Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 9, September 2003
Copyright 2003 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article and photos below in your research. Be sure to quote the Seattle Sun as your source.
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Seattle Staircases let you climb your way to fitness
By JAMES BUSH
Seattle's most beloved exercise machines aren't found in any health club.
This city of hills is also a city of steps. Public stairways not only connect neighborhoods, they can also serve as an effective exercise aid, particularly for hikers, skiers and runners.
"The biggest benefit is that it's a very efficient cardiovascular workout as compared to running on flat ground," says Dr. Mark Harrast, a University of Washington assistant professor of rehabilitation medicine, orthopedics, and sports medicine. Running steps takes more effort, uses more muscle groups, and gets the athlete to a higher heart rate quicker, he says. "It's more taxing to go against gravity and pull yourself up those stairs."
Stair training is especially valuable because it mimics the challenges of specific sports, says Dr. John O'Kane, a UW assistant professor of orthopedics and sports medicine and the Huskies' head team physician. "For instance," he says, "the people you see going up and down those stairs might be training to climb Mount Rainier."
Also, O'Kane continues, stair climbing can provide a fairly high intensity workout for athletes looking to train their muscles for competition. "In football, one of the things you want to be able to do is move from a stance position and be explosive and strong coming out of that stance," he says. Football players running stadium steps has become a familiar sight because of the strengthening benefits to gluetal muscles, hamstrings, quadraceps, and calf muscles that stair training can provide.
Stairclimbing is even a sport of its own. For the past 14 years, runners have braved the 52-floor Washington Mutual Tower Stairclimb to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The Columbia Tower has also featured its own stairclimbing event, the Fire Fighter Stair Climb, which draws more than 600 participants annually.
Winter sports enthusiasts are also particularly devoted to stair training. The
Alpine Ascents International Web site includes a list of Seattle staircases. Writing on the Altrec.com Web site, Kaj Bune recommends stair training over the health club Stair Master machine because running real stairs helps to improve full body balance, gives you a better upper body workout, and allows you to breathe fresh air while exercising.
Stair training has its disadvantages, however. "It's pretty stressful on your joints, especially your knees," says Harrast.
"You can be significantly injured falling down stairs," adds O'Kane, "so I think it's important that you have decent light, and that you don't work yourself to a level where you slip and fall."
One key rule of stair training, especially for novices, is that you may run up stairs, but you shouldn't try to run down. Harrast, a runner himself, recalls that when he lived in Chicago, he would join a friend running up the stairs of their 18-story apartment building, then take the elevator down to the ground floor. "Taking the elevator down is really the key when doing that many stairs," he says.
While some athletes can work themselves up over time to running down stairs, adds O'Kane, "for people with preexisting joint problems, I would not suggest that they run down stairs."
Also, stair training is recommended as part of a complete exercise program, notes Harrast. "Running stairs is probably better for the athlete looking for that competitive edge," he says. "I don't recommend it to the general weekend warrior."
His suggested workout is a three- to five-minute stairclimb followed by a one- to two-minute rest then repeated as necessary.
Seattle's most famous stairclimb traverses the Howe and Blaine Street rights of way up the west side of Capitol Hill from Lakeview Boulevard to 10th Avenue East. Its popularity is at least partially due to its height about 400 feet of elevation gain (and almost 300 steps) from bottom to top.
While North Seattle's stairclimbs may not quite match these numbers, there are several street staircases that can provide a significant athletic challenge. The North End's largest is the NE 135th Street stairclimb, which rises 294 feet from 42nd Avenue Northeast to 40th Avenue Northeast. Neighborhood resident Noelle Foster says she has been climbing these steps regularly for two decades to train as a runner. She's not alone, her mother climbs the steps four times daily with a group of friends, as do the firefighters from Lake City Station No. 39. Foster does a series of climbs, first taking the steps one at a time, then taking them two at a time. She generally keeps to a steady walk, however. "I can run up them once or twice," notes Foster, but even that can make for sore legs the following day.
The North End's best staircases
(Ranked by height, accessibility and proximity to parks. We have been creative in naming them.)
1. Cedar Park Stepscraper: NE 135th St. from 42nd Avenue Northeast to 40th Avenue Northeast (294 feet, 196 treads, 10 landings): The champion. A straight staircase with a short section of sidewalk before the last two flights. Close to the Burke-Gilman Trail; you can combine this in a loop course with staircase No. 8 below.
2. Laurelhurst Leg-alizer: NE Laurelcrest Lane from 50th Avenue Northeast to 51st Avenue Northeast (206 feet, 82 treads, 11 landings): A steep, challenging stairclimb.
3. Late-for-the-Lake-City-bus Stairs: Lake City Way Northeast at Northeast 103rd Street (183 feet, 89 treads, 10 landings): Climb here on weekend mornings, so as to cut down your carbon monoxide intake.
4. Golden Gardens Giddy-up: Actually three staircases, which allow runners to go up the gentle slope from the foot of the curving drive all the way up to the two steeper staircases to 32nd Avenue Northwest with a bit of running in between.
5. Go Green Lake Stairs: 2nd Avenue Northeast from Northeast 75th Street to Northeast 77th Street (127.5 feet, 71 treads, 4 landings): Gets extra points for close proximity to Green Lake.
6. Sacajawea Steps: NE 95th from Lake City Way to 20th Avenue Northeast (153 feet, 119 treads, seven landings): The bottom half of the old, straight "Sacajawea Steps" were replaced by a differently aligned set of staircases when the new retaining wall was built in the late 1990s. Loses points for being on a busy arterial.
7. Lake View Stairway: Northeast 43rd St. from 55th Avenue Northeast to 56th Avenue Northeast (90 feet, 68 treads, 3 landings): An interesting straight staircase that goes from 55th NE down to a little shoreline viewpoint on Lake Washington. Close to houses and hard to find, but a nice choice to vary your routine. Take NE 45th Street, which turns into West Laurel Drive NE, then winds down the hill and becomes 55th NE.
8. Lake Washington Warm-up: Northeast 130th Street from Riviera Place to 42nd Avenue Northeast (90 feet, 79 treads, 3 landings): Another multiple set separated by a walkway, this one gets extra points because it's directly on the Burke-Gilman Trail and because of its proximity to the Cedar Park Stepscraper (just turn right at the top).
9. Woodland Park Walk: Fremont Avenue North at North 62nd Street (74 feet, 55 treads, 2 landings): A nice, if comparatively small staircase just north of the Woodland Park Zoo.
10. Lake View Stairway 2: Northeast 45th St. right of way from 54nd Avenue Northeast to 53rd Avenue Northeast and from 53rd Avenue Northeast to 52nd Avenue Northeast (combined 91 feet, 62 treads): Probably not enough steps and there's a residential street to cross in between the two staircases, but both are shaded and there's a great view of Lake Washington from the bottom steps.
11. Triple Decker: Northeast 52nd Street from 22nd Avenue Northeast to 21nd Avenue Northeast (104 feet, 79 treads, 3 landings)
Northeast 52nd Street from 21st Avenue Northeast to 22nd Avenue Northeast (90 feet, 62 treads, 3 landings): There's even a third staircase in this hillclimb, but either set of stairs is probably adequate for stairstepping. Together they're quite a workout.