BREAKING: new study - 60 seconds of stadium stairs as effective as 45 min running

Just don't trip on the stairs!

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Lyfter wrote:

I'm sure you've seen this, since every major publication picked it up today.

Yes, this is really true. High intensity training like running up stadium stairs is as effective as 45 min of endurance running.

The additional benefit is that you will not overuse your joints and will not get arthritis at young age.

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The story I saw was actually about stationary bikes.
Stadium steps are probably a superior workout. There was also a major improvement in insulin sensitivity. But the improvements applied to both, which were done three times per week, and the 60 seconds of intense exercise were actually done over a 10 minute total workout with 2 minutes warmup, three minutes cooldown and three 20 sec bursts separated by 2 minutes easy.

As effective doing what exactly? So if I do 2-3 minutes of stairs a day that should be equivalent to about 100 miles a week running? Should be able to smash all my PR's this coming year!

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doot doot wrote:

I'd rather be crippled via running than do stairs.

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That's great news. Now all the fatties and "fitness" joggers can go run stairs and get off my favorite running path.

I like to run so I can be a better runner, not to "stay in shape". That's just a nice secondary benefit.

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Seriously mate? wrote:

As effective doing what exactly? So if I do 2-3 minutes of stairs a day that should be equivalent to about 100 miles a week running? Should be able to smash all my PR's this coming year!

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I notice at my club:

Skinny but fit people on the machines, and doing the crossfitting-ish stuff.
Big muscle-bound people and women who could beat me up on the free weights.
Fat men and women on the stationary bikes, stair climber things, treadmills.

When I do see the fatter, bike/stair/treadmill people on the machines, they lift basically zero weight, and do about a million reps.

I noticed, myself, that simply running slowly all the time, no matter the mileage, didn't do much for my weight. ONLY once I began lifting (some time ago), and lifting fairly heavy did I get any degree of muscle toning, INCLUDING on my otherwise fit legs.

I'm a believer in high intensity, and heavy, and sprints, and little distance stuff, but understand this won't make me a world-beater. I does make me (overall) fitter, though, and I'm good with that (and with the lower weight/BMI I have now).

So, if I do 45 minutes of running and 60 seconds of stairs that is the same as 90 minutes of running?

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Lyfter wrote:

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Seriously mate? wrote:

As effective doing what exactly? So if I do 2-3 minutes of stairs a day that should be equivalent to about 100 miles a week running? Should be able to smash all my PR's this coming year!

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Well, 100 mpw isn't good for your health. So yes, 1 or 3 min of high intense exercise is both superior to 100mpw.

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"Same" in a lot of ways, yes.

Will it make you as "fit," yes.

Will it make you a better runner? Not necessarily.

Are you an Olympian? No? Then mix it up, you'll be better off. Actually, if you're an Olympian, you already mix it up. A lot of you have trouble connecting the dots, don't you?

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Lyfter wrote:

I'm sure you've seen this.

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Results are not interesting - because just as every other study that studied HIT, they started with couch potatoes.
Results will vary, if you are already working out..
For potatoes, any exercise stimulus will work.
For athletes, the stimulus has to be changed occasionally. When and how, now that's the $65 question..

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20861519
Q: What is best practice for training intensity and duration distribution in endurance athletes?
A: (after a meta-analysis of successful athletes in several different endurance sports)
The predominance of low-intensity, long-duration training, in combination with fewer, highly intensive bouts may be complementary in terms of optimizing adaptive signaling and technical mastery at an acceptable level of stress.

Who thought endurance training was healthy anyhow?

30mins of hill repeats and heavy weight training is obviously more beneficial training than long slow jogging or cycling

I have my doubts about 5-10 minutes of interval training being of long term use. This must be beneficial for the untrained couch potatoes as another poster said

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used to be old and in the way wrote:

Results are not interesting - because just as every other study that studied HIT, they started with couch potatoes.
Results will vary, if you are already working out..
For potatoes, any exercise stimulus will work.
For athletes, the stimulus has to be changed occasionally. When and how, now that's the $65 question..

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20861519
Q: What is best practice for training intensity and duration distribution in endurance athletes?
A: (after a meta-analysis of successful athletes in several different endurance sports)
The predominance of low-intensity, long-duration training, in combination with fewer, highly intensive bouts may be complementary in terms of optimizing adaptive signaling and technical mastery at an acceptable level of stress.

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Obama saved the US from ruin wrote:

I notice at my club:

Skinny but fit people on the machines, and doing the crossfitting-ish stuff.
Big muscle-bound people and women who could beat me up on the free weights.
Fat men and women on the stationary bikes, stair climber things, treadmills.

When I do see the fatter, bike/stair/treadmill people on the machines, they lift basically zero weight, and do about a million reps.

I noticed, myself, that simply running slowly all the time, no matter the mileage, didn't do much for my weight. ONLY once I began lifting (some time ago), and lifting fairly heavy did I get any degree of muscle toning, INCLUDING on my otherwise fit legs.

I'm a believer in high intensity, and heavy, and sprints, and little distance stuff, but understand this won't make me a world-beater. I does make me (overall) fitter, though, and I'm good with that (and with the lower weight/BMI I have now).

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I am a dedicated distance runner and former D1 scholarship XC and track athlete, but I have to admit that I know a guy who was a real fatty but has gotten serious results from doing stadium stairs for like 15 minutes a day at lunch.

I work near a college campus, and he has access to their academic center showers, so I will sometimes meet him over there and I will go run while he does stairs. He lets me into the locker room as he is leaving and I am able to shower and get back to work. Over the last year, he has lost a lot of weight and it has surprised me.

I have watched him work out. He basically jogs an 800 and then runs up and down one side of the stadium as fast as he can for about 3 minutes. He jogs or walks to the other side of the stadium and does the stairs again and then warms down with a final 800 jog. He goes balls out on the stairs though. All-in-all, under ten minutes of total high-intensity workout. He has probably lost 40-50 pounds in the last year. I am sure he is watching his diet, too, but it is still impressive. He looks fit.

If you want to remain scrawny fat, you can stick to your 45min jogging.
But if you want to be ripped, HIIT is the superior exericse.
And don't forget to eat a lot of red meat and pump iron.

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Lyfter wrote:

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doot doot wrote:

I'd rather be crippled via running than do stairs.

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Most people prefer the easy exercise (jogging for 45min). Obviously, running stadium stairs (even just for 60s) is much harder.

It's the same you see in the gym: skinny girls on the eliptical, huge jacked bros in the lifting area. Who works harder?

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