Do you take the stairs at work? It’s a small thing you can do to boost your health, and it doesn’t take a lot of time or thought. The incidental exercise we get throughout the day counts too. The less time you spend sitting at work, the better it is for your health. Sitting carries with it a higher risk of health problems even if you do a structured workout every day. So, one thing you can do to keep your body in ship shape is to skip the elevator and take the stairs!
There are two ways to go on a staircase–up or down. You might think walking upstairs carries the most health benefits as it burns more calories, but don’t underestimate the health and fitness impacts of walking downstairs too. In some ways, going down is more beneficial for your health.
First the bad news. When you go down a flight of stairs, you burn a third of the calories that going up the stairs does. Climbing up a flight of stairs is more challenging from a cardiovascular perspective, too. It’s more taxing on your heart to mount a flight of stairs, just as walking uphill forces your heart to work harder than doing downhill. However, there’s more to taking the stairs than burning calories, and descending a flight of stairs is good for your health in a different way.
The Health Benefits of Going Down a Flight of Stairs
Going up a flight of stairs is a concentric movement, where the muscle contracts against resistance, whereas going downstairs is eccentric. An eccentric movement is where muscles resist a load in a lengthened state. Each time you step down onto the step below, your quadriceps muscles lengthen to move your leg to the next platform. Research shows that eccentric training leads to more muscle damage, and potentially, more muscle growth. However, you won’t develop serious muscle from going downstairs alone. It takes focused strength training too. Yet, you still get health benefits. Each time your foot strikes the step below, it jars the bone in your leg when it hits the step. This provides some stimulus for bone growth, just as high-impact exercise does.
But there are even more health benefits, according to researchers at the School of Medical and Health Sciences at Edith Cowan University in Australia. They made an interesting discovery. The lead researchers asked 30 older, obese women to take part in a 12-week exercise program. During the 12 weeks, one group went either up or downstairs at scheduled times so the researchers could look at the impact each stair taking direction had on metabolic markers of health. The subjects did their respective workouts twice per week, and the researchers added more stairs over time to increase the challenge.
The results? Contrary to what you might think, the subjects experienced greater improvements in health markers when they walked down the stairs as opposed to climbing flights of stairs. As you might expect, their bone mineral density increased and their balance improved. Unless you hold on to the side rails, going up and down stairs requires balance skills. They also experienced a drop in resting heart rate and blood pressure. Also significant is the group who walked down flights of stairs enjoyed greater improvements in resting heart rate and blood pressure relative to those who climbed stairs. Maybe going downstairs is harder than it seems! At the least, it offers unexpected health benefits.
The subjects who went downstairs also experienced greater improvements in markers of metabolic health relative to those who climbed up the stairs. Markers of glucose control, including glucose and insulin levels and hemoglobin A1C improved more and their lipids improved more. You would expect enhancements like this to lower their risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Plus, climbing stairs is so accessible to most people. You can do it at work or plan more trips up and down the stairs at home if you have a multiple story home.
What Muscles Does Stair Climbing Work?
Going up flights of stairs works the major muscles in your lower body, including your quads, hamstrings, and glutes. If you pick up the pace, you will also get cardiovascular benefits. In fact, the ability to climb a flight of stairs without being too winded is a marker of cardiovascular health. Physicians often ask about the ability to do this. If a patient says they’re winded after one flight, it raises red flags.
You can make stair climbing harder or easier by increasing or decreasing the speed with which you climb. You can also increase the challenge and activate your glutes more by taking two steps at a time. Be careful though! Begin by getting efficient with climbing one stair at a time before tackling more than one. Once you get to the top, go in the other direction. Going up the stairs works your glutes, but descending a flight of stairs won’t activate your glutes to a significant degree. You’re working your quads when you go down a flight of stairs.
Use Stair Climbing to Break Up Sitting
How can you put this information to work for you? Research shows short exercise breaks, like going up and down the stairs, has health benefits. Plus, it breaks up periods of sitting. As little as 3 minutes of climbing stairs can boost your heart rate and metabolism and improve insulin sensitivity. It’s a way to get your heart rate up even at work. However, don’t just tackle the stairs at the office, look for them any time you see an elevator. Put those extra opportunities to move your body to work for you!
The Bottom Line
Now you know why it’s so important to head for the stairs at work instead of the elevator. The elevator won’t give you the workout or the health benefits that tackling the stairs will. It’s a small step you can take for better health. However, don’t make it your ONLY workout. You still need focused strength training, but it’s something additional you can do for your metabolic health and your health overall.
References:
Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2017 Aug;49(8):1614-1622. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001267.
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