner over 4 hours to walk 4 miles on a 15% incline treadmill.
Walking on a treadmill offers a lot of health benefits and doing it at home is more convenient. From my experience, treadmill walking workout is a lot more comfortable than outdoor with a cushioned deck. The walking pace also depends on how fast the treadmill can go. If the treadmill top speed is 3mph max, you are never going to be able to walk briskly at 4miles per hour.
The usual way to walk pretty quickly on a treadmill is to start first at a lower pace and increase the treadmill walking speed or incline, as your ability increases. At the beginning, you might be walking 4 miles route in 2 hours. If you keep on exercising for a week or two, you can be able to hit 4 miles in an hour.
How many minutes is 4 miles on treadmill
Consider a 130-pound woman is walking on a flat (zero percent incline) treadmill, the table below shows how fast she is moving on a treadmill
| Miles per hour | Minutes per mile | Calories burned 30 minutes |
| 3.0 mph | 20 | 97 |
| 3.5 mph | 17 | 110 |
| 4.0 mph | 15 | 122 |
| 4.5 mph | 13.3 | 138 |
| 5.0 mph | 12 | 216 |
| 5.5 mph | 11 | 240 |
| 6.0 mph | 10 | 270 |
| 6.5 mph | 9.25 | 290 |
| 7.0 mph | 8.5 | 320 |
| 7.5 mph | 8 | 338 |
| 8.0 mph | 7.5 | 362 |
Related: How long will it take to walk 5 miles on treadmill?
Is it better to walk longer or faster?
Should you walk longer or faster? If you want to prevent jury, a longer walk is better. Taking a longer walk consumes more of your time but the physical activity lowers your risk of getting injured, and provides the same health benefits than walking faster.
Research has proven that speeding up your daily4 mile walk gives you bigger benefits you won’t get from slow walks. Walking at a brisk pace for 30 minutes a day reduces your risk of getting heart disease, cancer and risk of death as compared to making the same number of steps (covering same miles) at a slower pace.
Is it better to walk faster or longer to lose weight?
Fast walking burns more calories than slow walking workout. So if you are going to lose weight, a 30 minutes brisk walking exercise per day would burn about 150 calories per day than slower walking. In effect, the more you walk and the quicker your pace, the more walking calories you burn and the faster you lose weight.
Do you live longer walking faster or slowly?
Research at Leicester University has shown that as little as 10 minutes of brisk walking per day is associated with giving you a longer life expectancy and that brisk walkers have 20 years life expectancy than slow walkers.
Is fast walk better than slow walk? Many would think faster four mile walk is better, but It all depends on your fitness goal. If you take a long walk at a slower pace, that equates to a high intensity walking exercise, which helps you to reap a lot of health benefits as well. You can do slow walks on your treadmill on a higher inclination where the intensity of the activity, and muscle toning effects will get higher.
How do I increase my walking speed?
To speed up your walking steps, and improve your fitness regimen, these tips might just be the ones you ever need.
1) Hit the ground first with the heel of your foot and roll forward. Don’t walk flat footed or let the ball of your foot strike the ground first
2) Wear slip resistant shoes to give good traction on the walking surface.
3) Lift your foot as soon as it touches the ground. This is not a joke. Try it today and send me a comment tomorrow.
4) You can choose to make upper half of your body go forward, then take your foot forward to gain more momentum. Never step your foot before dragging your upper body. To practice this, tie a band around your waist and fix it to a pole. As you struggle to pull yourself forward, you engage your muscles correctly.
5) Lean forward and drive your movement with your glutes/thighs/core. Walking with these large muscle groups straightens your posture. The driving force behind my fast walking is my stronger glutes.
6) Take longer strides instead of normal sized steps. Try to outwalk people with shorter steps. It is fun and a nice practice as increasing your stride length will make you complete longer distance in short time.
7) Practice walking 1 mile, 2 mile or 3 miles in one day before you try walking 4 miles per day. Previous walking exercises would help you improve your fitness level and strengthen your glutes, before you think of walking more miles per day.
8) It helps so much to have music as you walk. If you listen to music with a beat faster than you walk, you can hit 4 miles in less than 50 minutes. I have used Stolen Dance by Milky Chance. You try and keep up to the beat with your footsteps.
9) Walk with purpose and you will find it efficient. Take thoughts and intentions to make walking a habit, then you would go faster than you can imagine.
10) Push your rear foot’s toes on the surface to boost your walk. You can do this if your body is straight, head up and your gaze across the horizon. The point is, you should not slouch!
11) Let your arm be bent and swing them from front to back. Relax your shoulders and you might just have enhanced your walking momentum.
FAQs about the time to walk 4 miles distance
How many steps is a 4 miles on a treadmill?
About 10000 steps equals 4 to 5 miles. The number of steps per mile depends or varies from one person to another. A taller person has longer stride length than a shorter person, so a tall person would likely make 10000 steps to cover 4 miles on the treadmill.
What walking pace is 4 miles per hour?
For a person with average fitness level walking at moderate pace, 4miles is equivalent to a pace of 15 minutes per mile.
Considering a moderate intensity walking workout, 4 miles per hour (mph) is equivalent to a pace of 16-20 minutes per mile. If you a doing a medium intensity walking activity, 4mph is going to be 12 to 15 minutes per mile of distance.
Is walking 4 miles as good as running?
Studies found out that brisk walking might just be as good as a run. It has shown that a person would need to walk 4.3 miles at a brisk pace to expend the same amount of energy as running 3 miles and that it would take twice long (75 minutes walking as compared to 38 minutes by running – According to Williams of Lawrence Berkeley national laboratory in California and Paul Thompson of Hartford Hospital Connecticut.
Williams said walking at brisk pace burns 3.8 METS than sitting for same time and running burns between 7 to 12 METS. Williams estimates that one MET of walking is around a kilometer or slight over a mile distance.
According to Williams, running is less efficient as the exercise burns more calories over the same time. On the other side, running makes you more fitter than walking and burns more calories which is good for those who want to lose eight. Besides that, walking is more easier than running.
What happens if I walk 4 miles per day?
Regular brisk walking to complete 4 miles per day is great to help you maintain healthy weight and lose excess body fat. It would also help you prevent heart diseases, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer and diabetes. Walking 4 miles daily will significantly improved your cardiovascular fitness.
Does a 4 mile walk count as exercise?
Doing 4 miles a day is excellent way to burn calories and lose weight but you must walk such a distance with precautions to prevent injuries. The benefits would just be amazing if you add interval training, strength training and plenty of resting programs into your walking routine.
Wrap up how long does it take to walk 4 miles distance
How long does it take to walk 4 miles then? On average, 4 miles can be finished in 1 hour. You can walk 4 miles in 45 to 55 minutes if you are taller, and have longer strides, or you are walking faster at 3 miles per hour. The time to complete 4 mile distance can be short or longer depending on your age, sex, nature of the terrain, your walking speed, and physical ability. If you want to log in more steps and quickly reach a fitness goal of completing 4 miles per day, walk to work, walk to restaurants, walk when holding meetings and walk on your treadmill before going to bed.
What are your thoughts? Share with Get Fit Smartly audience, in the form below
Gearon is undergraduate (BSC in Physics), co-founder at TASI GYM, a runner, and a hands-on web developer . He is so passionate about getting fit.
His Science background, unbreakable zeal for fitness and value driven mindset, gives him an unusual discernment to determine if a treadmill meets expections of customers with varying fitness levels and health status or not. He tracks innovative changes in fitness world and uses customer feedback, manufacturer data, running experience, experts/coach interviews to make insightful reviews that uncovers value that guides Getfitsmartly community make right Personal fitness decisions with visible results.
