Haven’t got much time to ride currently, but can do some stair climbing during lunch break. I’m wondering if it will help bike strength at all or would it be a waste of time?
It’s got to build glute strength so surely it’s got to help to some degree. But what do I know…
I am thinking the same thing - I don’t think it will harm my biking but I don’t wont to waste my time if it won’t be an improvement…
I am not too certain that it will 100% help your cycling, but if you are short on training time a workout is a workout. Stairs kick ass. I like to alternate one trip up skip stairs the next work on fast feet and hit em all. I try and do at least 10 flights three of four times a day during work when I have a few minutes off. Fast up and fairly fast down and I don’t break a sweat and don’t look too gassed when I return to work.
You have to figure the vertical gained can’t be bad for the cardiovascular or legs. Sometimes you have to make work when you can get it.
I don’t have a technical answer but one little tid bit is do a Google search on Danny Chew. He was one of the great ultradistance cyclers of all time (2x RAAM champ) and also on pace to ride one million miles. He passed a million kilometers two years ago. But interesting that he is also one of the world’s best competitive stair climbers. So biking and stair climbing tends to be somewhat complimentary. although n=1 here.
My guess is that it will help when you are in a situation that you cannot train on the bike (or a stationary of any sort).
Stepping up a step is very, very similar to the movement you make pedalling a bike. It’s all low-intensity stuff, but the muscles will get worked in a similar way. (ie. don’t look for improvement but rather maintenance of fitness).
And remember that the muscular adaptations are specific to a degree…specific to hip angle.
If you want it to be more like cycling bend forward at the waist. You will find that this recruits the glutes more than standing upright.
I’m not sure. I did a 180 floor stair climb in March and was talking to a lady there and she asked me how I trained up for it. I told her I didn’t, I used a stairmill at the gym once and went about my ususal routine of biking and running. She claimed the biking made me a good climber.
She was on the staff, so maybe she’s in the know?
Yes, but I´m not sure how much good some occasional stair climbing during the day does. I´ve done something like an interval workout with running/skipping 10*400 steps in a long stairway nearby. Great workout.
It can’t hurt but I don’t know how much it will help.
Specificity.
-Jot