Friday, February 15, 2008

Very little exercise

Question: How many calories are burned for each stair you climb?

Answer: According to a 2002 study by The American College of Sports Medicine, 0.11 calories are expended going up a single stair, and 0.05 calories are expended going down a single stair. Of course, the expenditure will vary based on one's weight. Also, the stairs used in this study were 15 cm (very nearly 6 inches). Those seem like pretty mild stairs to me.
I found the link to the study here.

Why I was interested:
I wanted to know because I've started a workout program that involves climbing exactly one stair. Har!
No - I have been hearing that getting a bunch of mini-exercise sessions is better than one big exercise session. And, as I have not been participating in either of the above for a bit, I thought I'd start with climbing the stairs at the building where I work.
I started out ascending and descending about 35 flights a day. That's 630 individual stairs.
How many calories is that? Well, the calorie burning is reported all over the net in terms of calories per hour. I just want straight-up calories-per-stair.
Here are my Google searches that eventually led me to the answer:
  1. how many calories do you burn per stair
  2. calories burned per stair
  3. calories burned each stair
  4. study calories burned climbing stairs
  5. how many calories are burned climbing one stair
  6. calories "a single stair"
  7. calories "each stair"
Now to find out how many calories I burn every time I bite into a cheesburger.

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