The federal exercise guidelines count minutes, not steps. A step target is now under review.

On October 13, 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services published a one-page notice in the Federal Register asking the public for something narrower than the headline suggests. It is not asking for opinions about exercise. It is asking for evidence — existing, high-quality, documented evidence — that can help the department write two things the federal guidelines have never contained: a step-count target and expanded muscle-strengthening guidance. Comments close at 11:59 p.m. ET on November 12, 2026, on docket HHS-OASH-2026-0463.

The gap the notice addresses is not small. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans — the federal government’s benchmark for exercise advice — are written in minutes per week and days per week. They set no step number at all. That is an odd omission in a country where the number most phones and fitness trackers set as a default goal is 10,000 steps, a figure the peer-reviewed evidence does not support as a threshold.

This is public-health guidance and federal procedure, not medical advice. The guidelines are federal and national; nothing here tells you what to do about your own health, and activity targets for a person with a heart condition or a mobility limitation are a clinical question. What follows is what the federal documents actually say, and how the comment process works.

What the current guidelines actually say

The second edition, published in 2018, is still current. Its recommendations are expressed as time and frequency:

Group	Aerobic activity	Muscle and bone strengthening
Children ages 3 through 5	Active throughout the day, aiming for at least 3 hours a day of light, moderate or vigorous activity	Not stated separately
Youth ages 6 through 17	At least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity each day	Activities that make muscles and bones strong, as part of that daily hour, with no separate weekly frequency stated
Adults	150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity each week	At least 2 days each week

Three things about the second edition are easy to miss and they change how a reader should use it.

The first key guideline for adults is not a number. It is “move more and sit less” — a replacement for inactivity, based on evidence linking sedentary time to heart disease, high blood pressure and all-cause mortality.

The 10-minute rule is gone. The first edition, from 2008, counted only bouts of at least 10 minutes. The second edition removed that requirement, so short episodes throughout the day count toward the weekly total.

The second edition is wider than adults. It also carries key guidelines for older adults, for women during pregnancy and the postpartum period, for adults with chronic health conditions and for adults with disabilities. The supplement now being drafted is not a wholesale revision of any of that; it addresses steps and muscle strengthening specifically.

The two things the guidelines leave without a number

There is no step target. The guidelines’ adult recommendation is a duration — 150 to 300 minutes a week — and ODPHP’s own summary of the second edition’s key points contains no step count. If you have been treating a phone’s default goal as a federal standard, there is nothing behind it in the guidelines.

Muscle strengthening has a frequency but not a dose. “At least 2 days each week” says how often and nothing else: not how many sets or repetitions, not how much resistance, not which movements. That is a genuine blank in a document that is otherwise specific, and it is one of the two subjects of the supplement.

What HHS is actually asking for

The notice is unusually explicit about the shape of a useful comment. It invites comments that:

“highlight existing high-quality, evidence-based reports, programs, or campaigns related to steps and/or muscle-strengthening physical activity and related positive health outcomes that can inform development of the 2027 Steps and Muscle-Strengthening Guidance.”

And it closes off the obvious misreading of a comment period:

“The Department does not make decisions on specific policy recommendations based on the number of comments for or against a topic, but on the scientific justification for the recommendation.”

Three practical consequences follow. Documents, not sentiment, are the currency. Individuals and organizations may file more than one comment. And HHS asks for complete citations or abstracts and electronic links to full articles or reports rather than attachments — which suggests the reviewers want to be able to follow a claim back to its source.

The notice cites sections 1703-1704 of the Public Health Service Act as its authority, and says comments will be reviewed by the team of federal experts supporting the guidelines work. The supplement is titled Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd Edition Supplement: 2027 Steps and Muscle-Strengthening Guidance.

What the step evidence has shown since 2018

If the guidelines have no step target, it is not for want of research. The most widely cited pooled analysis of the question is a 2022 meta-analysis in The Lancet Public Health, funded in part by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that combined 15 international cohorts — 47,471 adults, 3,013 deaths, a median follow-up of 7.1 years. Its opening sentence is a fair summary of the federal position on 10,000: “Although 10 000 steps per day is widely promoted to have health benefits, there is little evidence to support this recommendation.”

The findings are about shape, not a threshold:

Average daily steps (quartile median)	Mortality risk compared with the lowest quartile
3,553 (lowest)	Reference
5,801	40 percent lower (hazard ratio 0.60)
7,842	45 percent lower (hazard ratio 0.55)
10,901	53 percent lower (hazard ratio 0.47)

Risk fell as steps rose, then flattened: the analysis found the decrease levelling off at 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day for adults aged 60 and older and at 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day for adults under 60. Stepping rate was the weaker signal: once the analysis adjusted for how many steps a person took, the association between faster stepping and lower mortality was attenuated.

Two limits belong next to those numbers. This is observational data: it shows an association between more steps and lower mortality, not proof that steps cause the difference. And the flattening point is a property of the population studied, not a personal prescription.

That is the reason a supplement is being written rather than a rule. The guidelines describe themselves as providing “science-based recommendations on how physical activity can help promote health and reduce the risk of chronic disease” — guidance aimed at a population, not a clinical cut-off for one person.

How to comment, and what makes a comment worth filing

• Where. regulations.gov, docket HHS-OASH-2026-0463. The notice names no other route.
• When. Comments must be received by 11:59 p.m. ET on November 12, 2026.
• What helps. Evidence: an existing report, program, campaign, data set, case study or published paper, with a complete citation or abstract and a working link to the full text. HHS says explicitly that links are preferred to attachments.
• What does not help. Volume. The notice says the decision rests on scientific justification, not on a count of comments for or against.
• What does not exist. A fee, a form to buy, an approval to obtain, or a phone call from the government about your comment. Filing is free and unassisted; anyone charging for it is selling a step the notice does not contain.

Related in the library: what the sodium claims on food labels are allowed to mean and the FDA rule that lets salt substitutes into standardized foods.

What you can act on today

Nothing in the comment window changes the advice currently in force.

• The 2018 targets still stand: 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity a week, plus muscle-strengthening activity on at least 2 days a week.
• Anything counts. The 10-minute bout requirement was removed in the second edition, so brief episodes add up.
• Sitting less is itself a recommendation, and the first one for adults.
• If you are tracking steps, the pooled evidence puts the point where the mortality benefit flattens below 10,000 a day for both age groups — and the single steepest drop in that data sits at the low end, between the least-active group (a quartile median of about 3,500 steps) and the next one up (about 5,800).
• If you have a health condition, are pregnant, or are managing a disability, the guidelines have separate key guidelines for you, and the practical answer is still a clinician’s, not a number on a watch.

The primary sources behind this article, and the rest of the network’s library, are collected in the official government resources directory.

This article is educational content for general information only and is not medical advice. It does not diagnose, treat or replace advice from a clinician. Nothing here is a comment on your health, and physical activity guidance for an individual is set by that person’s care team.