Stairs

katro111

Ok, so my office is on the 12th floor. I make it a point to take the stairs up every morning and takes the stairs down a few times throughout the day (don't really want to be all sweaty at my desk so I don't take them up as often as I go down). According to both my Fitbit and my Polar HRM, I burn more calories walking DOWN the stairs than I do climbing UP them even though going down feels much easier (no elevated heart rate, feeling tired, etc). Why is that???? I know that going up and down works different muscle groups, but going down I feel in my calves vs. going up I feel in my quads and glutes. I would think that since the quads and glutes are larger muscles they would burn more calories...?