Stair climber? I would just use a freebie - the stairs to get to my office! 
Climbing those flights of stairs is hard work!
The park near my house has a long stairway to the top of the hill. 250 feet of vertical. When I’m feeling motivated, I walk/run up and jog down the road a few times. People drive from all over the city to do the stairs.
I’m thinking about joining a friend who is doing a stair climb to raise money for MS.; It’s 61flights of stairs with two rest stops. Climb is next March.
The training materials from the organizers suggest that you should train by climbing stairs. I don’t have access to stairs (except for stairs to the second floor of my house and it would be crazy boring to keep going up and down those!!) Friend suggested that we train on a road in our town (cross country kids use it all the time) that has a 1/4 mi.hill that’s very steep.
Question for Michael: how many times should we walk up and down this hill for each training session and how many days per week should we do the climb??
My gym has one of those big, rolling stair climbers. They are hard. I worked my way up, but haven’t done anything on it since last winter. It looks like this, but it’s a little larger. I imagine we could use this machine to train as well. Once it snows, the hill isn’t a great option.
You can probably also use a regular treadmill set up at the max incline for training.
As I posted elsewhere, Lulu has a ton of stuff added to their WMTM today. Happy shopping!
Bromfield- Strengthening your glutes and hamstrings is also going to help you a lot. Barre and pilates are helping me big time with that, if that’s your thing. Good luck, though, that sounds like a fun day for a worthy cause!
And Bunsen, just got paid and going over to WMTM right now. trouble trouble trouble.
Tried to do my long run Saturday, but I stopped at mile 5 after my hamstring turned on. 3.3 easy miles today and another easy run tomorrow before seeing the chiropractor that afternoon. Really hope I can get this figured out in time to start serious speedwork again in January. But at least if I get some new lulu stuff, I’ll look good regardless of my speed? Right.
^^Does your insurance cover PT sessions? I think you might benefit more from a PT who specializes in runners’ injuries than a chiropractor.
Back from a week off visiting D. It was a good time but an awful lot of rain. My knee is still giving me problems - I was able to get a couple runs in while we were out there but it was really hurting during the last run. Going down stairs is the worst. I am not running tonight, trying to give it more rest.
Just to continue my whining, I can’t believe how badly my arm/shoulder hurts almost 2 weeks after getting my flu shot. Usually it is sore for a day or two, but this has been nuts. My range of motion is limited and trying to do things like lift suitcases is unbearable. I have to get groceries tonight (nothing like getting home late last night to an empty frig and pantry!) and I will ask the pharmacist about it.
Congrats to everyone on their very active Thanksgiving activities! I admire all of you who had all those extra houseguests. My D and her fiance’s place is pretty small and packing H and I in it for a week, plus S and SIL came for 5 days at Thanksgiving, and things were pretty crowded. It was a fun time, though.
MOWC - I hope Dutchess enjoys her new home and is able to get adjusted to a new place and new routine quickly. I think it is awesome that you adopt these seniors.
Thanks. It’s a gift to us to have the sweet senior doggies.
@BunsenBurner thanks! my chiro supplements the adjustments with PT exercises and it is progressing, so at least for now, I’m probably going to stick with this.
C3- Sorry about the soreness, that seems ridiculous. You deserve a few flu-free years for that.
The Jacob’s Ladder in my gym looks like this: http://2fl9gu3mbtuang1zmp45vw8v.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/Jacobs-Ladder-Features.png
And it is very hard.
I was felled by a really nasty cold over Thanksgiving – took a three-hour nap on Friday, which I never do. I did no exercise for 3 days. Feeling better enough yesterday to run, although I used the treadmill at the gym, and lifted weights today.
The WMTM stuff on the Lululemon site are basically the things I saw at the outlet. I loved the skirt I bought so much, I just bought another one!
Ready to be inspired – here’s a story about a 98-year-old yoga instructor who seems to never stop. She’s amazing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/fashion/tao-porchon-lynch-oldest-living-yoga-celebrity.html?_r=0. She only wears high heels, and drinks only tea and wine (no water).
^^^I went to a yoga retreat at Kripalu (in MA) last December and she was there. Didn’t go to her class but saw her at dinner in the cafeteria. She’s amazing!
I’ve used Jacob’s Ladder and similar machines and they provide a great workout that’s transferable to a stair climbing challenge. @Bromfield2, keep in mind that what you are looking for is specificity of training. A stair climb challenge is going to involve muscular strength and endurance as well as cardio endurance. Walking the steep hill you mentioned will be a great way to train. You want to train progressively to avoid overuse injuries and burnout. Try to figure out how long it should take you to climb the 61 flights by climbing a couple of flights vigorously but without getting exhausted and extrapolate. Then walk the hill until you are fatigued but not exhausted and use that as your starting base. Extend the time climbing the hill by 10% each week until you are doing it for the anticipated length of time it will take you to climb the 61 flights. When climbing the hill, use your legs to drive your body up; you want to develop the power in your stride and related hip flexors and extensors to repetitively fight gravity when you are on the stairs. I would walk the hill 3-4 times per week to develop the cardio stamina under load. If you have a heart rate monitor, you may want to use it so that you can do structured intervals on the hill.
In addition to the hill climbing, I would do squats with dumbbells, walking lunges with dumbbells and one legged leg presses on a machine to develop muscular strength In addition to strengthening your hamstrings and glutes, you want to strengthen your quads. You will be pushing off each leg to raise your body and get to the next step.Do these exercises on your off days from climbing the hill and work up to 3 sets of 12 reps. Don’t increase your weight more than 5% per week. And make sure to give yourself a day off each week.
Hope this helps.
Something kind of different this morning - our gym got some new fitness equipment (finally!) so I was able to “run” on a Zero Runner. I’ve never been so speedy! It’s a little difficult initially as you want to treat it like an elliptical, but once you get the running motion down it’s a great workout as you can play with the resistance very easily. 4.1 miles done in no time.
Restrained myself from any Lulu bargains yesterday - for some reason, I always want the newest stuff. Must say no! Did manage to snag a pair of Transcends for $120 instead of the usual $170 - Brooks was sold out of my size but thank goodness Zappos had them.
Those are great tips, Michael. I need to incorporate more resistance training into my workouts.
I love all these tips about machines to use. I used to belong to a gym and hope to do so again. Running alone isn’t enough to work out all parts of your body. Sounds like everyone had a good Cyber Monday!
sabaray- I’ve never heard of a Zero Runner! I’ll have to look it up. It sounds good. I am like you- I want the newest stuff. Sometimes they put the WMTM stuff on pretty fast, though.
3.5 miles this morning. May need to sneak down to the gym this afternoon here at work for a couple of miles since I have a basketball game to go to tonight.
45 minutes on the Cybex Arc + 2.3 miles on the Expresso bike; scenic “Evening Ride” with lots of small hills.
@fireandrain – that’s the stair climber/ladder machine my gym has. (They also have Stairmasters.) There’s a woman I’ve seen using the Jacob’s Ladder the last few times I’ve been at the gym – my first thought is my back would be killing me staying bent over like that.
As I’m typing this, H is on hold with Blue Cross/Blue Shield trying to get questions answered about one of their health insurance plans. Here’s a very intelligent guy who invests in healthcare companies and he can’t find/get the straight scoop from the website, AND has gotten differing information from reps in 2 previous calls. What a PITA!!! We would have stayed with our prior insurance, but the cost of that plan went up by 90%!!! That’s just absolutely nuts – especially since we hardly ever have any claims.
No formal exercise yesterday but I did manage to make it to 20K steps. Tonight is running club and I’m trying to decide if I will be smart and skip it so that hopefully the additional rest will help my knee or if I’ll go anyway and run a little slower and hopefully not aggravate it. The weather is halfway decent so that isn’t helping with the decision.
CBBBlinker - I hope you can get your insurance woes sorted out. That kind of increase is insane, I hope you’re able to find a more reasonable plan.
Interesting article on CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/25/health/sweat-out-stress/
High and moderate intensity exercise has stress-reducing benefits while leisurely exercise does not offer much.
Honestly- stress management is one major reason that I run.