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Last year I completed the Climb in 23 minutes and 45 seconds and it is always my hope to do it faster than the previous year. Over the past four years, I've cut seven minutes off my time, improving annually, so now I've had four previous rounds of trying different training methods to see what has worked and what hasn't. While everything has helped me improve - I think the biggest benefit has come from strength training - ie lifting weights - along with stair intervals and what helped the least was working on running endurance. I had listed out in this blog post my 2018 training program - which was going really well until summer came and I just wanted to enjoy the sunshine and my kayak. So now I'm back to developing my training program for this upcoming climb, mostly starting in a de-conditioned state, I'm definitely up in weight which will also be something that can slow me down. I decided I'd use this opportunity to share more about the health benefits of stair training and discuss the ways I use stairs in patient care.
Livestrong.com has a nice article here that describes many of the health benefits of stair training. It's cardiovascular exercise, so it helps build up your endurance and burns calories, but it also requires strength to propel yourself upwards against gravity! Stair training is a difficult activity that can burn a lot of calories in a short time. Depending on how you're using the steps - you can target your aerobic or your anaerobic training systems using stairs. If that's unfamiliar to you - a brief explanation is that your muscles make energy in different ways. With long distance activities over a longer period of time, you will use oxygen to make the energy for your body to function - an aerobic activity. For shorter bursts of energy, your body will make energy without using oxygen - an anaerobic training system. (There are actually three systems the body uses for this, but for now - that's probably all we need to discuss). Depending on your daily activity or the demands of a sport or activity you participate in, you may benefit from training aerobically or anaerobically or focusing on both of these systems.
In the clinic, I use step up and step down variations for numerous reasons. We have steps of varying heights ranging from about 4 inches to metal boxes that are 18 inches high as well as a small stair case. We use them to help with strengthening one leg at a time with optimal form. For example, someone who has knee pain or recently had surgery on their knee might not yet be strong enough to climb the stairs "normally." But they may be able to go up and down a smaller height, so by practicing, they can improve their strength and form with the activity to progress up to higher steps until they are back to their usual level of function.
Stepping up onto one foot also challenges balance. To stand on one foot on the ground requires control at the joints in your foot, ankle, knee, hip, pelvis, and core. That's a lot of things to control! Sometimes I work on balance from the ground-up... standing either on the floor on one foot or on various objects like a wobble board or bosu ball or airex pad. This makes you control all of those things at the same time, unless you're working on one of those activities sitting down and taking out the joints above the knee. A step up exercise also works on balance from the ground up. Sometimes I also train balance from the core/pelvis downwards - working in kneeling or quadruped (on hands and knees) positions so that you're taking the knee and foot out of the activity. Either way, every time you go up a set of stairs, you're standing on one foot at a time and need to be able to balance and control all those joints - or you need to hold on to prevent yourself from falling over.
Recently I was working with someone who is recovering from an ACL reconstruction who is getting close to returning to soccer. When thinking about soccer, it's easy to picture a lot of running and kicking, but people often forget about the amount of jumping that is involved. You jump to head the ball or to kick the ball higher in the air or to change directions or to avoid an opponent. So we were working on some box jumps in the clinic. With two feet, he could easily jump up onto the 12 inch box. Piece of cake. With his non-surgical leg, he could jump 12 inches on one foot. But he couldn't get himself to jump up 12 inches on his surgical leg alone. I've written about my own experience being unable to jump onto a 12 inch box before in that same post linked above - but watching a patient experience that block and then overcoming it was different than dealing with it myself. We worked our way up to it two inches at a time, both jumping up and down, until he was able to jump that high. Part of this is a confidence issue - where your brain doesn't think it can be successful, so it inhibits you from trying. How cool is it that if your brain doesn't think you can land - it (usually) won't let you jump? By learning that he could land from a jump that high and from progressive heights below it, he was ultimately successful. It was a big win for him and fun to see such a change in ten minutes in the clinic. Even better was that he was still able to do it at his follow up visit - and right away!
When training on stairs, you have to consider going both up and down. So basically you're going to be using all the muscles in your legs and core - and if you use a hand rail or swing your arms - you're going to get the upper body and chest and back involved too! All those joints I mentioned before that are involved in balancing - the muscles around those joints are needed to stabilize you and propel you up or control your descent. The other thing to consider is that one leg is moving while the other is holding you up. So it's a complicated activity that also requires coordination.
So, if you're looking for a new training activity to try out - stair climbing is an option you can consider. Today I did a short training session of 450 stairs in 10 minutes on a stair climber machine and I'm convinced that the machine is considerably more difficult than being outside on the stairwell, but I didn't have to go back down when I ran out of stairs because on the machine, they just keep coming!
Again - please consider a donation to the National MS Society in support of my Climb to the Top. Link above. And if you want to go climb some stairs around Seattle together, just let me know!
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