If You Can Climb This Many Flights of Stairs Without Stopping, You’re in Peak Shape

Eatthis ^ | June 10, 2025 | Jarrod Nobbe, MA, CSCS

[ChicagoConservative27]

News flash: Your ability to climb stairs may be the ultimate health test. This everyday activity demands leg strength, cardiovascular fitness, balance, and coordination, especially when climbing flight after flight without stopping. It’s simple, accessible, and brutally honest about where your fitness stands.

Health professionals and performance coaches often use stair climbing to gauge heart health and endurance. In fact, a 2023 study published in Atherosclerosis found that climbing more than five flights of stairs (approx 50 steps) daily was associated with a lower risk of ASCVD types independent of disease susceptibility..

[tech_rjmarce1]

<<…lights cigarette…>>

<<<…gets on escalator>>>

[Georgia Girl 2]

I can do this 4 steps from the deck to our yard twice. 😉

[Uncle Miltie]

I stair master for 5 minutes on level 7. I count about 400 stair steps, or 40 flights.

Then I do 5 minutes each on recumbent bike, hand and arm cardio machine, elliptical, sit up bike.

That’s after 75 minutes on 23 weight machines and 15 minutes of stretching.

[21twelve]

I have no trouble with stairs, until I have to carry something up them. It is unbelievable how much harder that makes it. I need to start working out. I can be on my feet all day working no problem, but it is amazing how much some extra weight adds to the energy required to get up the stairs.

I’ve started wearing a backpack with a couple gallons of water in it for my daily walks. But I think I need to do some actual leg routines.

[mass55th]

"I have no trouble with stairs, until I have to carry something up them."

I've got bone on bone in my knees. Fractured the right knee about three years ago. They told me I'd probably need knee replacements. I told them I hoped I was dead before then. I found that putting the bags on two steps above where I'm standing, then lifting each bag and putting them two steps higher, and doing that until I get up all three flights, helps when the bags are heavy. I hate making two trips from my car, so I'll put some stuff in a bag I can carry on my shoulder, then grab the last two bags. Once I make it into the apartment building from the parking lot, I'm set. It might take me a little longer, but I'm not in any pain or huffing and puffing at the end. I never smoked, so I'm lucky that my lungs are still good. Carrying stuff on your back does make it easier, because the weight is better distributed. They told me recently that I needed a full left shoulder replacement, but I'm left handed so I'm not about to fool around with the arm I actually need. If it was the right shoulder, I wouldn't hesitate.

[vpintheak]

I’m m older, overweight, and not in great shape. I can do 5 flights easy. This is nuts.

[frank ballenger]

Thanks for the advice. I may have to do it.

[21twelve]

“They told me I’d probably need knee replacements. I told them I hoped I was dead before then.”

I have a friend that got one knee replacement done years ago when he was about 72. After a year of pain and barely able to walk the doctor had to do some major work as the bone below the joint had decayed or something. It was another couple of years before he could walk normally on it. He still has trouble with it (now 80 years old) but he seems to get around okay.

He decided his other knee will never get worked on, even though it needs it.

[shaggy eel]

I’ve been calling myself Iron Bones

,,, copyright that one!

[mass55th]

"He decided his other knee will never get worked on, even though it needs it."

I'm sorry your friend has gone through hell with that knee replacement. His feelings are common among people who have had it done on one knee. I was at the local Indian casino with old friends yesterday. We began talking to a woman who was sitting at the machine one over from us. She had one knee done, and said she would never do the other one because she had so much trouble with it.

[VideoDoctor]

I never bought into this BS where retired people should just kick back and take it easy.

I AGREE! You've got to have a REASON to get out of bed in the morning or, your life is headed nowhere!

[mabarker1]

I watched a guy bounce and tumble down the concrete stairs during a Fleetwood Mac Concert in Houston back in the mid-70’s while holding a plastic cup of Beer and landed on his feet and still had the Beer in his hand then walked away back to his seat.

I don’t think he spilled any of the Beer either...

[ChicagoConservative27]

You’re welcome!

[sopo]

Worth the price of admission. But tickes were probably only about $15 then , right?

[mabarker1]

That sounds about right. I miss those days. I made a career out of going to Concerts and collecting T-Shirts. Was working at a shop making Displays for the Oil Company Convention that was at the Astrodome and Convention Center every year and making $10.00 @ hour working after school and weekends. BIG MONEY for a 14 year old.

I remember the Tickets for Jethro Tull were $8.50 and I was able to get a ticket for Led Zeppelin from a “scalper” for $10.00 face value was $7.50.

My first Concert was The Doobie Brothers and second was Pink Floyd- Animals. Don’t remember the rest of them in order but pretty much if they came to Houston I/We went to see them.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Irritately little “information” in those paragraphs.
No listed number of how many (10 foot) stairs you need to climb and no time period (regularly, each hour, once, or total over the whole day) for climbing that number.

Yes, they said 50 steps was “a test” for flexibility and lung capacity. But that is a test, NOT an exercise regime nor a one-time-a-day activity.

I can do 50 pushups. Should I do that every hour? Once a day? 5 repetitions of 10 pushups every hour? 4 times a day? Or is 50 pushups actually damaging my body if done more than one a week as a test for endurance?

I cannot train for a marathon by running only 1K every day. I should not train for a marathon by running 25K every day.

[Romulus]

Aren’t we all.

[EVO X]

You raise a good point. I use to be able to walk 10K steps without resting and burn some calories. I can’t do that at my age anymore. I can do 5K steps. If I play 18 holes of golf with a cart I average a bit over 5K steps, but only burn about a third of the calories if I take 5K steps continuously..

[dennisw]

I was in top shape at age 12. I quickly climbed the stairs 2 at a time in the Washington Monument. 500ft up. So roughly 40 stories I suppose.
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Visitors are no longer allowed to climb the stairs to the top of the Washington Monument. The steps closed in 1976 due to safety concerns, including heart attacks and injuries from falling down.

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How many steps are there in the Washington Monument? There are 896 steps from the ground level to the observation level at 500 feet. The stairs have been closed to the public since 1976. Is there any steel or rebar in the Washington …

[Robert A Cook PE]

Hillary “only” slips four or five steps at a time.

(I still think she would have been unable to “walk up stairs to the stage” for a campaign debate debate in 2024, if she wad been able to run any campaign at all. ALL of her TV appearances the past years have been sitting down, most with her already in place on set before the cameras turn on. )