Is Walking Downstairs Better than Walking Up Stairs?

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.