As far as expeditions are concerned, this was very exhausting. In just under 23 hours, on September 3, 2021, Sean Greasley ascended and descended 8849 ma distance that would have taken him to the top of the highest mountain on the planet. In the end, I was soaked in sweat and could barely walk. And all this in the relative comfort of his home.
Greasley has the world record in ascending and descending stairs The same height of Mount Everest in less time. He did it in 22 hours, 57 minutes and two seconds. Although Greasley succeeded on the ladder of his house in Las Vegas, the US, others carry the climb of stairs to other ends.
El towerrunning (vertical races), for example, It consists of climbing huge stairs inside buildings and iconic skyscrapers. There is even a Towerrunning association and an official world classification for elite athletes dedicated to this peculiar sport.
It is unlikely that most of us reach those vertiginous heights, but climbing even a few stairs of ladder in our day to day can be something simpler to aspire and that it provides benefits. According to research, upload stairs can have surprising benefits both for physical and brain health without having to climb two steps at the same time or beat records.
It was discovered that upload stairs improve balancereduces the risk of falls in the elderly and strengthens the lower part of the body. Other studies also indicate that raising a couple of stairs sections can positively influence our cognitive abilities, such as problem solving, memory and, potentially, creative thinking.
As a low impact exercise, even Raising short bursts can help improve cardiorespiratory capacity and reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The improvements in aerobic capacity when climbing stairs at home can be equivalent to those obtained with the gym stairs machines. It is this daily simplicity that constitutes the greatest strength of this exercise.
The stairs are everywhere: we find them at home, at work and on the street. Choose to climb stairs instead of going through the mechanical ladder or an elevator provides us with a form of exercise Occasional that can have a huge impact on our health. “It is an exercise that almost everyone can do because access is simple and daily,” says Alexis Marcotte-Chenard, postdoctoral researcher in cardiac, pulmonary and vascular health at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, Canada.
Marcotte-Chenard investigated how to use exercise and nutrition to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, including the effects of “exercise snacks”: short periods and spaces of vigorous activity of a minute or less that are performed throughout the day. Upload stairs, he says, is a “promising exercise snacksince the difficulty can be easily adjusted by varying the rhythm, and does not require complex equipment or a high cost.
“When you exercise, you don’t need any sophisticated equipment; You can use your own body or climb stairs, ”says MarcoTte-Chenard.“ And if you do physical activity throughout the day, you don’t have to dedicate an hour to train ”.
Research on these “refrigerios” to exercise, also known as Snacktivity or Vilpa (vigorous intermittent physical activity, for its acronym in English)It is increasing as experts seek the best exercise solution to combat sedentary habits and physical inactivity that currently put approximately 1800 million adults worldwide at risk of illness. But what makes the stairs such an effective physical exercise?
First of all, climbing stairs is a simple way to increase heart ratean important factor to obtain physiological benefits. But, in addition, climbing stairs offers other unique benefits compared to other forms of exercise.
“Increase your heart rate and your oxygen consumption rather than if you walk fast, simply because it is more difficult to go against gravity,” says Marcotte-Chenard. “And then, if we talk about the muscle, the lower part of the body is mainly exercised, and we know that force in that part is a good indicator of general health and longevity.”
Climbing stairs can increase the size and strength of the muscles of the thigh and also requires the use of abdominal muscles to achieve stability. You may not even have to climb the stairs to get the benefits. While climbing two steps at the same time can be more difficult, since it requires a greater effort of the muscles of the ankle and knee, the investigations are not clear about whether they really burn more calories than climbing one step at the same time.
Y There is another reason to choose the stairs instead of the gym stairs machine: lower them. The muscles of the front of the thighs contract in two ways: when climbing stairs, they shorten (concentric contraction), and when they lower, they lengthen (eccentric contraction).
Although concentric contractions require more oxygen, they burn more calories during exercise and are considered more difficult, repeating eccentric contractions is more likely to result in larger and stronger muscle growth. This is because eccentric contractions cause greater muscle damage during exercise and, therefore, are burned more long -term calories during repair and recovery. The benefits are not limited to muscular thighs.
The researchers discovered that This exercise produces surprising improvements in cognitive capacity. Andreas Stenling is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Umeå, Sweden, and is mainly dedicated to investigating the long -term relationship between physical activity and health. He and his colleagues studied the immediate effects of climbing stairs in different cognitive abilities in young adults.
“Inhibition and switching were the two main cognitive functions on which we focused”says Stenling. “Cognitive switching, sometimes called mental flexibility, refers to the ease with which we can change between cognitive tasks,” he explains. “That is, move from one task to another without having to restart cognition, so to speak. Inhibition consists in blocking irrelevant information while the task is performed.”
Stenling points out that we know that these cognitive functions are important for learning, as well as for cognitive tasks with words, abstract thinking and the ability to maintain concentration in one thing. The Stenling team discovered that climbing stairs significantly improved the ability of participants to change postureconsidered the most difficult cognitive task. The researchers also evaluated humor changes and discovered that the participants felt happier and with more energy after climbing stairs.
Another study published by researchers at the Faculty of Medicine at Yamaguchi University (Japan) revealed that Those who climbed two stairs showed a greater concentration in problem solving that those who took the elevator. Interestingly, no improvements in problem solving were observed when climbing five or eight sections of stairs, which suggests that the effect does not depend on the number of steps.
Another study of the same group also revealed that Lowering the stairs increased creative thinkinggenerating 61% more original ideas than those who were in elevator. So, if you look for an inspiration dose for a problem that you try to solve, a quick trip to the next floor and back can be enough.
There is a lot of interest in the mechanisms that link exercise with cognitive benefits, but little conclusive research. Stenling suggests, however, that the improvements could be related to the cardiovascular system and increased blood flow to the brainas well as with growth hormones such as the neurotrophic factor derived from the brain (BDNF), which seem to be quickly affected by the exercise in general.
Researchers such as Stenling are also interested in exploring whether this exercise can generate other effects with a more prologue action over time. Most studies focus on cognitive effects immediately after climbing stairs. However, a recent study revealed that it produces memory improvements that are maintained the next day when combined with a good sleep quality.
If the goal of taking about 10,000 daily steps is quite rooted in people as a reference pointIs there a similar objective that we should look at when it comes to climbing stairs? Before answering, maybe it is worth noting that The 10,000 steps figure does not have a solid scientific basisand some studies suggest that the benefits tend to stabilize after about 7500 steps.
The 10,000 figure is more in mind because, in reality, it comes from an advertising campaign that coincided with the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games and that popularized that number that, in Japanese (万), resembles a person walking. The research is equally scarce in establishing a goal to climb stairs.
However, existing studies suggest that Upload more than five sections of stairs per day (equivalent to 50 steps) is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease Atherosclerotic (ECVA), which is the accumulation of plaque in the arteries. Marcotte-Chenard and his colleagues are optimistic that exercise snacks could be a good solution to break sedentary habits at work.
In a study that evaluated the psychological responses of office employees that climbed stairs in the workplace, Marcotte-Chenard and their colleagues discovered that 71% of the employees preferred to make several “small snacks”, such as climbing 60 steps in three different sessions (a total of 180, but distributed), to an intense session of HIIT (training at high intensity intervals) where you have to climb those 180 steps once.
“For participants, it is easier to raise and lower the stairs once and sit down again”Says Marcotte-Chenard. “And as distributed throughout the day, they seem to enjoy it a little more than if they do in a single session.” The study of researchers is unique for having been carried out outside the laboratory, which could suggest that research is more applicable to the real world.
Not all investigations agree that climbing stairs at home is the solution; Some suggest that this physical activity is not enough to reduce the risk of ECV mortality and premature death. In addition, those who suffer from knee osteoarthritis can find the stairs a painful experience. Observational studies even reveal that some demographic groups, such as women and overweight people, are less likely to climb stairs when there is an alternative.
But, for those who can climb stairs, preferring them instead of an elevator can be an excellent way to exercise occasional that will benefit both the body and the mind. See you at the top.
*By Annabel Bourne
