Stairmaster

Amara15

This may be a stupid question.. but I don't know the answer! Is running up and down your house staircase for 20 min the same as using a stair master for 20 minutes? I recently moved into a new apartment 30 minutes away from my gym so I'm trying to get creative, since I don't have time for the trip over to the gym nearly as much anymore. Thanks!

inmyshoes

I think running up and down stairs is actually harder because you don't have the side handles to rest your hands on.

Amara15

Do you think it burns comparable calories?

blondie76

you burn more on stairs, doing it yourself!
I just used the database and for jogging up stairs for me was 200 cals, and stair climber was 120 cals!

Good to know!!

Amara15

THanks!

JoyJulRay

I run stairs all the time, thats the only workout I did for my first 30lbs lost, I do 17 steps around 1100 times in 30mins.

Azdak

Running up stairs is much more intense than a stair climber (the "pedal" kind) because you are actually lifting your body weight up a vertical distance. Doing stairs is more like interval training, since it is practically impossible to find a long enough stairway to continuously climb. So the climbing part is the "work" interval, and going down is "recovery" (although not entirely because you are still eccentrically working the muscles--it just isn't raising your heart rate).

So, if you do it in a focused way -- following the usual guidelines of frequency, intensity and duration, you can, as another poster described, see good results.