Believe it there are clearly big benefits to walking
downstairs! A study actually tested the
benefits of walking downstairs. The study
was done with obese woman who were 60 or older.
They divided the group into two groups of 15 woman – one group walked up
stairs and one group walked downstairs.
For the downstairs group they took an elevator up and walked
downstairs. The other group walked up
and took the elevator down. Both
groups did their workout 2 times per week for 12 weeks.
Average HR during downstairs walking was about 23 beats per
minute lower in this group compared to the group that walked up stairs. Resting heart rate and systolic blood
pressure decreased more in the group that walked downstairs, and only the group
that walked downstairs had an increase on bone mineral density. In addition, triglycerides, cholesterol,
glucose, insulin all dropped in the downstairs walking group only. The downstairs walking group also saw an
increase in HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) while the other group did not. Finally, the downstairs walking group
shoulder a greater increase in strength than the other group.
Why did this happen? The key is that the downstairs walking group were mostly using eccentric
contractions to control their descent while the other group used concentric
contractions where the muscle shortens under tension.
Both forms of contractions are important, but we tend to
neglect eccentric muscle contractions because it is more difficult to train
this function. This is where machines
like the reACT Trainer (www.reacttrainer.com)
come in handy since it makes it easy and safe to focus on eccentric muscle
function like walking downstairs.
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