100 Flights of Stairs

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las07s
las07s Posts: 150 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Stairs. Glorious, wonderful, flights and flights of endless stairs. I love them. They complete me.

A week ago today, I was in the fetal position popping muscle relaxers as I gently cradled my calf muscles. At that point, if you had told me "BUT YOU LOOOVE STAIRS", I would have thrown a shoe at you, liar. I hated stairs. Big mistake!

Two days prior, My Fitbit had inspired me to raise my stairs goal to 100 flights from an avg. of 3 (only counting the upward climb, of course). I had thought, "I can do 100 flights of stairs easily in the span of a workday!" Well, it was easy. I completed them without a problem. My office building has approximately ~5 flights of stairs, so when I went to the restroom, I did a loop. When I had to fill my water bottle, I did a loop. I even used my two 15 minute breaks to do 7 or so loops on each go. A few minutes after work finished off the remaining flights. It was so easy, I did it the next day, too! I took stock and yes, I was pretty sore, but I could live with it! The third day, no. I couldn't get out of bed for 10 minutes. When I finally rolled out, I couldn't walk. I hobbled. That third day, I hobbled down the stairs and up again. Another 100! Despite the pain of the first few days, I've done 100 flights of stairs each and every work day since Tuesday of last week, and guess what?

It isn't excruciating any more!

Really, my legs feel so much stronger! I've already increased my speed from walking to jogging. I can jog most of 5 flights in 1min 45sec all without sweating through my blouse and slacks! In fact, I was feeling so much stronger that today I did 5 push-ups every time I reached the bottom of the stairwell and 5 tricep dips at every summit.

It's awesome!

I figure I can start to do two steps at a time and also do left and right cross-overs, but I was wondering if any of you have an office routine for running stairs? I can't get too sweaty lol. Or, do any of you have any testimonials about incorporating stair climbing into your day?

If so, please share.

Replies

  • SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage
    SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage Posts: 2,671 Member
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    Stairs are a great workout. Unfortunately I'm a total klutz and will not attempt more than 2 steps at a time, only forward, no cross-overs, or risk losing my chicklets.

    As for a work routine, a bunch of my coworkers take a break twice a day to do 30 floors of stairs up and down. Maybe you could get a work group together at your office?
  • las07s
    las07s Posts: 150 Member
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    SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage wrote: »
    Stairs are a great workout. Unfortunately I'm a total klutz and will not attempt more than 2 steps at a time, only forward, no cross-overs, or risk losing my chicklets.

    As for a work routine, a bunch of my coworkers take a break twice a day to do 30 floors of stairs up and down. Maybe you could get a work group together at your office?

    I'm with you there! Right now, I'm jogging up the stairs, landing on every step. If I'm going down, it's more of a trot, but I have my hands lightly resting on both handrails in case I trip. I think cross-overs will have to be done at a slower pace... I'm not the most coordinated person :blush:
  • foodaddictforsure
    foodaddictforsure Posts: 4 Member
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    I love a stair workout! The only cardio I can do everyday and not get bored with. I don't understand why more people don't do them...It's amazing that people can run for miles and miles but be out of breath when going up the stairs :neutral:

    I run the stairs at my office as well. People look at me like I'm crazy but whatever HAHA
  • las07s
    las07s Posts: 150 Member
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    foodaddictforsure wrote: »
    People look at me like I'm crazy but whatever HAHA

    THIS! It's like they've never seen the like before lol. I just smile and trot on by.

    What do you do to keep challenging yourself? Do you do more floors or do you tackle the stairs in different ways, like skipping steps, going backwards, etc?
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,214 Member
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    I used to do sets of 100 flights of stairs on a regular basis. I loved it too. I eventually signed up for a CN Tower stair climbing event. It was the equivalent of 144 flights but no down flight in between to recover your breath. It was killer. Thanks for your enthusiastic post! You've motivated me to throw stairs back into my exercise routine!
  • las07s
    las07s Posts: 150 Member
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    goldthistime wrote: »
    I used to do sets of 100 flights of stairs on a regular basis. I loved it too. I eventually signed up for a CN Tower stair climbing event. It was the equivalent of 144 flights but no down flight in between to recover your breath. It was killer. Thanks for your enthusiastic post! You've motivated me to throw stairs back into my exercise routine!

    Ohhh, that would be killer! No downward rests.... Whew, I'm out of breathe just thinking about it! But in fact, sometimes I feel the descent is too long and my heart rate falls too low before I can head back up again.

    Also, I'm so glad to hear that you are motivated to do it again! LOL STRETCH THOSE CALVES! Do not make my mistake :persevere::sweat:
  • foodaddictforsure
    foodaddictforsure Posts: 4 Member
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    las07s wrote: »
    foodaddictforsure wrote: »
    People look at me like I'm crazy but whatever HAHA

    THIS! It's like they've never seen the like before lol. I just smile and trot on by.

    What do you do to keep challenging yourself? Do you do more floors or do you tackle the stairs in different ways, like skipping steps, going backwards, etc?

    I alternate from doing single steps to skipping steps...seems to help a lot.

    and then every week I up my workout by one flight...So the first week I did 5 flights a day, the next week I did 6 flights, etc...

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