How to Crush the Columbia Tower Stair Climb: Functional Stair Drills (Part II)

Make stairs fun and easy with 3-dimensional training!

By: Dr. Dan Benson, DPT, OCS, FAFS

Now, it’s time to play on the stairs!  But be careful!  After you master your foundational stair exercises from the Part I blog post, you will be ready to slowly start incorporating some of the stair drills included in the videos below.  

We filmed a functional series of warm ups and various ascent and descent drills to 3-dimensionally mobilize and strengthen your legs.  Because walking up stairs creates up to 6x our body weight in contact forces within the knee joint, it is essential that both strength and control are trained as optimally as possible. 

It is likely that ascending stairs at a faster rate results in even more forces within the knee joint.  As such, make sure you vary your stair training so the force application within the knee changes often and so that you can target more muscles in your legs.  Additionally, reach out to one of our biomechanics experts to make sure your knee is being properly supported during stair climbing by its most important friends: the foot, hip, and thoracic spine.   

Next week's final stair climbing post will include stairwell specific drills and strategies to help you achieve your personal best climb time.

As always, make sure you chat with your physical therapist before trying any of our drills!

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If you would like to support my participation and/or my team’s participation in the Big Climb, please visit: http://www.llswa.org/site/TR/Events/BigClimb?px=1693676&pg=personal&fr_id=1580 to donate.  Also, if you would like to train with the SGLRG Stair Crushers, feel free to join the group that Mo created on Facebook so that you can stay in the loop with stair workout meetups.  Training with this group is a positive, encouraging experience and can be helpful for anyone who wants to change up their fitness routine and develop some healthy leg strength and cardio fitness. 

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Reference:
- ​https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12127184

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​Dr. Dan Benson, DPT, OCS, FAFS

Forefront Physical Therapy
Belltown & South Lake Union
2720 4th Ave #115
Seattle, WA 98121