Stairs

Generally speaking, I prefer to take the stairs instead of the elevator. Elevators you have to wait for, and then you have to stop and let other people on and off and sometimes they are crowded and sometimes they smell, but mostly you are just standing there. I prefer to be moving. I will admit that when we stayed on the 47th floor of the Westin in downtown Seattle, I did not even think about taking the stairs, but four or five floors does not phase me. I may have to stop at the top to catch my breath, but that is okay.

There is a large quantity of talk these days about the large number of people in America who are overweight and how we should all be getting more exercise. I am one of them, and I am working on it. One of the common recommendations is to take the stairs instead of the elevator. What I have noticed is that most stairwells in modern buildings these days are fire stairs. All concrete, steel and big pipes with maybe a splash of paint.

If we are really serious about people using the stairs, buildings should be designed so that stairways are the first option, not the last. I have been in a number of buildings recently where you cannot use the stairs to go up. Some places the ground floor door to the stairs is locked from the outside. Some places the door to the floor you want may be locked from the inside.

It may seem foolish to equip skyscrapers with easily accessible stairways, but if you build it, they will climb, especially if the stairs are on the outside.

Near as I can tell, stair climbing burns about 4 Calories for every 10 steps, or 15 Calories for 3 flights of stairs. Walking on level group consumes about 100 Calories for every mile. So walking up the stairs of a 10 story building should burn as many calories as a walking one mile. 10 stories times 25 steps per story equals 250 steps, divided by 10, and then times by 4 gives you 100 Calories. Does not seem quite fair, does it? I would be beat after climbing 10 stories, but climbing stairs is harder work, you are burning energy faster, and that is what makes you tired.