I got on the stairclimber machine this morning. Holy crap! That thing just about killed me. I like to think I'm sort of in shape after five months of exercising almost every day, at a fairly intense level. I can jog 30 minutes at 5mph, do the elliptical machine for 30 minutes on the Hills Plus program, do concentrated bicep curls with a 15-pound dumbbell, but the stairclimber kicked my ass big time. I felt like a trembling weakling, like the first time I tried to jog.
After ten minutes and 46 flights of stairs, I jumped off that stairclimber like someone had set a fire under me. I could barely breathe, my heart was racing at 136 bpm the entire time, the same as when I jog, but jogging is so much easier. Sweat poured off me dripping down onto the machine. Who knew this innocent looking machine was really a device of torture. No wonder there are only two stairclimbers in my gym, which has about 80 pieces of cardio equipment (yes, I counted them one day when I was bored). I know why hardly anyone ever uses the stairclimber, because it hurts like hell.
I have a new challenge. I was getting bored with the cross ramp, elliptical, bike and treadmill. I needed something different to shake up my muscles, I think I found it in the stairclimber. Tomorrow I'll try for 11 minutes, with a goal of getting up to 30 minutes. Right now that seems absolutely impossible, but I thought that about the elliptical and jogging. Anything is possible (if it doesn't kill me first).
Exercise 7/20/2008 - 1 hour cardio:
Elliptical - 30 mins.
Bike - 20 mins.
Stairclimber - 10 mins.
HRM: 754 calories
Sunday, July 20, 2008
In honor of Pamela and her stairs...
Posted by Diana at 1:20 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
OMG! I said before that you are my hero and it's still true! Yikes! I'm impressed. I might do 46 flights of stairs, but half of them are going down the stairs. I never would have been able to do what you did! How did your legs feel afterwards? LOL mine always feel kind of like jelly just doing the bit that I do. You're amazing!
Pamela - don't be too impressed. Even though the stairclimber is super hard for me, it's not like I'm doing real stairs. Sort of like jogging on the treadmill versus jogging outside. It's much more difficult in the real world. So when the machine said 46 flights, it's probably more like 10 real flights. It's still hard though, but you motivated me!
Post a Comment