If you know me, you’ll know that when the weather gets warmer, I like to take my cardio outside. Outside on a set of stairs to be more specific.
There’s a park about 20 minutes away from my house that has a baseball diamond with a big concrete grandstand – the perfect place for a summer workout (of death). My boyfriend LOVEESSS this kind of workout (I’m 100% joking), mostly because it is HARD. Perfect for full body conditioning, burning hardcore calories, and creating some power. All you need is a set of stairs, and some trusty mini bands – if you haven’t gotten yourself some mini bands yet honestly wyd???
Here are my favourite stair exercises:
Sprints
Literally just run up the stairs as fast as you can without tripping on them.
High knees
Running up the stairs with… yep, you guessed it… high knees.
Tuck jumps
Jump and bring your knees up to your chest (or as high as you can), jumping up each stair one at a time. Warning, these are horrific.
Hops
Hop up the stairs one at a time. These exercises are really quite self-explanatory, aren’t they?
Duck Walks
Great for the booty. Place mini band just above knees, and in a squat position walk up the stairs, keeping your stance wide.
Squat jumps
This can be done with or without a mini band (the mini band adds that little extra fire to them though). Just like you’re doing regular squat jumps but do them as you’re going up the stairs.
Elevated pushups
Pushups on the stairs… place hands on a few steps higher than your feet.
Tricep dips
Like you would normally do tricep dips, except you’re on the stairs/bleachers.
Mountain climbers
Again, like a normal mountain climber except you’re on the stairs – position yourself just like you would the pushups.
How you can make a workout out of them:
There are many different ways to make a killer workout out of a set of stairs. I previously talked about structuring an intense, outdoor body weight workout in my Ladder Drills For A Killer Workout blog post which I would suggest checking out, but I will give you my go-to stairs workout here:
I usually mix up body weight exercises and the stair exercises I’ve mentioned above into a circuit-style workout. The way I’ve structured the workout is a little confusing so bare with me as I try to explain it…
Round #1:
Sprints (length of stairs), tricep dips (x20), jumping jacks (x20) – this mini circuit = 1 “rep”, repeat each “rep” 3x to = 1 “set”
Repeat this 2-4 times through, taking a rest after each “set”. So if you were to do 3 rounds, you’ll have done 9 mini circuits in total. This structure is carried through the following rounds as well.
Round #2:
Squat jumps (between 10-20 stairs depending on fitness level), banded crab walks (10 steps each way), stair hops (10/leg) – this mini circuit = 1 “rep”, repeat each “rep” 3x to = 1 “set”
Repeat this 2-4 times through, taking a rest after each “set”.
Round #3:
Tuck jumps (5-15 stairs depending on level of fitness), mountain climbers (20 total), push-ups (10 total) – this mini circuit = 1 “rep”, repeat each “rep” 3x to = 1 “set”
Repeat this 2-4 times through, taking a rest after each “set”.
Round #4:
Duck walks, calf raises (x15), high knees (length of stairs) – this mini circuit = 1 “rep”, repeat each “rep” 3x to = 1 “set”
Repeat this 2-4 times through, taking a rest after each “set”.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to comment below. A resource that I found useful when I first started looking into what kinds of exercises I could do on the stairs was a BodyBuilding.com article: “Using Stair Exercises To Improve Strength, Power, Flexibility & Conditioning!“. I would definitely recommend giving that a read if you’re wanting to know more!
Until next time
xx