As the weather gets nice and not too hot and humid I like to get outside at least 1 or 2 times a week to do some cardio/conditioning work. One workout I always enjoy is running stairs/bleachers. The video highlights some of the workout I did most recently.
Here are some great benefits you can get from running the stairs:
- Excellent cardiovascular exercise that will also burn body fat at a higher rate.
- Great for building leg power as your quadriceps and glute muscles are required to generate a great amount of explosive force as you leap from step to step.
- Helps develop muscle and strength in glutes, quadriceps, hip flexors, hamstrings and calves.
- An effective workout can be done in 20-30 min with plenty of variety. So you can constantly challenge yourself and won’t get bored.
Below is a 4 week sample workout for a beginner to get you started.
Intermediate to advanced individuals can also use this plan and tweak it by adding an extra round to each set. As well as doubling up the amount of steps to jump up. So instead of 3 steps it would be 6 to start, and so on…increase a step wherever required in the training plan.
I would recommend doing this workout a day before you do a lower body strength workout and not the day after. Workout can be performed 1-2 times a week but at least 1-2 days apart. Depending on how you recover from the last workout. If you have a long flight of stairs and find it very challenging Just run half of them to start. Run at a medium pace or at your own comfortable pace to start and increase your speed each week as you get used to it. Perform each set in order.
I would advise not doing this workout if you have bad knees.
I recommend a thorough warm up before this workout.
Instructions:
Week 1: Perform each set in order 2 times through.
Week 2: Perform each set in order 3 times through. On set 2 increase the jumps to 4 steps.
Week 3: Perform each set in order 3-4 times.
On set 2 increase the jumps to 4-5 steps.
Week 4: Perform each set in reverse order starting with set 3 and finishing with set 1. This time set 2 will start with jumping up 5 steps
Workout:
Set 1:
Run full length of stairs. Walk down to recover. Complete 3 times. Rest for a minute or two if need be before moving onto the next set.
Set 2:
Jump up 3 steps, one at a time. Walk back down. Complete 3 times. Rest for a minute or two if need be before moving to the next set.
Set 3:
Run up stairs missing every other step. Walk down to recover. Complete 3 times. Rest for a minute or two if need be.
Recent Comments