Calories Burned Climbing Stairs
Taking the stairs is a brilliant and sustainable way of exercising to lose weight in your daily routine.
How many calories are burned climbing stairs for 10 mins and 30 minutes respectively?
According to the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities [ 1], Stair climbing at a slow pace had a MET value of 4. This means that even at a slow pace, stair climbing requires you to exert yourself four times more than when you are at rest. It is, therefore, a moderate-intensity fitness activity at least.
But if you speed up for walking up stairs at a fast pace, it will have a MET value of 8.8. Descending stairs had a MET value of 3.5.
A person weighing 150 pounds can lose roughly to 104 calories by climbing stairs at a fast pace for 10 minutes. The same person can lose up to 314 calories in 30 minutes of fast stair climbing.
Good shoes with shock-absorbing properties are essential if you don’t want to get injured during climbing stairs
Why is stair climbing a good exercise for working individuals, people living in residential complexes, stay-at-home moms, etc?
Stair climbing is one of the most dynamic, hassle-free, inexpensive, and accessible workouts that you can opt for! Do you work for long hours and have no extra time in your daily routine for proper exercise? Do you live at an inconvenient distance from the gym? Do you live in a cramped residential complex with little access to open space? Are you a stay-at-home mother who cannot be away from home for long durations? Simple – take the stairs! You need not get an expensive gym subscription, or motivate yourself to go to the gym or the park every day for your exercise routine. Stairs are virtually everywhere – at homes, apartments, shopping complexes, office buildings, or malls. Make the change and take the steps instead of the elevator to revolutionise your fitness habits completely!
Calories burned climbing stairs Vs. Running, Walking, Jogging, jumping rope and elliptical
| Workouts | METs | Per minute | 30 Minutes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jogging, general | 7 | 8 kcal | 250 kcal |
| Walking, 3.5 mph | 4.3 | 5 kcal | 154 kcal |
| Running, 6 mph | 9.8 | 12 kcal | 350 kcal |
| Rope skipping | 11 | 13 kcal | 393 kcal |
| Elliptical trainer | 5 | 6 kcal | 179 kcal |
| Climbing stairs | 8.8 | 10 kcal | 314 kcal |
By a 150-pound person
How many calories burnt running up and down the stairs?
Stair running is an extremely effective way of burning calories fast.
It has an immensely stunningly high MET value of 15,[2] meaning, it requires you to exert yourself 15 times more than when you are resting!
A person weighing 75 kgs or 165 pounds will burn 393 calories running up and down stairs, in a duration of 20 minutes.
Running on stairs elevates your heartbeat, to give you a super-effective workout and maximum weight loss.
Calories per step stairs and per flight
A study 3 published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise showed that the average of calories burned in climbing stairs (including ascending and descending stairs) is 0.16 kcal per step.
The results were much lower than in some other studies. The number is 0.20 kcal per step from Bassett et al [4], 0.237 kcal per step from Shephard [5], and 0.23 kcal per step from Nagle et al[6].
The researchers believe that some different factors caused this difference, such as the vertical height of the step and climbing pace.
Therefore, if a person wants to know calories burned climbing 100 stairs or calories burned 10 flights of stairs or per flight, he should know the climbing speed and the height of the stair step at first.
As mentioned earlier, calories burned per step stair is around 0.16-0.23 kcal. Therefore, climbing 100 stairs will burn around 16-23 calories!
This is, of course, a rough estimate. In order to calculate accurate numbers of calories, please use the calculator at the top of this page (Duration and total numbers of step stairs are needed). For example, a 180-pound person climbing 200 stairs at a fast pace for 4 minutes will help burn around 50 calories. Therefore, for this person, calories burned per stair is 0.25 kcal. climbing 100 stairs burn around 25 calories, and 1000 stairs burn 250 kcal.
As a person who intends to maintain a healthy or lose weight by the way of climbing stairs, an average of 0.23 kcal per step may be an acceptable value.
You may find that the number is 0.17 kcal per step on some other website. The results are different depending on the climbing pace and the vertical height of the step.
The difference in those results is really small. If you want to lose weight by climbing stairs, the difference between 0.17 and other numbers, such as 0.16 or 0.23, is negligible.
Stair Climbing One Step Vs. Two Steps at a Time
In order to understand whether climbing one stair step per stride will burn fewer calories compared to two steps per stride at a time, researchers recruited 14 volunteers for this study.[[7]]
The stair climb trials were on a stairway, which has 86 steps and over 8 flights and 5 floors. Each stair step is around 6.41 inches in height.
The results indicate that volunteers, who climbed one stair step at a time, burn more calories compared to those who climbed two stair step per stride.
The report recommends that people who are interested in reducing fat through climbing stairs per day should ascend stairways one step per stride instead of two stair steps per stride.
In order to burn the maximum number of calories when climbing a set of stairs the single-step strategy is better!
For example, You will burn 302 kcal calories per week while climbing a 15 m (49.2 ft) high stairway five times a day through a way of one step per stride strategy, and 266 kcal using the 2 steps per stride.
Climbing stairs workouts plan
This study [2] shows us a simple but useful exercise plan.
Please kindly note that the MET value for climbing stairs is from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities [ 1].
5 ascents per day × 2min/ascent = 10 min going up stairs at 8.8 METs = 88 MET.min/day
10 min going down stairs × 3.5 METs = 35 MET.min per day
Total of 123 MET.min per day.
7 days per week frequency for a workout of 123 × 7 = 861 MET.min per week.
To reduce the risk of diseases and stay healthy, The World Health Organisation recommends at least 600 MET minutes of physical activity each week.[ 2].
Therefore, climbing stairs every day is a good choice for this goal.
How Many Stairs Should I Climb For A Good Workout?
As mentioned above, you should focus on exercise intensity and duration instead of the number of stair steps.
The accurate number of steps depends on the vertical height of the step and your climbing pace.
Benefits of walking up and down stairs at home for exercise
1. Weight loss. For a 180-pound person, climbing stairs at a fast pace can help burn 125 calories in 10 minutes!
2 Stair climbing/descending exercise for a short time decreases blood glucose levels after a meal in people with type 2 diabetes. [2]
3. Short bouts of stair climbing in a naturalistic setting can induce cognitive benefits for more challenging tasks. stair-climbing also can acutely benefit cognition and mood. [3]
4 Climbing stairs can bring you signs of health or not. A study shows that identifies statistically significant relationships between difficulty walking and climbing stairs and CVD and diabetes. [[4]]
5. Accumulating short bouts of stair climbing activity throughout the day can favourably alter important cardiovascular risk factors in previously sedentary young women, such as reduction in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and increasing in VO2MAX, etc.[5]
6.Regular stair-climbing exercise has been shown to be effective in improving cardiovascular fitness, reducing cholesterol levels, decreasing body fat, and increasing the strength of the lower limbs. [6]
7. Stair walking is more energizing than low dose caffeine in sleep deprived young women. Energizing effect of stairs was > 50 mg caffeine. [7]
8.Seven daily minutes of vigorous physical activity has been associated with a 62.0% decrease in coronary death, thus seven daily minutes of stair climbing should provide the same benefit. [8]
9. Stair climbing uses 9.6 times the energy of the resting state, i.e., requires more energy per minute than jogging or rowing. [9]
