Every work day I lug my backpack with my lunch, two bottles of water, my laptop and whatever up four "large" flights of stairs.When I reach the fourth floor , I breathe a bit hard but most days I catch my breath in the next minute(s) . That's the best I can do. I'm in my early 60's.
Other than that I avoid stairs because despite loving exercise, I'm lazy.

I don't do it everyday but I do it regularly usually once per week but sometimes twice. I live in a high rise building on the 12th floor. Walking up the stairs is great but walking down is very important too. Remember that majority of falls and injuries occur when walking down the stairs or stepping down off of something. Regularly walking down the stairs is important because it works your body in a different way.

If I didn’t take my stairs, I couldn’t do a lot of things, like use the bathroom, sleep in my bed, or clean the cat box.

I suggest that the mods move all the recent threads discussing some posters' various exercise/calisthetics routines to Foo since they are at best tangentially related to bicycling only in the sense that any activity or bodily function is related to bicycling.

Hit the report button. The mods cannot monitor every thread.

Had a good friend that was a crit racer. Part of his training, as well as his club, was to run the stadium steps at the university, several times. I never ran steps but unless there are more than 5 floors, I always take the steps. See, steps are very much related to being a better cyclist, especially when climbing.

Yes. I'm 64 and bike 6-8 miles to work most days year-round. I take a full flight of stairs at work many, many times a day. It's an older building with no elevator, but there is a driveway outside that functions as a ramp. But I enjoy the quick hustle up the steps. And when on location for video shoots (~one per week) I'll carry a little less equipment and make more trips using the stairs vs an elevator.

I know I can't do it forever, but for now nothing hurts (usually).

Yes.

You are of course assuming that "being a better cyclist" at 50+ encompasses any regimen someone uses that they feel is related to their training for competitive racing or boosting arbitrary personal performance "stats."

When hiking the Appalachian Trail, many new hikers will fret over having to climb steep mountains and in preparation for a hike they will do a lot of cardio to prepare themselves. However, what they failed to realize is that it's the downhills, (despite being easier on the cardio system), that cause the real pain, i.e. injuries. This is because going downhill is much like doing a single-leg squat over and over and over... Many times resulting in injuries to connective tissues.

The take away is that as we age it's the musculoskeletal system that should be given more and more attention.


And that will help your stair climbing as well as your There you go, everything applies to cycling

Yes.

If you don't think stairs will help your cycling, try going to a gym which has step mills, those stairways to hell, and do an hour of mixed zones 2 and 3. If you can do that, don't worry about it. If you can't well . . . There are all those studies out there which say the fast folk hammer the downstroke . . . A local TT female does 30' of Z4, after warming up of course.

But yeah, of course I always take the stairs. If it's not many flights, I run them. My dentist is on the 4th floor and has outdooor stairs. I run them, twice a year, 2 at a time, just checking to see if I'm losing it. So far, so good, though of course I'm losing it anyway.

Some of my bike rides involve carrying my bike up the stairs. Here I am just about to take the stairs and get back on the road after riding some gravel trails down in the river valley.

I worked downtown Chicago for a company that leased ~10 floors. I used to take the stairs instead of the elevator until the knees started complaining. I was in my mid fifties then. Knees immediately improved once I stopped that nonsense. 😂

I dunno. I've been hiking in the Cascades since I moved down here from Fairbanks at 16. If one is getting sore knees from hiking downhill, well, you're just not hiking enough. I told a little story on here about how my wife and I got much better at hiking downhill after we stopped taking Ibuprofen for knee pain. Haven't had any for decades, and I go in on our 10-day with 65 lbs, my wife with 50, and I'm frigging 80, she's 77. It's just a matter of hardening up.

And yes, backpacking is good for one's cycling and vice versa. If one's connective tissue isn't up to it, one needs to have been going to the gym all winter and doing ass-to-grass squats to near failure. One should be able to squat one's body weight for reps. I lost a lot of fitness because of my heart surgery and I'm back to only about 80% of bodyweight for 10 reps. Sucks.

Yes I do take stairs over the elevator. Even when my office was on the 6th floor. And still today I overwhelmingly favor stairs. Even my semi-annual checkup at my cardiologist that is on the sixth floor. Though I get there 20 minutes early so my HR isn't sky high when they check.

And usually I take 2 steps at a time. Which annoys my spouse greatly. <grin>

I'm really surprised that the medical office buildings that are just 2 or 3 stories don't build staircases that are open and easily seen to encourage their use. And instead, like taller buildings they are tucked away in some obscure corner with no map showing how to get to them.

I know from your previous posts that you very much partake in musculoskeletal exercises, including lifting heavy. And I agree about the Ass-to-Grass squats for conditioning connective tissues.

As for the Appalachians, they are generally a very rugged mountain range to hike, much steeper than much of the Cascades, despite the Cascades towering over the dying Appalachians -- dying because it's one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world at just over a billion years old, which is why they're no longer tens of thousands of feet in height. However, they are very steep and rugged.

And that steep/rugged terrain is why the Appalachian Trail is a major destination and a Holy Grail for speed hikers attempting a Fastest Known Time (FKT) hike.

For people not use to the conditions presented by the Appalachians, it's best for them to not worry so much about cardio conditioning, rather work on the musculoskeletal system, especially connective tissues, which when injured can take a very long time to recover. Cardio will come naturally, you just start slower, but the physical body needs more of an introduction, not even walking down stairs provides a good enough conditioning for the steep grades of the Appalachians. Walking down a gentle sloop is nothing compared to the steep declines found on the AT

BTW, I also totally agree to stay away from NSAIDs -- I stay far far away from all types, if my knees are sore that's my body communicating with me, listen to it, don't shut it up.

And to see how this still applies to cycling. https://t100triathlon.com/articles/r...core%20control.

I've hiked the AT. Yes, it's very different from the PCT. The PCT was built with shovels, making a level trail and no more than a 10% grade, really built more with horses in mind than people. The AT was built with digging bars, just moving the worst of the rocks out of the way, and going straight up and straight down the hills. Very different philosophies, and the two trails created different hiking cultures. As for knees, hard to say which trail is worse on them. The AT is steeper, but the PCT allows a faster pace, more slamming, although there are folks who can run the AT, too. Taking long strides downhill with a heavy pack is definitely not the same as stairs.

It is well known that the longest living humans in the world usually live areas where there is a good diet and up and down walking. As you age you really don't loose your up. You can always stop rest and eventually you will get up there. Down is another matter. Unfortunately as we age we loose our down...

Climbing Stairs Is GOOD! Down is a bugger...


From Net...

Are you talking about doing squats with just ones own bodyweight or are you talking about doing squats with a barbell which equals ones bodyweight ? If you're talking about barbell squats then I will have to disagree. What if one isn't able to squat a barbell which equals ones bodyweight ?. Does that mean that their entire fitness is a failure ?. Nobody should be forcing themselves into doing heavy squats unless they feel like they want to do squats and have sufficient mobility to do them safely.. A barbell squat isn't some magic bullet for super fitness. There are many people out there who are not built for doing barbell squats and will never be able to do ATG squats with a barbell which equals their bodyweight and then there are people who just don't want to do squats and there is nothing wrong with that.

Use it or loose it. The reason people loose their ability to walk down safely is simply because they stopped doing it or are not doing it often enough.

In college, I had a summer job painting dorm rooms. They let me stay for the summer on the 12th floor of a dorm. Mostly for fun, I would fly up (and down) the about 22 flights of stairs at maximum possible speed - two at a time, jumping down, whatever.

In many ways I truly agree. And yep, I used to think that.

I am somewhat more educated now days. There is a thing called normal wear and tear. As you age those ligaments and tendons get more stiff and often lengthen. Then that Distal End of the Femur starts to ride forward over the Periosteial layer of the Tibial Head. This is the mechanics of walking down. No way out of it. Cycling can strengthen those tendons and ligaments and preserve positioning in the knee, there by limiting the Walking Down symptoms. Some times this walking down pain can be so bad that people will turn around and walk down backwards, Ha.

I will stand behind your statement though. Use it or loose it... Yep...

You definitely can do bodyweight squats. Maybe not at first but most should be able to and even want to.

81 year old man, never lifted and up to 128lbs back squat in under a year. I'd say that's impressive...

I will take the stairs if no more than 5 flights is involved.