What is a Stair Climber?
The Stair Climber is an exercise machine that allows you to simulate climbing an endless flight of stairs. It is basically a miniature escalator with handrails that allows you to climb a never ending staircase.
I know what you’re thinking, why not just climb a regular staircase over and over again?
With a regular staircase you have to keep turning round and coming back down again. That’s not the most efficient way to do your stair based workout. The stair climber means you can concentrate on just your workout and nothing else, giving you the ability to get the most from your gym time.
What benefits can you get from the Stair Climber?
It is a fantastic piece of equipment for your lower body. It will tone your legs, specifically your calf muscles, more vigorously than any other area giving you fantastically well defined leg muscles and calves that let everyone know you never skip a leg day.
It’s not just your lower legs that get increased definition either, your buttocks will become more toned than they’ve ever been before which can only be a good thing. It does all of this without putting undue strain on your joints meaning you can use the Stair Climber for a long period of time without damaging yourself, unlike the treadmill for example.
It’s also a great cardio workout too, so you can improve your lung capacity and heart strength all without causing joint damage. This added to the excellent fat burning properties of the Stair Climber due to the combination of cardio and weight bearing means that you will be increasing muscle mass and lowering your body fat in no time at all.
How to Use?
To use a Stair Climber is one of the most simple tasks you will ever carry out in your gym life. All you need to do is climb up the stairs as they appear. Just like you would if you were climbing the stairs at home. It’s as simple as that, of course if you want to take things to the next level there are plenty of other exercises that you can carry out to mix up your workout regime.
What Exercises Can Be Done?
The exercises that can be done on a Stair Climber are a lot more varied than the obvious climbing of stairs that most people would do. The first simple way to mix up your exercise routine on a Stair Climber is to add squats to your routine. All you need to do is squat on the top step, as the next step reveals itself you use the raising motion of your squat to spring onto the next step. Then you can simply lower into the squat position again.
Another way to add some variety to your Stair Climbing workout is to vary the number of steps that you step up onto each time. Step up one at a time, then two at a time and keep varying it. That will change the areas of your legs that the exercises target as well as giving you some variety to focus your workout.
If you really want to challenge yourself then you could always work crossover steps into your workout. All you need to do is cross your feet to the opposite side of the Stair Climber while you climb up the steps. It will target your buttocks specifically and add an extra layer to the workout you can do on the Stair Climber.
These three workouts are just a sample of what you can achieve working out on a Stair Climber, there are plenty more options for you if you want to increase the intensity of your workout.
How is the Stair Climber different to a Stair Stepper?
The Stair Stepper doesn’t offer an escalator system to simulate the process of climbing a staircase. It uses two prominent steps that have a resistance behind them, like pedals on a bike but larger and a lot harder to work.
Both pieces of equipment offer similar types of workouts with the Stair Climber offering a set speed and a more traditional stair climbing action and the Stair Stepper allowing you to set your own resistance and pace but with a more awkward stepping style to use it.
Neither piece of equipment is bad, both offer much less strain on the joints than other cardio workouts, but each one targets different muscle areas more efficiently. The Stepper targets the calves more efficiently whereas the Climber targets the glutes more efficiently.
The Stepper also doesn’t have the facility for a variety of exercises to be carried out in the same way that the Climber does.
What should you consider when buying yourself a Stair Climber?
The first thing to consider should always be the budget that you are constrained by. That’s not to say that the most expensive piece of machinery is the best, you should always check out reviews to see which Climbers have the best consensus from users.
That’s not the only consideration either, you should take into account the space that the piece of equipment takes up. If you don’t have enough room to fit the Climber into your workout space then it’s obviously not the right piece of kit for you and you should consider a smaller model.
Alternatives
An alternative to the Stair Climber would be the Stair Stepper, which takes up significantly less room than a Stair Climber does.
There are also other options too.
Do give yourself a good leg workout without putting too much strain on your joints an exercise bike will provide a great cardio workout. Squats with weights also add another dimension to working on your core and your glutes.
They do put more strain on your joints than a Stair Climber would.
Conclusion
Overall the Stair Climber offers a great lower body workout and helps to stabilise the core at the same time without causing the excess joint damage that some other workouts can cause, like running on a treadmill for example.
It is not cheap if you want to find a good quality one, but in the long term it is much better than having to live with the damage to your knees that other workout options can cause.
If you want to improve your leg definition then a Stair Climber is definitely the way forward.
Hope this post helped you out to find the best stair climber which suit you and your goals.
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