Running up stairs

Question

Would running up some typical stairs in a home be good cardio ?

If so how many times should I run up stairs to start burning fat.

My house is a two floor house.

Answer 1

Short answer: No. Using the stairs in your house is likely not going to yield any good results. In fact, it may do more harm than good.

Running up stairs can be a great way to train cardio, specifically for interval training, but I'm afraid the intervals are simply going to be too short, and you're going to be spending more time running down the stairs, which is hell for your knees and hips.

I would caution against using stairs in your home for this.

A stairmaster is good because it eliminates the "back down" element of climbing steps.

Meanwhile, a longer uphill area that takes you about 4 minutes to ascend, would be a perfect place to start.

If so how many times should I run up stairs to start burning fat.

This can't really be answered in a straightforward way. You start burning fat when the calories you require can no longer be taken from your food intake. If you've eaten in the past few hours, your body will use that for energy instead of burning fat.

By the amazing laws of physics, you spend energy simply by increasing your altitude in any capacity. But even if the staircase was 10 meters high, the amount of calories burned per ascension is very small.

If you added more details about your weight, and the height difference between the two floors, we could do the math, but I'm afraid the amount of times you'd have to run up a set of stairs in order to have a sizable impact, might be demotivating to look at.