Return to: Getting In Shape - Equipment

Stair machine

We like a lot of pieces of exercise equipment, but there is one that is a real favorite.

The good news is that it is not a popular machine. At health clubs, they may not have it. If they do, it is often underutilized. So that means less chance of having to wait for the machine.

The machine is a stair machine. But not just any machine- the stair machine with rotating steps, just like an escalator. On a machine like this, you are climbing up stairs similar to real life.

As you know from walking up regular stairs for at least a couple floors, you can get winded pretty quickly. That is one reason we really like this machine- it comes the closest to simulating walking up regular stairs.

This reminds us of a quote from a businessman, Bernard Baruch (if our memory is right on the spelling of his name). What he said was that there are two things that are hard on the heart, running up stairs and running down people. If a businessman gets to quoting about walking up stairs, you know there is something aerobic to it.

Why we also are really fond of this machine:

• It burns off a lot of calories per minute, relative to other machines
• It is terrific at burning off your rear end, an area that might not get the exercise it really needs to create muscle and burn fat. We had a little too much cushion in that area when we were up at our peak weight. This machine did wonders for us.

You might ask, what about elliptical machines? They are OK in our book, but just not as good. If your knees bother you using the stair machine, the elliptical machines can be a good alternative. However, we suggest giving the stair machine a try first. Start at very low resistance and see how you hold up.

Another question can be, isn't this only working the lower body, as opposed to machines where you can work both the upper and lower body together? In principle, we agree with that thought. All things being equal, go with the machine that works both upper and lower body. But in this case, it is not equal. The step machine is one great machine, even if it just works the lower.

You can improvise, and work the upper too at the same time, by using hand weights and not holding onto the side bars. If you can do that, you are better than us. We decided instead to just work the lower body while on this machine and concentrate on getting to the highest resistance we could.

Starting off, since it can be such an intense machine, we recommend going for just about 5 minutes and doing a low resistance. Then build up both on successive workouts.

When we first started, we huffed and puffed doing just 5 minutes at about level 4. Over time, we now do much more, getting up to the top level and sometimes doing as much as 60 minutes at a time.

Another suggestion is to build up the resistance over the workout. We would start at level 4 and then ramp it up one notch every 1-5 minutes, depending on how long we planned to be on the machine.

Also, get to at least 20 minutes on the machine. We would also vary our time based on the type of workout. If we were doing cross training including some weight machines, then we would just do 20-30 minutes. If we were just doing aerobic training, then we would take it up to as much as 60 machines.

So give the stair machine a try. You might find it like a stairway to heaven, getting you to your target results faster.