Hockey players are supposed to love pain, but Geezer can recall, many moons ago, one required exercise that made his entire hockey team groan: running stairs. Even hockey players didn’t like pain that much. Yet now comes the generally reliable New York Times, celebrating the challenges, cardio benefits, and sensibly, price ($0), of the popular new sport called tower running. The piece, which is pegged to the annual Feb. 3 race up the 1,576 stairs of the Empire State Building, reports that walking up stairs at a moderate intensity should burn 5 calories a
minute for a 120-pound person, 7 for a 150-pound person, and 9 for a
180-pound person. Geezer knows no readers who will be surprised to learn that “running stairs multiplies the caloric burn and the
cardiovascular benefit.”
Those who are intrigued can take their inquiry a few steps higher at TowerRunning.com, where they will find a calendar of stair races–yes, there are many-many– at skyscrapers around the world.
Read more in the New York Times
Still more on stair running in the Guardian.
Health, fitness and lifestyle tips for people over 50 who still like to play hard
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Running Stairs is one of the BEST things you can do for yourself. Especially if they lead up to a bridge that you can run over and down again.
What makes this GREAT for older athletes is the unusual fact that running UP is actually much LESS impact on your legs that running straight or down relative to the knees, shins, calves, etc.
However, running DOWN stairs is the WORST thing you can do impact wise for your legs. So the morale of the story is RUN UP to your hearts content, but WALK DOWN always if you are an older athlete.
You can also go 1 step, 2 steps, or 3 steps at a time for different effects of strength, turnover speed, and cardio.
It’s all great stuff. You can also hop up steps for Polymetric work.
Stairs are some of the BEST and cheapest workouts available to you!