Stairs or elevator? Let’s face it: When we have the choice, we usually opt for the comfortable way to overcome altitude differences – unfortunately. Because stairs can do our body a lot of good! Are you interested in the health benefits of running up stairs for you and how to increase your motivation? We have summarized the answers for you in this post.
Elevators and escalators – curse or blessing?
No question, escalators and elevators definitely make our lives easier. Because with packed bags or bulky luggage, stairs can be quite a challenge – especially when it comes up to the sixth floor. And especially for people who depend on elevators, these are indispensable. This is the only way to ensure accessibility for all people equally.
But this convenient way of maneuvering oneself to another floor is also used by almost all other people. Unfortunately, this does not counteract the already prevailing lack of exercise among the German population. And that has its consequences. Common diseases such as obesity, back pain, diabetes or high blood pressure can be the result of lack of exercise. Our lifestyle significantly influences our health and if we make our everyday life sedentary, our body suffers.
One way to simply get some exercise into the day is: climbing stairs!
Your health benefits
A daily portion of stairs not only saves electricity, but also gives you a pretty good everyday fitness. What exactly you do your body with every step, we want to show you. And you don’t have to push it to the limit of your resilience – like extreme athletes in the vertical staircase marathon. Here, athletes run up and down around 84,000 steps in competition. No, this is extreme sports. If you just decide to take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator every time, here’s what happens in your body:
- Cardiovascular: Regular climbing stairs improves your cardiovascular system and thus your heart health. In addition, your blood pressure and resting heart rate drop.
- Muscles: Both up and down stairs strain your leg muscles, such as the buttocks, thigh and calf muscles. So you can easily strengthen your musculoskeletal system in everyday life.
- Everyday fitness: The simplest fitness program in everyday life builds a good basic fitness and strengthens you all-round.
- Bone formation: The forces acting on your bones when running up stairs stimulate bone formation. This counteracts bone resorption (osteoporosis) in the long term.
- Endurance: As you will surely notice from the more intense breathing when climbing the sixth floor via the stairs, you train your endurance. No matter if you take it easy or sprint up the stairs.
- Metabolism: Your metabolism is boosted by the movement and thus calories are burned. So running up stairs can help you lose weight as well as reduce your hip circumference and body fat.
- Mental health: Climbing stairs makes you happy. With every staircase you take, you can be proud of yourself. The physical activity also stimulates your ability to concentrate and increases your well-being.
Motivation
Actually, the health benefits should be motivation enough. After all, you do something good for your body and your health through every step you take. In addition, climbing stairs is free and can be done at almost any location.
You can see how a team in Stockholm dared to experiment with turning stairs into a vertical piano to motivate people to walk stairs here.
So: If you have two healthy legs, plan to take the stairs exclusively this week. Your body will thank you and, according to studies, you will even increase your expected lifetime.