Benefits of Using the Stairs

This coming February, thousands of people in Chicago will participate in the Hustle up the Hancock race.

According to event information, “Each year over 4,000 people climb to the top of John Hancock Center to raise funds for lung disease research, advocacy and education. In 2011 over 2,500 participants indicated they or someone they know has been touched by a form of lung disease. Participants choose from two climbing categories–full climb (94 floors) or half climb (52 floors).”

Can you imagine climbing that many flights of stairs – let alone doing so at a fast pace? As you know, participants in this event, and others like it across the nation, need to be in good physical shape.

Maybe I can’t convince you to climb to the top of a sky scraper, but I might be able to sway you into thinking that stair climbing is a beneficial form of exercise.

If you want to increase the muscle strength in your legs, particularly in your quads and calves, you will want to give stair climbing a try. In addition to giving you toned legs, this work out will improve your cardiovascular health, and you will burn a lot of calories.

Livestrong.com states that, “Taking the stairs instead of the elevator helps you increase your overall activity, contributing to a higher daily calorie burn. For example, a 150-lb. person will burn about 544 calories just walking up stairs for an hour, according to CaloriesPerHour.com. The sport of stair climbing, which involves running up stairs, burns nearly twice as many calories as such sports as volleyball and baseball, according to StairClimbingSport.com.”

Along with helping you to increase your level of physical fitness (and maybe even lose some weight), stair climbing is great because it is free. You don’t have to pay for a gym membership to climbs stairs, and you don’t need any special equipment. In addition, if you live in the northern part of the United States, where it can be bitterly cold in the winter, stair wells offer warm places to continue a healthy regimen of exercise.

Even if you don’t work in an office building with several flights of stairs, you should be able to find stairs in your area to climb – think libraries, municipal buildings, hospitals, clinics, and even your own home. (In a pinch, stairs from the basement to the main level of a home can be used to increase fitness. For example, when I feel that I have not burned off enough calories in a given day, I will walk up and down my basement stairs 10 to 15 times!)

Of course, there are some safety precautions to take while stair climbing. First, don’t walk in stairways that are never used to avoid becoming a victim of a crime. You may even want to enlist a stair walking partner. You will be safer, and you can motivate each other to keep going. Next, use hand rails to give you stability. You may even choose to incorporate a “pulling” action to increase arm strength.

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