Step Up

Stairs in Mount Tolmie Park in Victoria, BC 2024

You've likely heard of Blue Zones -- 5 specific areas in Greece, Japan, Costa Rica, Italy, and California. They are places where people live happily with extreme longevity and few health conditions. They do many things 'right' without even trying, through their diet, exercise, and often gardening. 

After living for 3 1/2 weeks on an extremely rugged island in the Aegean sea in Greece, without a vehicle, I've come to believe one of the most effective* forms of exercise is to climb stairs (or hills). Our accommodations were perched high on a steep hill, requiring us to walk down into town and back up at least once a day. Huff-puffing our way up with hearts pounding, we thought we might keel over, lest we stop for breaks at least 3 times. We lost count of how many actual steps  -- 300+. Some days it felt a little easier, but it was always a challenging leg and cardio workout. 

STAIR STATS reveal they are less jarring to the joints than running. And, depending on your weight, can burn 20 x more calories than walking on flat ground. Woohoo! Even going down stairs burns more calories as your muscles work to slow your descent and can help relieve chronic knee** pain by strengthening key muscles around the joint. Doing stairs also improves balance. And, I was told by a Greek, it will give you buns of steel!  

Most of us are around stairs every day -- so a cheap and accessible workout, albeit not usually scenic. We can choose stairs over elevators and go up or down those 2 flights to the dentist's office. Small decisions can make a difference.

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** knees Healthline notes

* Rich and I both had medical physicals upon our return -- blood test revealed much improved numbers, which we attributed to the Mediterranean diet and the climbing. We can only hope to keep up those changes in some way.

Do check out the Bluezones.com or the Netflix docu series called Live to 100.