Take stairs, Save the planet, Save your A** (Literally)

Want to improve your fitness without having to schedule in extra workout time?  Take the stairs.  Stair climbing will exercise your quadriceps and glutes, similar to lunges.  Going up stairs is low-impact and can be an intense cardio workout.  It also can help save the world.  In the UK the Guardian, a major newspaper, estimated that Brittish people could reduce their carbon footprint by 1% by totally eliminating elevators from their lifestyle.  The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that elevators in air-conditioned office buildings account for 5 percent of building electricity use in North America.

Stair-climbing meets the guidelines set by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) for exercise intensity. Especially going up stairs. The physical intensity of going up is similar to that of jogging at a speed of 6.2 miles per hour. Going down is similar to brisk walking at 2,4 miles per hour. 

Karen Lee, the deputy commissioner for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in New York said that studies have shown that if the average adult climbed two minutes of stairs every day, it would overcome the weight-gain trend that American adults are experiencing.  The European Heart Journal showed an average increase of 8.6 percent lung capacity among 69 hospital employees, after they took the stairs for 12 weeks. Participants also showed a 1.7 percent decrease, along with decreases in waist circumference, diastolic blood pressure and LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol).


Part of the benefit of eliminating elevators is that you can insert quick intense bursts of exercise into your life.  For example people who work in an office will often face a sedentary work day.  By taking the stairs at the start and end of the day, as well as on their lunch break, coffee breaks and when they need to visit the photocopy room they can insert 5 or 6 short bursts of exercise into their routine, helping increase blood flow to the lower body. 

My challenge: Eliminate the elevator (and escalator) for 2 weeks.


If you want to figure out how many calories you burn follow the steps below.

1. Count how many steps there are.
2. Count how many times you walk up the stairs in a week.
3. Multiply those two numbers together
4. Multiply the total by 0.16.  That is how many calories you burn in a week.