I TRY TO AVOID THE ELEVATOR AT WORK, preferring to climb a flight or two of stairs. A new study suggests that you can climb your way to better health. Daily climbing of more than five flights of stairs is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular diseases (stroke, blood clots, and heart attacks.
This essay explores this thought-provoking new study, recently published in Atherosclerosis.
First, I offer this quote from J.K. Rowling:
“There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones, narrow, rickety ones, some that led somewhere different on a Friday, some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn’t open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren’t really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other and Harry was sure the coats of armour could walk.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Stair Climbing Study
Researchers analyzed data from nearly 459,000 adults registered in the UKBiobank.
They collected information about subjects’ stair-climbing, lifestyle, and sociodemographic factors as baseline data and five years later. The team followed the participants for 12.5 years.
They cross-referenced the participants’ stair-climbing habits with coronary artery disease, ischemic stroke, or acute complications. These cardiovascular conditions served as markers of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
The researchers assumed an average staircase to include ten steps. They tracked the incidence of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease for people climbing their staircases 1–5, 6–10, 11–15, 16–20, and equal to or greater than 21 times a day.
Hats off to the last group as if I did that many; it might be the last staircase I ever climbed if I hit the 21 mark.
Study Results
Here are the research findings:
- Daily climbing of more than five flights of stairs was associated with over a one-fifth lower risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD).
- The associations were broadly concordant in populations with varying susceptibilities to ASCVD.
- Participants who discontinued stair climbing between the baseline and resurvey exhibited a higher risk of ASCVD than those who never engaged in stair climbing.
Although the greatest protective effect of stair-climbing was associated with people who were not considered at particular cardiovascular disease risk due to genetics, climbing stairs also offset other participants’ pre-existing risk.
Study Author’s Take
Study author Dr. Lu Qi spoke to Medical News Today about how climbing stairs may benefit health.
“Climbing stairs is a kind of vigorous exercise which has benefits on lowering various heart disease risk factors. The approach can lower body weight, improve metabolic status and inflammation, and reduce other diseases which may increase the risk of heart disease, such as diabetes.”
Participants who stopped stair climbing between baseline and resurvey had a higher risk of ASCVD than those who never climbed stairs.
Stair Climbing and Injury Risk Reduction
While I find stair climbing to be a relatively safe activity, here are some tips to reduce your injury chances:
- Warm-up and cold down.
- If you use a stair climber machine, the intensity setting can help you regulate your heart rate. I begin with a leisurely walk for five to ten minutes before and after my workout. Please remember your fitness level and health status before exercising; don’t push yourself too much. I slowly increased my intensity over several weeks.
Stair climbing can be aerobic, relying primarily on oxygen for energy production. When I aim for an aerobic workout, I do longer sessions with low to moderate intensity.
If I am trying to go anaerobic, I use short, intense activity bursts fueled by energy in my muscles. I see some folks in the gym doing intense lunges on the stairs to create an anaerobic activity.
Stairs Target These Muscles
I use the stairs to target these muscles:
- Glutes (buttocks) — our body’s largest muscle.
- Hamstrings — the back of my upper legs
- Quadriceps — the front of my upper legs
You can hit the arm muscles (biceps and triceps), chest (pectorals), and shoulders (deltoids).
My Take — Climb Your Way to Better Health
For me, stair climbing is challenging. First, I am recovering from my patellar tendon rupture just under two years ago.
Second, compared to my usual brisk walking, stair climbing is an enhanced aerobic activity; there’s the muscle activation associated with usual walking, plus I engage other muscles during climbing.
I also like that stair climbing builds my lower body, core, and muscles around my lower back.
While stair climbing offers a higher level of aerobic activity than walking, I will mostly stick with my strolls. At my age, protecting my joints is a priority.
Final Thoughts — Climb Your Way to Better Health
Climbing more than five flights of stairs (about 50 steps) daily was associated with a lower risk of atherosclerotic heart disease, independent of disease susceptibility.
Of course, this study does not prove causality. The research is retrospective. Could more fit folks be more likely to climb stairs? Of course.
Should we care about heart disease? A 2022 study showed the overall prevalence of ASCVD in the U.S. in 2019 was 24 million people or about 10 percent of the population above age 21.
And there is this disturbing statistic from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
One in every five deaths in the United States in 2021 — about 695,000 — were due to cardiovascular disease.
That number translates to approximately 805,000 U.S. residents having a heart attack yearly. One person dies every 33 seconds in the United States from cardiovascular disease.
Walk, run, bike, or climb stairs. Skip the elevator. Just move.
Stairs Workout: 15-Minutes of Stair Exercises You Can Do at Home
www.realsimple.com
Thank you for reading “Climb to Better Health.”
