Calories Burned Climbing Stairs – Find Out Now!

Learning how many calories burned climbing stairs can help you decide which exercise is best for you!

As much as the world is becoming more and more fitness-oriented, burning calories still remains a major factor for most people looking for a good workout.

With so many different options to choose from, it can be difficult to find that one exercise that proves to be most successful to fit your needs while also maintaining your interest.

While the aim of an extensive workout should focus more on fitness and less on losing weight, most of us still tend to look for exercises that will help burn calories and lose weight.

Get Ready to Burn Those Calories!

The good news is that according to the American Council on Exercise (ACE), the higher your weight, the more calories you’ll burn during a workout session. Roughly translated, this means that if you think you have too much weight to be able to burn calories quickly, the actual case is quite literally the opposite.

Whatever your goal behind working out may be, you might be surprised to know how many calories you burn from something as simple as climbing stairs.

Factors That Influence Calories Burned Climbing Stairs

Most people on average can expect to burn over 200 calories in a 30-minute workout. However, this figure can change depending on:

· Your current weight

Applying the same factor as briefly mentioned earlier, the more your weight, the higher the number of calories burned while climbing stairs.

The American Council on Exercise calculates that a person weighing 155 pounds roughly burns a total of 285 calories during 30 minutes of climbing stairs. For the same workout length, a 200-pound person burns about 365 calories.

· The rise of stairs

As a general rule, the higher each step of stairs, the higher the number of calories you burn. The height of stairs can vary depending on the kind of building the staircase is located inside of.

For example, the rise of stairs you find inside the building of your workspace is most likely very different from the rise of stairs you expect to find in an outdoor space, such as a stadium.

According to the Exercise Calories Burned Calculator, if you weigh 130 pounds, a stair step that is approximately 6 inches tall would help burn 241 calories during 30 minutes of climbing stairs. This figure increases as the height of your stair step increases.

Bottom line is…

You can expect each inch on a stair step to help burn an increased 10 to 20 calories. So if you were to climb a set of 12-inch stair steps for half an hour, the calories burned could spike up to about 320 calories.

· How quickly you’re climbing

Another factor that affects the number of calories burned while climbing stairs is your speed. The faster you speed climbing up those stairs, the higher the number of calories burned.

You can burn an estimated 1,056 calories for one hour of running up the stairs if you weigh approximately 155 pounds. For someone with the same weight, walking up the stairs for an hour will burn around 563 calories.

That’s a considerable difference! According to Harvard Health Publishing, even if you choose to climb stairs at a slow pace instead of walking briskly, you’ll burn calories about 2-3 times faster.

· How long you’re climbing stairs for

This is probably the most important factor which will determine how many calories you burn, no matter the exercise you’re choosing for your workout.

Instead of calculating the height of the stairs, it is more useful to count the number of minutes you’re climbing stairs.

The longer you’re climbing stairs, the higher the number of burned calories. This holds true for both running and simply walking up the stairs.

The length of the workout will also determine the effectiveness of your climbing stairs.

Keeping all these factors in mind, it is important to remember that despite the varied length or speed of climbing stairs, most people can expect to burn an average of 200 calories in 30 minutes.

Climbing Stairs Compared to other forms of Exercise

The best way to go about sticking to a workout routine is to understand your body and what it needs. Different forms of exercise will serve different purposes for different parts of your body.

Alternatively, what may work best for everyone else may not necessarily prove to be very effective for your body.

Just knowing that climbing stairs burns calories isn’t enough. You should also consider how climbing stairs holds up compared to other exercises.

· Walking

Walking is one of the best known ways to get in some cardio.

If it’s been some time since you last worked out, walking could be a great option.

If you’re looking to burn calories and lose weight, however, Harvard Health has a few suggestions for you.

Include climbing stairs in at least some of your workouts

Climbing stairs can help burn up to 3 times the calories you would burn with walking

The energy expended in climbing stairs is 50% more than what you would expend in brisk walking, walking up a steep hill, or even lifting weights.

Here is what the ACE Calculator has to say…

Additionally, the ACE calculator indicates that climbing stairs for 30 minutes can help a 130-pound person burn around 235 calories.

If the person were to walk briskly for 30 minutes instead, they would burn less than half the amount of calories i.e. roughly around 110 calories.

Your burned calories are also much higher if you’re running stairs as compared to if you were running normally.

Provided that running stairs is much more intense and difficult, you burn the same number of calories with a shorter workout running stairs, than you would just running.

The Study Will Show

Dr. Harvey Simon, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who is also on the health sciences technology faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, talks about the findings of researchers in Canada.

They monitored 17 healthy male volunteers with an average age of 64 years during three different exercises:

Walking on the level Lifting weights Climbing stairs

They found that out of all three, stair climbing was the most demanding on the male volunteers.

Compared to walking on the level, it was twice as challenging and 50% more difficult than lifting weights.

Both walking and climbing stairs are good for your health, but the benefits of climbing stairs accumulate more quickly since it requires you to pull your weight against gravity.

· Treadmill

Treadmills and stair climbers are commonly combined to ensure a successful cardio routine.

There are a few types of stair climbing machines out there, all similar in that they help utilize your lower boy’s larger muscles to put pressure on the steps.

Stair climbing machines also raise your heart rate in a way that is similar to actually climbing stairs and consequently, help burn calories.

The treadmill is a piece of equipment most people are already familiar with. It provides you the option to walk, jog or run in the gym.

It constitutes a huge part of any cardiovascular-focused workout and also helps keep your heart healthy.

Your speed is one of the major factors that influence the effectiveness of using the treadmill as part of your workout.

A person weighing 155 pounds can burn around 372 calories in a 30 minute run on the treadmill at a speed of 6mph.

Let’s look at a comparison of using the treadmill against climbing stairs.

Stair Climbing Treadmill Directly targets your lower body muscles Simply running won’t do much Muscle building benefits Incline can help strengthen backside, calves, thighs and glutes Places more weight on your quads Can aggravate joint issues and pains Effective, low-impact workout Effective, low-impact workout Increases heart rate Increases heart rate

Stair climbing and treadmills offer similar benefits, so incorporate both of them as part of your workout routine.

While stair climbing in the gym is safer if you do not suffer from any joint pains or leg injuries, you want to be more careful when exercising on the treadmill.

Calories Burned Climbing Stairs

Climbing stairs results in higher calories burned than some alternative exercises. However, it is also one of the more demanding exercises.

It can be hard to sustain going up and down a staircase with poor stamina, especially if you’re running.

In such a case, Mayo Clinic suggests that you break up your workout into smaller workouts over the course of your day.

You still burn the same amount of calories throughout the day, without the added exertion of doing it all at once.

Climbing stairs offers many benefits whether you’re doing so at a slow pace, on the staircase of your office building, or within the confines of your neighborhood gym.

In addition to helping burn calories at a much faster pace than some other exercises, it also helps keep your heart healthy and minimizes the risk of heart strokes and other heart related diseases.