Thursday, December 4, 2008

Step ups

I think these are essentially single leg squats. Tough and useful for everyday life, strengthening movement that we all use every day. (Especially if like me you live in a top floor flat)

This guy is holding 150lbs (two 75lb dumbbells)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chris - I'm in a top floor flat too (3 floors) and sometimes carry a couple of 32kg dumbells up and down the stairs as part of a circuit. It's a bit like high-rep, alternate-leg, partial squats.

Chris said...

Methuselah - I think the stairs I climb daily are really important and useful. My neighbour who has sadly just died was 93 and used to climb the three flights of stairs to her flat at least once a day until a year ago when she went into hospital. I think all that daily exercise kept her very fit and also mentally sharp. (she'd lived there since 1938)

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris,

I was reading a piece by Mark J. Smith, Ph.D, advocate of sprint training and of the X-iser (www.xiser.com) device. This excerpt about frequent stair climbing was interesting to me, and your mention of stair climbing reminded me of it:

"...Whenever I return back to Britain and see one of the few remaining
double‐decker buses, I am frequently reminded of the research of Jeremy N Morris, DSc, DPH, FRCP, who showed,back in 1949, that simply climbing the stairs of a double‐decker bus, intermittently throughout a day, afforded the
bus conductors protection against coronary heart disease not afforded to the sedentary drivers."

All the best,

Eddie

Chris said...

Thanks Eddie