Climbing your way to fitness
Take the stairs. Your heart, your legs, and your waistline will be better for it, says personal trainer Shaif Jetha, owner of Achieve Personal Training Studio.
Stairs increase your heart rate, which increases the amount of calories burned, he explains. It also strengthens calves, the Achilles tendon, and quadriceps muscles, more than running does.
“You get a bigger bang for your buck doing stairs than just going out for a run because you’re fighting your body weight against gravity,” Jetha says.
Find any set of stairs — Calgary is stair-heaven, but you can also use the stairs in your apartment or condo building or office building — and just start walking up. Make sure to practise good technique, he advises. Stay on the balls of your feet, hit the edge of each stair, drive up with your knee, stay upright, use your arms.
“Those that are fitter can go up using the same technique but running each step at a time, and those even fitter, can try two steps at a time,” Jetha adds. “As soon as you lengthen your stride you involve your glutes and hamstrings more.
“The key is to try to stay on the balls of your feet and not lean into the stairs,” he explains. “You want to stay upright so you don’t stress your lower back out.”
People with knee issues usually have quadriceps muscles that aren’t strong enough to support the knee joint, Jetha notes, but stairs strengthen the quads.
“Some people will struggle with going down, but that’s what railings are for.” Take your time, Jetha advises.
“If you do stairs once or twice a week you would see a difference in three to four weeks.”