All Work and No Play!

David Writes in with a great question!

Q:) I work a desk job 4 days a week and cannot get into a good training program on those days. Would getting a seated stepper be benificial at all in helping me train if I used it most days while at work when I could not get to actual stairs?

Hi David!

Thanks for the great question. I would actually not recommend using a machine that supports your bodyweight to train for stair climbing. WHY?

First the fact you are seated actual will hinder you when you are racing up the stairs. Stair Climbing or Racing uses maximum muscle contractions through your hips, glutes (Butt muscle) core and upper body if you use the railings.

If you train four days a week seated all of these muscle will not get stimulated properly and when you go to race the muscles will not respond well.

In addition you cannot get the intensity up to where you want it to be.

There are a number of ways you can get the training in so that you will become a more explosive, faster stair climber.

If you say that you have four days that you are at a desk job, then that leaves three actually really good productive workout days.

Lets say your productive workout days are on Sunday, Thursday and Saturday just for example.

Sunday you should be at a set of stairs (even if they are not a lot of stair) You should be doing a combination of endurance, speed work and technical training on this day for about 1 hour. Make sure to stretch afterwards

Thursday is Gym work. At the gym focus on exercises that contract the most amount of muscle in your body. Full body exercises are the key. For additional exercises please become a member and check out the useful exercises for stairclimbers

Here is a freebie exercise to get you started!

On Saturday you have two options, depending on what your goals are: It is either a long duration cardiovascular workout on a stepper of some sort of exercise machine that works the whole body or its back to the stairs.

After the third session you would just rotate the workouts:

Sunday - Gym workout

Thursday - Stair Workout

Saturday - Gym workout

Sunday - Stair Workout

Thursday - Gym workout

Saturday - Cardio workout

etc...

I hope this has helped you understand a little bit more about training and becoming a faster stair climber!

Have a fit and healthy day!

Trevor Folgering
Founder
The Canada StairClimbing Association
1-877-51-CLIMB