• Urban Fitness: Rapid Stair Climbs

    edited by Alexander Becker on October 03, 2006 | Link

    You don't have time to exercise during the week? There are always ways to keep you in great shape. What about 20 seconds, 3 times a day?

    Living in a big city has special implications and offers interesting opportunities when it comes to mobility and movement. Walking the shorter and the medium length distances is a great way to get your body moving but you need at least one, more demanding activity which you can conveniently perform every day, ideally, a couple times over the course of each day. Yes, we're talking seven days a week here without any risk of overtraining.

    It is always and repeatedly suggested that sprinting and in particular hill sprints are a superior workout to promote and maintain agility, strength, endurance, and help in getting and staying lean.

    One of the greatest benefit of hill sprints is that --

    Because of the inclined surface, you are forced to lean forward as you sprint, which teaches you the proper acceleration mechanics that you would want when sprinting on a flat surface. Hill sprints actually become your sprint coach because you almost can't help but do it right!

    Now, let's go back to the city and the urban environment and see how we can make use of the acceleration mechanics of uphill sprints. Since there are no hills around we focus on high-rise buildings, the average height being about four floors, which is the perfect range for our hill sprints substitute, in fact, it is even a refinement.

    Introducing rapid stair climbing. The benefits are similar to those of sprinting hills. The technique is self-evident and takes care of itself. Going upstairs as fast as possible doesn't leave you with a lot of options for superfluous movements. Here is the recipe:

    1. Find a building with at least 4 floors and publicly accessible stairs.
    2. Climb the stairs as fast as possible.
    3. Try to go for every other or even every third step.
    4. Flex your abdominal muscles and breathe slowly and steadily.
    5. Do this 3-5 times, every day, and focus on ascending as fast and as hard as you can.

    The faster you go, the more muscles are involved and the better the effect on overall body composition. Do not hesitate to grab the banister, this makes you go even faster and adds some ballistic movement for the upper body. When you descend, do your knees and ankles a favor and resist the temptation to go as fast as possible.

    And no, a so called stair climbing machine doesn't have to do anything with the idea of explosively climbing stairs as fast as possible.

    The amazing fact about rapidly climbing stairs is that you need around 20-30 seconds for the average four floors, nevertheless, you get a full body workout including aerobic, strength, and endurance training that leaves you in noticeable better shape after the first couple of days of regular performance.

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