Smart Training for Your Best Stair Climb

By Chris Serb
January 2005
Chicago Athlete

When I competed in my first stair-climbing race, the Aon Building's "Step Up For Kids" in February 2000, I thought, how hard could it be to race 81 flights of stairs? After all, as a candidate in the Chicago Fire Academy, I routinely ran up our staircase toting heavy firefighting gear and equipment. And as a competitive Clydesdale racer, I finished 5Ks in around 20 minutes. Yes, I determined, I was in excellent shape . . . no extra training necessary.

Boy, was I wrong.

I started up with a nice quick sprint, the same way we always ran our stairs at the Fire Academy, but that staircase is only five stories high . . . five floors into the Aon Building, I realized this would be a much different race. My lungs started to burn around the 20th floor, and I gasped for breath through the 40th. My breathing returned to normal, but my quadriceps and calves tightened with lactic acid buildup through the 60th floor. For the last 21 floors I huffed, puffed, staggered, yanked the handrails, and prayed: Please God, help me get to the top. And if I do, I promise, I'll make sure I train for the next stair climb, if I'm ever stupid enough to enter another one again!

Perhaps you signed up for Step Up For Kids or Hustle Up The Hancock months ago, figuring you'd have plenty of time to work your way into shape. Now those races are just weeks away, and you need to get on a training program fast or else you'll end up like I did five years ago . . . sprinting the first 20 floors, then crawling, scratching, heaving your way to the top.

"Going out too fast is the biggest mistake that both fit and unfit athletes make," said Terry Purcell. "Most people underestimate how difficult stair climbing really is."

Purcell should know. The Springfield, IL, resident has competed in dozens of stair climbs around the world and has won several, including the 1998 Empire State Building race, the 2002 and 2003 Hustle Up the Hancock, the 2003 Go Vertical! Sears Tower race, and the 2003 Step Up For Kids race.

For all his success, Purcell doesn't run a lot of flights himself. "Actual training in the stairs is not an enjoyable experience-it's not like a nice run in the forest," he said. "So I try to find other activities to tax the legs and lungs."

Lori Dunn, an age-group triathlete from Villa Park, IL, has a different approach. "Doing the actual course or doing the stairs is best," she says. "Any stairway will do: in your home, in the mall, in the apartment complex. Some people head to Palos and use the stairs leading up to the toboggan chutes!"

Dunn had extraordinary success last year, her first experience as a competitive stepper. She was the second-fastest female at Step Up for Kids and third-fastest female at Hustle up the Hancock. Though she was a novice to stair-racing, Dunn already had a terrific aerobic base as an Ironman Triathlon competitor.

"I believe on average six weeks of running the stairs at least two times a week will do, if you're on a regular fitness program," she said. "Just to make it up to the top, start now and begin at least once a week on stairs and build a 10 percent weekly increase. Work your way to three times a week on the stairs and continue to cross-train on other days."

While Purcell does hit the stairs a few times while gearing up for a race, he trains with just about any aerobic exercise that taxes the legs and lungs. He recommends training on a "versa-climber" machine that's similar to climbing a ladder, incline elliptical machines, and running or biking on a steep hill.

"The basic premise is that you must go outside of your comfort zone twice a week for six to eight weeks before the event," he said. "The repetitions must last for at least two to three minutes, and the total time of exertion must exceed my total race time." At the other end of the spectrum from ultra-competitive steppers like Purcell and Dunn are the Jon Blackburns of the world. A few years ago, nobody would have expected Blackburn to enter, much less finish, a competitive stair climb.

The Zionsville, IN, resident tipped the scales at 340 pounds in December 2002. "I would get out of breath just taking the groceries in," Blackburn said. "But I could go up and down the steps OK. I knew that my legs and thighs were pretty strong, because they'd been carrying all this weight around for years."

Blackburn began his fitness program slowly, by climbing up and down a six-inch step in his garage for 10 minutes at a stretch. He gradually increased the size of the step and the length of his workouts, added some cross-training on the NordicTrack machine, and eventually began climbing real stairs.

By November 2003-less than a year after he started getting in shape-Blackburn was down below 200 pounds, and he celebrated his new lease on life by entering the Go Vertical! Sears Tower race. He finished in the top 20 percent, and has competed in several other races since.

While he might finish a few minutes behind world-class steppers like Purcell and Dunn, Blackburn's training regimen would challenge even the heartiest athlete. He doesn't have a high-rise for training purposes, so he makes do with a two-story stairway at his local church.

"Three times a week I go up two flights, 15 steps each," Blackburn said. "That doesn't sound like much, but eventually I could go up and down them 200 to 300 times."

He adds regular cross-training sessions on a NordicTrack machine or roller blades. When he was still working his way into shape in 2003, he might spend 20 minutes climbing stairs, but he now routinely climbs for two hours during each workout.

I wish I'd benefited from the collective wisdom of Purcell, Dunn, and Blackburn back in 2000. I did eventually finish that first stair race and it took several days to recover. After skipping the race the next two years, I found myself back in the stairway for the 2003 Step Up For Kids.

I began my stepping-specific training about eight weeks before the race with a 20-minute Stepmill session. I worked my way up to three one-hour sessions, slightly slower than my expected race intensity and with two short water breaks, every week. I then added live stairwell training in a friend's 44-story high-rise building (44 stories in her residential high-rise are roughly equivalent to 35 stories in the Aon Building). Eventually I could climb her stairs six times in a workout session, taking the elevator back down between each climb to save my knees.

The results? Not nearly as fast as Purcell, slightly slower than Dunn, but still respectable. And my Chicago Fire Department "Heavy Timber" team won the title for fastest overall team. Most importantly, my legs and my lungs, while taxed at the end, recovered within minutes.

With some good training and a smart race strategy, you can avoid making my mistakes and have an excellent stair race.