Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Sweating up the steamy stairway

Mumbai has been 'blessed' with so many high rises. As kids, even a 6-7 storey building used to be a skyscraper. These days finding a 15+ storey building is very normal.

Stair climbing has been a prevalent sport in the developed countries for many years. But, the first ever stair climbing competition was held in Mumbai last Dec in the Kohinoor building at Dadar west. Being a regular stair climber while preparing for treks, i did miss out participating in it as it was on the same day as the NEF Enduro triathlon.

Was reading a post on Livestrong, on the benefits of stair climbing. And heres what they had to say.

Counting steps instead of miles can boost your walking workout—and save you time.
Researchers in England and Northern Ireland asked 12 sedentary women to climb a 200-step staircase, progressing from once a day to six times a day. (They were allowed to take the elevator down.) Each ascent took about 2 minutes, so by the end of the study, the women were exercising only 12 minutes a day. 
In less than 2 months, they saw a boost in their fitness level, along with improvements in their cholesterol level that were enough to cut their risk of cardiovascular disease by 33%.
"This is among the best evidence that short bouts of exercise can have tremendous health benefits," says study author Colin Boreham, PhD, of the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.
In a second study of nearly 13,500 men, those who climbed up and down at least 700 steps a week or 100 steps a day (typically 5 floors), reduced their risk of death by nearly 20 percent. This reduction is comparable to what you'd achieve by walking about 2 miles a day, which takes most people 35 to 40 minutes. From a calorie-burning perspective, you'd have to walk briskly for 30 minutes to burn the same number of calories that you would climbing stairs for 15 minutes."
So there you go! You've read evidence. What else can be a more efficient workout? No gym memberships, no queuing up for treadmills or cross trainers, No getting out on the road, no swimming trunks to change into, no bicycling equipment, no hour long exercise, no warm ups. Just walk out the door and your exercise begins. Just a 15 min stair-climbing session can spike up innate adrenaline to keep you kicking the rest of the day. And this has been my experience too!!

With some experience, climbing 5 floors slowly takes not more than 2 minutes!!!
For the past 5 weeks i have been following a schedule of a run-climb session every week. 
It involves 5 repetitions of running alternated with stair climbing. 

My first session was 600m run ( a round of our building parking lot) followed by 6 floors climb. I have progressed now to 2400 m run followed by 12 floors climb giving a 1:45 workout of 12 kms and 60 floors.
My target. 30 kms (50 rounds) and 450 floors (5000ft)! in 6 hours somewhere in July. That should hopefully keep me in shape for the 32km uphill, a climb of 5000 ft to Khardungla pass....phew!!