OK,  more stats on stairs.  I'll try to keep it numerically simpler, less
cluttered.  If anyone wants the details on the spreadsheet calc, holler,
it's not a biggie at all.  The nice addition here is the watts, a la Ralph
Barone's suggestion, bec unlike nutritional/biological calories, these are
absolutely as accurate as your ruler (stair height) and stopwatch are.

OK, for raw max burns, I achieved almost 95 Cal/min or 1,074 mechanical
Watts....  holy shit...  for a duration of under 2 secs, but I'm pretty sure
I could maintain this for about 10 secs.  2 steps at a time. BW 190.

However, I don't seem to be able to get to 100 Cal/min.  A  6.9 ft rise in
1.66 secs yields the above stats, and 1.57 secs would be req'd for an even
100 Cal/min ( 1,135 W), which seems to not want to happen.

For anyone experimenting with this, there is some optimal stair spacing for
maximal power expenditure.  It really becomes apparent when sprinting
different stair cases, just an fyi.  The upperbody workout is substantial as
well.

But the really interesting stuff is the non-maximal stats.

For example, if you hobble up the stairs, super-old person style, you'll
burn 10.5 Cals/min, which is more than most assholes burn in their Bally's
aerobics classes.  About 115 W, not bad.  Keeping a 100 W bulb lit on my
generator bike is no peachy ride, bleeve me.

How hobbled is hobbled?

It's the one foot on a step, followed by the lagging foot to the SAME step,
repeat.  Where a normal single step stair climb occurs at a rate of  5 to 9
secs for about a 7 foot rise (9 secs already being pretty slow), the hobbled
climb is 15 seconds.....  really, VERY slow, you'd be quite impatient behind
this person.  And even THAT pace is good for 10 cal/min!!!   Which is equiv.
to a moderate 10 min/mile jog for the "std" 70 kg/154 lb male.
Extraordinary....
Altho, my bw is considerably above the "std" male, so the comparison is not
strict, but still illuminating.
For a strict comparison, the "std male" hobbling up stairs would be 8.5
cal/min, STILL quite a respectable number.

"Normal" single step stair climbing is good for at least 20 cal/min, and if
at all brisk, 30 cal/min.  225-350 W.

Both brisk single-steps and easy 2-steps come in at about 30 cal/min --  
about 5 sec for a 7 ft rise.  325 watts or so.

Climbing stais backwards, or even with a sidestep is an easy 15-20 cal/min,
or about 175-225 W.
I did 4 floors in 78 secs, for 15.5 cal/min.

Climbing 4 floors worth of stairs (53.5 ft)  is about 20 Cals per climb,
plus proly 20% of that when descending.
This can be done very briskly (1 or steps) in about 55 secs, for 22.5
cal/min, or about 250 W.
This can be done fast, but not break-neck, in about 30 sec (2-step), for 40
cal/min, or about 450 W.

As I noted elsewhere, a 40-50 story climb is the caloric equivalent of
running a mile, regardless of bw.  Lower that by 1/3, for the equiv to a
walked mile.

So stairs would seem to be practical for those experimenting with
stratospheric cal burns, as well as the infirmed hobbling around.  The
handrail of the stairs can be used effectively as well, and all ranges of
motions can be explored, by selecting the number steps for each, well, step.

An easy-to-memorize stat:  A 100 # person climbing 10 feet in 10 secs has a
burn of about 10 cal/min, or 135 W, for a total burn of about 2 cal.  More
or less....
--
EA

Now I know why.

Thanks EA.

Jason

A few rapid climbs produced total wattages/cal burns of 5-700 W, 60 Cal/min,
and stairs-only burns of 7-900 W, 70+ Cal/min.
These climbs are absolutely exhausting, resulting, I kid you not, in spasms
in both asscheeks....   from extreme lactic acid burn, I think.  Today I
feel some stiffness, but nothing remarkable.

I believe that if the stairs were straight runs up (no reversals of flights
on landings), I would achieve best times with extreme arm pumping, but given
the 180 deg reversals every vertical 7 feet, and the difficulty in regaining
momentum, using the arms on the railings to help pull up seemed to help
quite a bit.  That resulted in an 875 W effort, over 16 secs (stairs only),
or 600+ over 24 secs (stairs + landings).

I did some estimated calcs on 100 m sprints, and these guys seem to be
cranking out 50+ Cal/min, and poss. much more if bw is up around 200#.
Mechanical wattages would then be on the order of 500++ W, which seems kind
of low compared to moi's stair climbing, but is probably just the nature of
running vs. stair climbing.  I'm sure sprinters doing stairs would be easily
be in the 2-3,000 W range.

7-8 of these climbs provides the requisite 400 ft vert climb for the 1 mile
caloric equivalent, and it is quite the workout.  You are left gasping up at
the top.

These are actually a bit more "psychologically comfortable" than 1,000+ W
efforts up single flights, as max efforts can become unnerving after a
while -- which is the real challenge to super-heavy weightlifting.  And the
800-900W efforts over longer distances is probably a more worthwhile effort
overall, anyway.

So what I really wanted to see was how much the per-min burn would decline
over longer efforts, and it was good to see that these burns were still
substantial.

The more important result is that no matter how you climb stairs, it is a
physiologically significant event, with undoubtedly excellent fitness and
health benefits if done with any kind of consistency.
From a physics/instrumental pov, it is super-elegant how accurate the
wattage calculations can be, with 100% confidence in these numbers being
"real" -- more confidence than in, say, bike watt meters, whose readings
could very well be high-tech artifacts rather than true readings.  Whereas E
=  mgh divided by time is simply indisputable, unassailable, with the least
care in determining height and time.

With the big point being that ANYONE can do these calcs, with relative ease,
super-ease, in fact, once put into a spreadsheet.  Also, with fixed stair
heights, you can pre-determine the ascent time you would need to hit a
certain wattage.  My 94 Cal/min was achieved at 1.66 secs, and I knew I
needed 1.57 secs to hit the magic 100.  But, the times stabilized at
1.66-1.70, with no budge toward 1.57 sec.

But the point is you can use a simple "time goal" the corrlates with a known
cal/min or wattage goal, in a simple easy-to-measure way.

The biological cal burns inspire less confidence, because of the presumed
metabolic efficiencies, which frankly are just not that well understood.
Proly a universal standard efficiency should be agreed upon, on the order of
20%, so that at least relative measurements would have more meaning.
--
EA

One could arger that stair climbing, by distance, is 13 times more difficult
than running, or 20 times more difficult than walking.

Hills are of course good, too.  A mere 6% grade doubles the caloric burn of
running/walking.
There is a Nordic Track incline trainer that inclines to almost 45 deg!!!
In principle this would seem to be pretty useful, but ultimately, regular
trail/path running and plain ole stairs would proly be a better bet, from a
variety of pov's.
Not to mention that the replacement cost of the motor alone is $750.....
!!!!!

And, of course, the Bowflex Treadclimber is absolutely useless.
--
EA

An inneresting Q is:  Is cycling REALLY higher in burn than these explosive
sprints?  I've seen 2,500 W values posted for cycling, mebbe more.

The answer may be yes, as long as the cyclist is using ratraps, which allow
both legs to exert simultaneously.  Without ratraps, I suspect the values
would be somewhat less than explosive stair sprinting.

I don't think the average increase would be double that of stairs, tho, but
I think it would still be significant, on the order of 20%, when comparing
elite stair climbers to elite cyclists.  And that could be an overestimate
as well, bec I think there is some available explosivness in stairs that
might be exploitable, that is not available in cycling.

Part of the basis for my argument is that is Moi can register 1,000+ W, holy
shit, one of these olympic guys should be able to at least double this,
poss. triple it.  And if they did triple it, stair climbing would exceed
biking in max burn.

It would be very interesting to see how this would play out.  As I ramble,
now I'm not so sure that cyclists could exceed a stair sprint burn by
20%.....  additional data is that my cycle watts (with a generator of
unknown efficiency) can barely exceed 300 W, yet stair sprinting yields
1,000+....  could the generator be only 30% efficient?  Probably not, as
rock-bottom efficiency in motors/generators seems to be 70-80%...  so it
remains to be seen how this would play out.

And of course, the accuracy of the cycle watts is always an issue, as this
is a high-tech *translation* of the actual power, while the measurement in
stair climbing is fundamental.
Toward that end, if cyclists were to use accurately calibrated generators
and light buhbs, this would be a fundamental measurement, and the comparison
results would be fairly unassailable.

Heh, I should go over to rec.cycling or wherever, and piss *them* off for a
whle....  LOL
--
EA