I Did the StairMaster for 45 Minutes Every Day
Climbing stairs is associated with health benefits such as improved cardiovascular health and reduced waist circumference. However, doing it for 45 minutes straight can be particularly challenging.
The StairMaster is a machine that simulates climbing an endless flight of stairs. Like on a treadmill, you can adjust the speed, and some models come with presets that include different interval speeds over a set amount of time.
While there is no formal research on the StairMaster specifically, climbing stairs as a form of exercise is associated with several health benefits, such as:
improving cardiovascular health
reducing waist circumference
reducing blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and insulin sensitivity
It can also help make completing daily tasks easier. These benefits may be observed after just four to eight weeks.
Climbing the StairMaster for 45 minutes is a recent social media trend. I tried this for one week and will share my experience below.
My setup
I thought it would be important to disclose my circumstances before diving into my review of the experience.
My cardiorespiratory fitness is low, and I am a sedentary individual. I have not engaged in regular, moderate to intense aerobic exercise for around three years. In other words, I started this challenge from zero.
I engaged in this exercise first thing in the morning, around 7:30 a.m. daily. I could not climb the StairMaster for 45 minutes straight, so I broke it into three 15-minute sessions. The StairMaster I used reported that I climbed around 40 floors per session.
I listened to an audiobook that I only played while on the StairMaster. No matter how much I wanted to listen to the book, I would reserve it for the StairMaster. I did this to motivate myself.
How to increase your time on the StairMaster
If you are like me and cannot complete the 45 minutes at once, you can break up the total time into several smaller segments.
For example, you can start with three 15-minute sessions. After you are comfortable with this, you can slowly increase the length of each session. For example, you can do two 20-minute sessions and one 5-minute session at the end.
Slowly increase the length of each session and decrease the number of sessions until you can complete the 45 minutes at once.
How I felt
This was a particularly difficult challenge for me. Climbing the StairMaster for such a long time every day, without switching to another form of exercise or taking rest days, was tiring.
Additionally, after one week, I could not complete the 45 minutes at once. I had to stop after 15 minutes each time. This is due to my low cardiorespiratory fitness, and you may be able to complete more extended periods.
My muscles did not feel sore despite not engaging in this type of exercise for a long time. If I go on a run after a long time having not done so, I feel sore afterwards, so this was interesting.
Would I do it again?
No.
This was a very taxing form of exercise for me, as I am not a fan of cardio.
I could see myself incorporating the StairMaster for a short time—maybe 15 to 20 minutes—into my usual exercise routine. However, I would not climb for 45 minutes, even broken up into multiple sessions.
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