Do Step Competitions Actually Work? What the Research Says (2026)

"Step challenges don't really work, people just stop after a week." You hear it a lot, and it's half right. The research says competitions do make people walk more, the effect is real but moderate, and it fades once the game stops unless something keeps it going.

We make Outstep, a step-competition app, so we have an obvious interest in the answer. That's why everything below comes from published, peer-reviewed research rather than our own numbers, with links to every study at the end.

Do step competitions make people walk more?

Yes. Across randomized trials, adding competition or game mechanics to step tracking typically adds about 600 to 1,700 steps a day compared with tracking alone. That's roughly a 5 to 15 minute walk, every day.

Two caveats. The Shameli study is observational, so people who choose to compete may differ from those who don't. And the pedometer review measures tracking with a goal, not competition specifically. The randomized trials are the strongest evidence, and they point the same way.

What did the STEP UP trial find?

STEP UP is the clearest test of competition against the alternatives. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania randomized 602 adults to a control group or one of three game designs. All three gave players 70 points at the start of each week and took away 10 for every day they missed their step goal, with levels to climb:

• Support: players went solo, and a friend or family member they chose got a weekly report on their points and level.
• Collaboration: teams of three strangers. Each day one member was picked at random, and if they'd missed their goal, the whole team lost the points.
• Competition: groups of three strangers, ranked each week on a leaderboard of their points.

Compared with the control group:

All three games worked while they ran, and competition worked best. Activity dropped in every group after the game ended, and the authors report that only the competition arm stayed significantly above control during follow-up.

Is competition better than encouragement?

In the research so far, usually yes. A 2016 University of Pennsylvania trial with 790 students compared groups where people could see each other's progress (social comparison) with groups built around encouragement (social support). Exercise class attendance in the comparison groups was about 90% higher than in groups without comparison. Whether incentives were individual or team-based made no difference.

The authors' explanation is worth knowing if you run a challenge. Comparison sets a rising bar, because each person's activity pushes everyone else. Support groups can drift the other way: they draw attention to the least active members, and the group settles to their level.

That study measured exercise classes, not steps, but STEP UP found the same ordering for steps: competition ahead of support.

Do the effects last after the challenge ends?

Partly. This is the honest weak spot:

• STEP UP: 12 weeks after the game, the competition group was still 569 steps a day ahead, down from 920.
• BE FIT: the families' gains were still significantly above control during a 12-week follow-up, though smaller.
• Mazeas meta-analysis: after programs ended, the effect shrank from a small-to-medium one to a "very small to small" one, with an average follow-up of about 14 weeks.
• TRIPPA trial (Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, 2016): 800 Singapore employees got a Fitbit, with or without cash or charity incentives. The cash incentive raised activity while it lasted, but the effect disappeared once payments stopped, and about 90% of participants had stopped wearing the tracker by the end of the year.

The practical lesson: a single challenge is a boost, not a cure. What keeps people walking is the next challenge, and the one after that.

What makes a step competition work?

The research points to five things.

1. Evenly matched players. In the Shameli study, when people with very different baseline step counts were matched, there were fewer lead changes and the effect on activity dropped significantly. Close races are what motivate.
2. A clear daily goal. In the 2007 pedometer review, having a step goal, such as 10,000 steps a day, was one of the main predictors of walking more. STEP UP and BE FIT both used daily goals underneath the game.
3. Visible comparison. Seeing where you stand is the active ingredient in the 2016 trial. A leaderboard you only check at the end of the week does less than one that tells you when you've been overtaken.
4. Something to lose. BE FIT and STEP UP handed out points at the start of each week and took them away for missed days. The researchers designed it that way because, as they put it, loss framing motivates more than gain framing.
5. Mixed groups. In the Shameli data, competitions with a balanced mix of men and women had the highest average activity.

Group size helps the people at the top: each extra participant in the Shameli competitions added about 420 steps a day to the winner's count.

Who doesn't benefit from competition?

The person stuck in last place. In the Shameli study, winners raised their activity by about 25% during a competition, but people who finished last ended up about 4% below their normal level. If the leaderboard only rewards the biggest number, someone who walks 4,000 steps a day against a friend who walks 15,000 learns quickly that they can't win, and stops trying.

Interestingly, the same study found that the least active people overall gained the most, from about 2,200 steps a day to about 4,700, when competitions gave them a real chance. The problem isn't competition itself. It's lopsided competition.

The fix is to choose a format that doesn't reward raw volume alone:

• Score improvement, not volume. Outstep's Step Up format scores each day against your own 30-day average, so 6,000 steps for someone who usually walks 4,000 beats 16,000 for someone who usually walks 15,000. An optional 2× daily cap stops one huge day deciding it.
• Pool steps toward a shared target. In a Group target challenge, everyone's steps count toward one goal, so every walk helps.
• Use teams. Mixing strong and casual walkers into balanced teams gives everyone a close race to care about.
• Reward consistency. A Survivor challenge raises a daily bar a little each day. Anyone who keeps clearing it stays in, however their totals compare.

How to apply the research to your own challenge

1. Set a daily goal as well as a leaderboard. Goals drive the habit; the leaderboard adds the push.
2. Keep it close. If one person always wins, switch to an improvement-scored or team format.
3. Make passes visible. Turn on notifications for lead changes. Outstep tells both people the moment someone overtakes them.
4. Run short challenges back to back. One week or one month at a time, with a new challenge ready as the last one ends, beats one long challenge that fades.
5. Keep it fair. Competition only motivates if people trust the numbers. See how to stop cheating in a step challenge.

For format ideas, see our list of step challenge ideas. If you're running one at work, start with how to run an office step challenge. For app picks, see the best step challenge apps.

Frequently asked questions

Do step challenges increase physical activity?

Yes. In the STEP UP randomized trial, a step competition added 920 steps a day compared with tracking alone over 24 weeks, and a 2022 meta-analysis of 16 gamification trials found about 1,600 extra steps a day on average.

How many more steps do people walk in a step challenge?

Usually between about 600 and 1,700 extra steps a day in randomized trials, depending on the design. An analysis of about 2,400 week-long app competitions found people walked around 23% more than usual, about 1,400 steps a day.

Is competition or teamwork better for walking more?

In STEP UP, a team-based competition beat both a collaborative team design and a support design, and was the only one with a lasting effect. A 2016 trial found visible social comparison worked better than social support, whether incentives were individual or team-based.

Do people keep walking more after a step challenge ends?

Some of the effect lasts, but it shrinks. In STEP UP, the competition group was still about 569 steps a day ahead 12 weeks later, down from 920. Running another challenge is the most reliable way to keep the gains.

Do fitness trackers alone make people walk more?

Tracking with a goal helps: a 2007 review found pedometer users walked about 2,500 more steps a day in randomized trials. But in the TRIPPA trial, a tracker alone didn't significantly increase activity at six months, and most people stopped wearing it within a year. Goals and social features do more than the device.

Why do some people stop trying in a step challenge?

Usually because they can't win. In a large study of app competitions, people who finished last walked about 4% less than their normal level. Formats that score improvement against your own baseline, shared group targets, and balanced teams keep everyone in the race.

Sources

• Effectiveness of behaviorally designed gamification interventions with social incentives: the STEP UP randomized clinical trial (Patel et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, 2019)
• Effect of a game-based intervention designed to enhance social incentives to increase physical activity among families: the BE FIT randomized clinical trial (Patel et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, 2017)
• Evaluating the effectiveness of gamification on physical activity: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (Mazeas et al., Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2022)
• How gamification affects physical activity: large-scale analysis of walking challenges in a mobile application (Shameli, Althoff, Saberi & Leskovec, WWW 2017)
• Support or competition? How online social networks increase physical activity: a randomized controlled trial (Zhang et al., Preventive Medicine Reports, 2016)
• Using pedometers to increase physical activity and improve health: a systematic review (Bravata et al., JAMA, 2007)
• Effectiveness of activity trackers with and without incentives to increase physical activity (TRIPPA) (Finkelstein et al., Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, 2016)
• To increase exercise, study shows gaming strategies and a buddy are key (Penn Medicine)