Stair climbers and steppers are great ways to exercise more. Especially in combination with choosing the right workouts for your personal situation and fitness goals.
Keep in mind that these machines are different from step mills, also known as Stairmasters, which are rotating stairs.
Stair climbers and steppers require you to keep your feet stay on the pedals that you alternately push down. This makes the workouts look different.
That aside, make sure you stand up more or less straight during the stair climber workouts to keep them focused on your cardiovascular system.
Additionally, these exercise sessions can get intense. You want to make sure you are able to hydrate if necessary to avoid things like muscle cramps.
1. Steady-state cardio stair climber and stepper workout
The first example workout is for beginners, individuals who want some light exercise for an extended period of time, and people who want to do focus on other things like listening to music while exercising.
The sequence is relatively straightforward and monotonous but doing it consistently will still offer a variety of benefits.
Lastly, for the first and all of the other workouts, you need a good stair climber or stepper. Once you have that, you can do the steady-state cardio workout.
- 3 minutes of slow pace stepping at a light resistance to warm up
- Adjust the resistance to something light-medium and keep stepping at a moderate pace
- Take breaks of 15-60 minutes when needed
- If you have a stretching routine, this is good to do when your muscles are warmed up from moving
Due to the low intensity, most people could do this sequence multiple times a day and step for a long time.
Even so, these steps will definitely still get your heart beating faster and offer all the health benefits that come with that.
This is also a great way for beginners to start building up cardiovascular capacity to be able to do the heavier workouts for more results.
2. HIIT stair climber stepper workout for weight loss
The steady-state cardio workout definitely has its benefits. It helps you build up fitness and offers a situation where you can stay active while doing things like listening to music.
On the other hand, individuals who have the capacity may also want something more intense and interesting.
For these people, HIIT (high-intensity interval training) workouts can be a great choice. In these, you switch up intense stepping with light recovery periods.
As long as you don’t overdo it, more intense stair climber and stepper workouts like this also help more with weight loss and other health benefits.
If you are not sure whether your body would be able to deal with HIIT workouts, you can start with something lighter and build up from there as you get fitter.
- 2 minutes of slow pace stepping at a light resistance to warm up
- 30 seconds of fast stepping at a medium-high resistance
- 90 seconds of slow stepping at a low-medium resistance
- Keep alternating between these 30-second and 90-second intervals about 8-14 times.
- 2 minutes of slow pace stepping at a light resistance to cool down
Fast and slow stepping sound and are relative to your personal fitness level which is exactly what you want.
By adjusting these speeds to your own experience it becomes easier to stay in the range where you push yourself enough to get the health benefits like weight loss and at the same time, not overdo it.
As you get fitter, you can consider gradually increasing the time of the high-intensity sessions up to 60 seconds and reducing the duration of the rest periods to 60 seconds.
Additionally, you can do more of these intervals in one session as long as your body can deal with it. Fit individuals can sometimes go up to 40 minutes and even 60 minutes of total time spent using their stair climbers and steppers.
These types of workouts are great for burning calories. In combination with other good lifestyle habits, stair climbers can burn belly fat (if that area is next) and burn fat in other areas.
3. Stair climber and stepper glute burn workout
Stair climbers do work muscles to some extent but these machines are typically not the best way to do this. At the same time, doing the glute burn workout below can still help certain individuals build a small amount of muscle.
This mostly applies to people who were not that active up until now. In a situation like that, your glutes (butt), hamstrings (back thighs), quadriceps (front thighs), and calves could see some growth.
In combination with the extra calorie-burning, this type of workout can make your body look more toned (if your other lifestyle habits are taken care of).
- 2 minutes of slow pace stepping at a light resistance to warm up
- 60 seconds of slow stepping at the highest resistance that is doable
- 3 minutes of slow pace stepping at a light resistance
- Keep alternating between these 60-second and 3-minute intervals about 4-8 times.
- 2 minutes of slow pace stepping at a light resistance to cool down
This glute burn workout is where quality stair climbers and steppers with a wide range of resistance levels will be extra useful.
To grow and strengthen muscles you have to put them under enough pressure. For the leg muscles used stair climbers and steppers are often not enough to get results for individuals more experienced with working out.
One way to make the chances of building muscle bigger is wearing a weighted vest. Do keep the weight limit of the machine you are using in mind.
4. Intensity pyramid stair climber and stepper workout
Contrary to weight lifting exercises, cardiovascular workouts with machines like stair climbers and steppers are not as precise in terms of intensity guidelines.
More creative workouts like this intensity pyramid one can be a good option to improve health and burn calories.
- 4 minutes of moderate pace stepping at a light resistance to warm up
- 3 minutes of moderate pace stepping at a low-medium resistance
- 2 minutes of moderate pace stepping at a medium resistance
- 1 minute of moderate pace stepping at a high resistance
- 2 minutes of moderate pace stepping at a medium resistance
- 3 minutes of moderate pace stepping at a low-medium resistance
- Keep going through this sequence 2 to 4 times and end with 2 minutes of slow pace stepping at a light resistance to cool down
A simpler description would be to keep stepping at the same pace but build up and build down the resistance setting.
Again, these descriptions of intensity and resistance are a bit vague. However, you want to be able to adjust your stair climber workout to your own fitness level.
Someone who is really fit may find “resistance setting 7” a warm-up setting while someone new to working out may consider this medium or high resistance.
5. Speed pyramid stair climber and stepper workout
Selecting a different resistance setting is not the only way you can switch up your stair climber and stepper workouts.
You can also choose to use these machines at different speeds. In turn, this will influence how fast or slow your heart has to beat.
- 4 minutes of slow pace stepping at a medium resistance to warm up
- 3 minutes of moderate pace stepping at a medium resistance
- 2 minutes of vigorous pace stepping at a medium resistance
- 20 seconds of stepping as fast as you can at a medium resistance
- 2 minutes of vigorous pace stepping at a medium resistance
- 3 minutes of moderate pace stepping at a medium resistance
- Keep going through this sequence 2 to 4 times and end with 2 minutes of slow pace stepping at a medium resistance to cool down
Similar to the other stair climber and stepper workouts you can get creative and adjust the times to your fitness level and goals.
For example, exercise beginners may keep the duration of the slower pace periods the same but do the more intense ones for a shorter amount of time.
As they get fitter, they can increase these durations again to get more health benefits in a shorter amount of time (as long as they don’t overdo it).
Is a stair climber a good workout?
Quality stair climbers and steppers offer a variety of resistance levels. On top of that, you can choose at what pace you use the machines.
The different resistance levels are great for choosing how much you focus on the glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps, and calf muscles involved. Different speeds get your heart beating faster or slower.
These things combined make stair climbers a great workout in terms of health benefits if you push yourself enough but not too much.
How long should you work out on a stair climber?
There is not one perfect stair climber and stepper workout duration for every single individual. Different fitness levels, fitness goals, and types of workouts will have different optimal durations.
High-intensity workouts can be done in 20 minutes or less but can also go up to 40 minutes or longer if you take it easy in between the intense periods.
Many individuals can do steady-state cardio at a light resistance for up to 60 minutes and longer.
In short, how long you should work out on a stair climber is a balance between how much time you have, your fitness level, your goals, and the type of workout you do.
If you have a certain calorie-burning goal, you can make a rough estimation of how long you need to exercise to achieve this goal.
What happens if you use the stair climber every day?
If you were relatively inactive up until now and start using the stair climber every day you will start to notice that you get out of breath less often in your daily life.
You should also slowly but surely start to see some fat loss if you don’t change anything in other lifestyle areas like your diet.
Some people may even see a small amount of muscle gain in their glutes (butt), hamstrings (back thighs), quadriceps (front thighs), and calves.
More unexpected consequences of starting to use the stair climber every day include an improved mood, better cognitive performance and productivity, and better sleep.
Do keep the limits of your body in mind. If you have not worked out in a while you want to start slowly, possibly with some rest days, and build up from there.
If you start to feel the bad kind of discomfort, you want to exercise less and potentially even take a complete break before gradually implementing the stair climber or stepper again.
