Talks to explore 10,000-step phenomenon, walking behaviors

Feb. 17, 2026 — DENTON — Before there were smartwatches, pedometers and daily goals to hit 10,000 steps, soldiers from the Roman Empire calculated distance with their strides and used pillars or milestones to indicate their range. The Latin phrase milia passuum translates to a “thousand paces” and dates back to Roman times. 

The Roman Empire is one of many historical periods that Catrine Tudor-Locke, dean of the College of Health Sciences at Texas Woman’s, will explore during her history of step counting research talk tour. 

Tudor-Locke will hold three Step-by-Step Research Talk Tours on TWU’s Denton, Dallas and Houston campuses. Her first stop will be on the Denton campus on March 4, followed by a Houston visit on March 18 and a Dallas stop on March 25. 

Tudor-Locke is not only a dean. She is also an internationally renowned walking behavior researcher. Her best-known research addresses “how many steps/days are enough?” During her career as an academic, she published more than 330 articles in physical activity-related journals and was the first to research cadence as a marker of intensity. 

During the talks, Tudor-Locke will take attendees on a journey from the Roman Empire to Leonardo da Vinci’s first gear-driven sketches to the sophisticated activity trackers on our wrists today.

Attendees will also learn about the 1960s Japanese marketing campaign that turned "10,000 steps" into a global health phenomenon and how modern science now prioritizes cadence, the rhythm of your movement, as the ultimate metric for measuring intensity of walking and running. 

The talk tours are free and open to the TWU community and general public. Tudor-Locke’s discussion on the science behind step counting can be consumed by scientists as well as walking enthusiasts. 

Please register to save your seat. 

Click this link to register for the Denton talk on March 4

Click this link to register for the Houston talk on March 18

Click this link to register for the Dallas talk on March 25