Are Hills Or Stairs Better For Hikers In Training?

​In this episode, we explore a few considerations if you are trying to decide whether to do hill or stair training in your workout program.

Episode Chapters:

0:10 
Introduction to Hills vs. Stairs
2:49 
Practicality of Training Options
4:01 
Specific Considerations for Training
4:56 
Personal Preferences in Training
7:17 
Dealing with Injuries and Discomfort
8:50 
Conclusion and Wrap-Up
​
Episode Transcript:

[0:00] Right. Hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So today's episode,

[0:03] we are answering the question, are hills or stairs better for hikers in training? Now, this is a pretty common question I get from people in the sense that when it comes down to training as a hiker, we typically in 99% of situations want to include some type of elevation in our training. Ways we find this might do hills, might do stairs, might do box steps, might do work on the stair climber, or whatever may be.

[0:33] Usually, for what I recommend, is in general, I recommend people try to find some hills or stairs if they can with their training, because getting exposure to the up and down, up and down, is just really relevant, really, really beneficial. And this often leads to the question, what's better? Now, this particular episode was inspired by literally this question that came up been in the group the other day. And just to quote the question, to give you the full context, in general, is there a benefit for doing stairs over hill repeats? Or are they both equal if the hill is steep or long enough? And they were basically saying, hey, I have a hill relatively close to me. I have a set of stairs relatively close to me. Is there either one I should prioritize? So I kind of want to talk you through my thoughts around this and give you sort of the context of what I personally think. Now, realistically, I think whenever you are considering this type of thing, whether hills or stairs or whatever may be, the first thing any hiker wants to keep in mind is practicality. In the sense of.

[1:35] Not everyone is going to have access to everything. Typically, when I program out my elevation or this type of session, if I'm using hills or stairs or whatever it may be, I will intentionally program this out interchangeably. And I will say to someone, this session is going to be a hill or a stair session. And I say, look, we're going to do X, Y, and Z, and this, this, and this, and we're going to work at these intensities and yada and yada, but you can either use hills or stairs. The reason being, even though hills and stairs are slightly different, the reason being is I really do think practicality is the main priority. It's hard enough for most of us to stick to training in the week. It's hard enough for most of us to fit things in. So we would just want to make something sure we're practical, we're convenient. And if you have a hill nearby and a set of stairs ages away, well, you can use the hill. Or if you have a set of stairs in your apartment block and there's no hills near you, you can use the stairs. Either option, it's going to work. So the first and foremost, before even considering anything else in regards to specific benefits, for you as an individual, the answer to hills or stairs, which is better? If one is significantly more convenient or more practical for you to reach, that's the better one. So keep that in mind beyond everything else I'm going to sort of say.

[2:49] Now, beyond that, when we're tossing up hills and stairs, both of them are going to be beneficial for hikers. They're slightly different and you can get really, really, really, really, really technical, but both of them are going to be beneficial. If you can get exposure to either or both in your training, it's usually pretty good. Now, if you have the option of both and say they're equally as convenient, as a long-term program, I would usually say the most simple way of going about it is just get exposure to both. If you can fit both of those in, in different parts of your training program, perfect, awesome, you're getting the best of both worlds, you're getting some nice variation, and it's all good. So if you're looking at, say, a 12-week program, you may do four weeks of flat walking, four weeks of hills, four weeks of stairs, boom, 12 weeks, done. Or if you're doing a longer-term training program, you could do stairs and then hills, stairs and then hills, and just keep on alternating between them. That works absolutely fine. So it's a long-term thing. If you can get exposure to both, perfectly fine. Alternatively, as a shorter term thing, if there's one that's 10 minutes away and one that's 20 minutes away, just do whatever's more convenient. Again, keep that in mind.

[4:02] Now, beyond that, there are a few specific considerations where we may lean a little bit more towards one than the other. Now, consideration number one is if you are preparing for a specific adventure, which has lots of hills or lots of stairs, and it's kind of in the back of your mind worrying about you, I would probably lean to the more specific situation. So, for example, if you were preparing for Kilimanjaro, climbing up a mountain, and you were like, look, I'm a little bit worried about the elevation, should I do stairs or hills? Well, maybe go find a nice long hill and practice going up and down that, so you can get exposure to that.

[4:44] Alternatively, if you were going to go do the Inca Trail, and you're like, well, there's a lot of stairs on that, or a lot of steps on that, well, maybe I'll practice the stairs. So, if you have a specific situation or context you're trying to prepare for, go for that.

[4:57] The second consideration is personal preference now what i mean by this is if you have a personal preference but towards one or the other if you really really really enjoy hill training or if you really really really really enjoy stair training you may want to intentionally do the one you enjoy a little bit less the reason being we tend to lean towards things that we enjoy we tend to avoid things that are a little bit harder for us. So if we really enjoy one of them and we're always doing that, we're perfectly fine and perfectly comfortable doing that, more than likely the other one's getting neglected a little bit. So if you're the situation where you're like, hey, I've just been doing hills forever, well, maybe it's time to go do some stairs, even if you don't love it so much. And in a practical situation, you may do eight weeks of hill training because you really enjoy it and that's just something you enjoy. And then every eight weeks, you do two or three weeks or four weeks of stairs, and you just get little doses of that and go through.

[5:59] And the final consideration to this, and this is one that does need to be treated delicately, you do need to be very, very intentional around this. But if you're dealing with an ache, a pain, or a previous injury, and you're aware that one of these is a little bit more aggravating than the other, it's definitely worthwhile.

[6:24] Being intentional around how you use these in the training. And what I mean by this is let's use the example, really common example, knee pain. Let's sort of say you're a hiker. You've got a history of knee pain. You are aware that on the hills, yeah, they're kind of okay. They're all right. But on the stairs, I'm aware that when I go downstairs or upstairs, I get knee pain. Well, in your situation, early on in your training, when you're first developing your fitness, when you're first letting the knee settle, maybe you want to emphasize hills a little bit more because it's a bit more comfortable. It's a bit less aggravating and you want to lean towards that. You may do that for a little while, but then eventually, once you're feeling a little bit fitter, a little bit stronger, a little bit more confident, then it's really, really, really worthwhile intentionally exposing your knees or whatever ache and pain you have to the thing that causes discomfort.

[7:17] This is exposure therapy where we essentially get on those stairs, teach the knees that it isn't the big deal in the world, get the knees to respond and adapt to this type of stress. So when you're on the trail, it's a little bit easier. Now, the tricky thing here is most people, when they dive into the aggravating thing, they just dive in the deep end. And they're like, well, I get knee pain on stairs, or I've had that in the past, but I've been training really, really well. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go do stairs, but I'm going to do 30 minutes of climbing. And then they wake up the next day like oh my gosh i'm so much pain so if you're doing this you have to be very very delicate you have to pull it back and sort of like slowly work things up and see how you go but in that type of situation if you are aware that hills or stairs cause more discomfort early days of training lean towards ones more comfortable later days of training probably worthwhile doing the one that's a little bit more uncomfortable so there you go that's kind of my thoughts on this realistically if you have access to both hills and stairs.

[8:18] They're going to be just as good as each other. Yes, there's some things may be slightly different. Yes, there may be different levels of steepness, different levels of length and all of that, but all things being equal, either of them are going to work for a hiker.

[8:32] Always, always, always, I would first ask yourself, what is most practical? What is most realistic? What is the one you're most likely to do in your week? And whatever that is, go with it. But if all things are just as equal, then a few extra considerations there and just get an exposure to both and just

[8:48] introduce it at the right times. I know that was a little bit rambly today on a subject which could have probably been summed up in about four or five sentences, but I did think it was probably worthwhile just talking through a few situations, which I guess don't really get discussed a huge amount, because I think hopefully it'll be kind of useful for a few people. But either way, I'm going to wrap things up there before I ramble on any more today. I hope that makes sense. I hope that was useful. If anyone's curious about their particular context and their particular situation and how this may fit into you, come and find me in the community group, the training for hiking community group on school. I can leave a link for that in the show notes below. And if you have any questions about this and your situation, put up a post. I'm always happy to answer in there.

[9:31] On top of that is if you were in a situation where you're like, cool, I'm training for an adventure. I want to introduce elevation. I want some help planning this out. Or maybe I struggle with getting an ache or pain when I do hills or stairs and I need a very intentional approach to get here or anything like that. If you were interested in learning a little bit about our online personal training for hikers, you can go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. And I'll leave a link for that in the show notes below as well. But with that being said, I'm going to wrap things up here. Thank you for listening. Hope it made sense. Hope you've enjoyed it. And we'll talk to you soon. Bye.
​

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