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Stair training challenge

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Sydney, NSW Australia Stairs, Walking Health & Fitness

Looking for a time efficient and effective way to increase overall fitness?  Stair training is relatively low impact exercise and you don’t need any fancy gear or equipment, just a decent pair of shoes. We are blessed with well-maintained stairs and tracks in our local National Parks, but any set of stairs will do. And stair training is free.

Stair training strengthens the calves, quads and gluts as you lift your body up each step, while also providing a cardiovascular workout. A great combination for trek training, general fitness and weight control.

High intensity interval training

HIIT (high intensity interval training) is the latest fashion in the fitness industry, however this technique has been used for decades by trekkers and athletes. Short bursts of high intensity exercise are followed by recovery periods. Stair training is a brilliant form of HIIT. A ratio of 1:1 work:rest is ideal.

Aim for each interval to be between 1 and 2 minutes and for the overall session to last between 30 and 45 minutes. HIIT can easily be incorporated into a 2 or 3 hour endurance session.

RPE – Perceived Rate of Exertion – is a method used to gauge the intensity level of exercise. 10 is maximum effort and 1 is very light, 9 is very hard, 7 to 8 vigorous, 4 to 6 moderate. For stair training, aim for an RPE between 8 and 9.

The Bond Steps – 84
Gira Gira Steps – 100
Sarahs Walk – 175

Stair training guidelines

Warm up with a ten minute walk to your first set of stairs. Warm up is particularly important before a stair training session, to prepare the body for harder exercise and to prevent injury.

Posture – shoulders back, down and relaxed. Lead with the chest and have a slight bend at the hips to bring your centre of gravity over your hips. Turn your core on by gently pulling the naval back towards the spine to protect the lower back and provide stability. Don’t forget to use the arms. And look ahead, not down.

Footwork – where possible aim to place the whole foot on the stair, striking the ground between ball and mid-foot. This allows you to use those gluteal muscles and save the quads for the downward flight. Landing only on the toes puts more strain on the calves and shins. To work your muscles, take the stairs two at a time. Mix it up during the session, but be careful not to aggravate any grumpy knees.

Intensity – No need to get too scientific here. If you can still talk you are not going at a hard enough pace. Save the talk for descending. As mentioned above you can aim for a time-based interval say 1 to 2 minutes. I like to aim for the top of the stairs or a particular landing. Rest to let the heart rate drop slightly and then continue going up, or use the downward flight as your recovery.

Descending – What goes up must come down. It’s important to train the downhill as well as the uphill. Think light, fast and relaxed when descending. Walk down (don’t run) and stay focussed to prevent falls. Arms can be used for balance. A railing can be used for support if necessary.

Increasing intensity – As your fitness increases you will need to increase the intensity of the workout. This can be done in a number of ways.

Wearing a pack is the obvious one if you are training for a trek. Start with around 5kg and only increase very gradually, maximum 1kg per week.  Take care when descending with a heavy pack.  Mix it up, do a few sets with pack on and a few sets with no pack.

Other ways to up the intensity are to increase the pace, the length of each interval, or the number of intervals.

Hiking Poles – can be used to protect ageing knees or when carrying a heavy pack. When ascending place the poles on the step in front of you, step up without hoisting yourself, then think about pushing off with a backwards movement – great for the triceps. When descending have the poles in front and remember they are for support, don’t lean on them.

Flat Rock Stairs
Natural Bridge Stairs
Mt Ku-ring-gai Stairs

Cross training

Stair training is a great complement to other forms of training. It is important to also do endurance walking to condition the muscles and joints to longer sustained exercise. And you should also consider throwing in some basic strength and core exercises. I am a great fan of – you guessed it – no frills, old fashioned body weight exercises such as planks, squats and push ups.

We are surprised at how popular our stair training sessions are. Who would have thought stair training could be so much fun?

Do you know any great city or bush stairs for interval workouts? Let us know in the comments.

Stair Routes

The Stairs

Some of our favourite stair training locations in Sydney city and bush

Stair Events

UTA951 – Ultratrail dash up the 951 Furber Steps – our training inspiration
Stadium Chomp  – capital cities, various challenges
Sydney Tower, Sydney – 1504 stairs
Eureka Climb, Melbourne – 1600 stairs

 

Sydney Urban Workouts – Stairs around Barangaroo

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Sydney, NSW Australia Walking Health & Fitness

Stair climbing intervals are a quick and effective way to improve your fitness. Walk them, run them or bound up two at a time. To liven up my Sydney CBD workday routine, I went looking for some lunchtime stairs in Sydney, exploring Barangaroo, Millers Point and Dawes Point west of the Harbour Bridge. The rule I set myself was at least 50 steps with a nice recovery run or walk to link the sets of stairs into a circuit.

Barangaroo

Barangaroo has a mix of historic stairs linking the residential high spots with the working wharves, as well as shiny new stairs for office workers.

Napoleon Bridge – 40
Napoleon Bridge – 40
Sussex Street Bridge – 42 + 35

Walking from Wynyard to Barangaroo, the first steps encountered are those at the Sussex Street pedestrian bridge, 35 steps on the west side of the bridge and 42 on the east side of the bridge, making 77 in total with a short jog in between. There is a lift and escalators, but we won’t be using those.

Opened in 2015, these are nice, safe stairs. As you cross Sussex Street bridge, look out for Australia’s first wooden highrise, currently (2016) being erected just to the north of the bridge. To the south, spot the abandoned, inexplicable stretch of roadway to nowhere, hanging below the Western Distributor.

Walk a nice little loop from Sussex Street Bridge to nearby Napolean Bridge, a beautiful contemporary bridge design. Only 40 steps, but it has some cover for rainy day intervals, and another escalator. You can always go the wrong way up the escalator for an extra challenge? No, maybe not.

A short wander north on Hicksons Rd, a narrow old staircase (Gas Lane Steps) with 60 risers climbs towards Jenkins Street. Sydney’s first gasworks was in this area, with Australian Gas Lighting (AGL) distributing gas to Sydney from 1841. Continue north to the beautiful heritage AGL building. A stunning new staircase rises here, lets call it the The Bond Stairs, with 84 steps, and a lift (if you insist). On hot days, this staircase is shaded and cool.

Along the great rock wall that runs along Hicksons Rd, or The Hungry Mile as it was called during the depression era, are two sets of steps. Both were constructed during wharf redevelopment in 1920. To the south is the steep, narrow zig zag of the heritage High Steps, cut into the rock wall and joining Hicksons Rd and High Street. High Steps has 108 steep and sunny steps, often busy with lunch time warriors. The Steps to Nowhere, at the northern end of the rock wall, are bricked up top and bottom, and you won’t be climbing those.

The Bond Steps – 84
Gas Lane Steps – 60
High Steps – 108

Barangaroo Reserve

Following the curve of the bay north, we reach the headland park (Barangaroo Reserve), which is stair climbing Nirvana. Mostly the stairs are concrete, spacious and sunny, heading relentlessly upwards to a big blue sky. Fortunately the staggered stairs on the Wulugul Walk offer some shade to provide relief to hot and weary walkers.

Enter the park from the south to find the Gira Gira stairs, all 100 of them, surrounded by glorious sandstone blocks. This set is popular with the lunchtime crowd, so play nice and climb to the left of the centre railings. Enjoy the view of the Barangaroo skyscrapers and construction zone as you descend.

Continue around the park from Gira Gira to find the first of the two separate sets of Wulugul Walk stairs. These concrete stairs are narrow, zig zagging down the hillside in short sections with lovely flat recovery bits for tired muscles. The first set of stairs on Wulugul Walk, closest to Gira Gira, has 77 steps, while the second set has 72.

Next, facing west to Balmain across the harbour, are the Burrwang steps with 82 risers, as tough as the Gira Gira steps. There is a convenient water spout at the base of these steps. You might need it.

Across the stargazer lawn, the fifth and final set of stairs is the Baludarri Steps, a lazy 74 of them nicely interspersed with short flat sections to catch your breath. At the bottom of these steps, you can take a pit stop at the 1904 Pump House at Marrinawi Cove.

Wulugul Walk – 77, 72
Gira Gira Steps – 100
Baludarri Steps – 74

Millers Point

Continue along Hicksons Road from Headland Park  to find more steps, both new and old.

Towns Place steps don’t really fit my criteria with only 38 risers, but they are pretty and make a nice circuit with other stairs in the area.

Count 60 steps going up the historic Windmill Stairs from Hicksons Road to the intersection of Windmill Street and Kent Street. The ridge above these steps was known as Windmill Hill, after the first of many Sydney windmills was built there in 1797.  The windmills ground flour to enable the growing colony to be self-sufficient.

Also in Millers Point, are the heritage Agar Steps in the shade of a magificent Port Jackson fig, rising 67 steps from Kent Street to Observatory Hill.  These steps were constructed between 1870 and 1880, and are flanked by some historic terraces. This makes them the oldest stairs in the area, and the subject of many photographs and sketches. A sandwich shop at the base sells refreshments. 

Towns Place Steps – 38
Windmill Steps – 60
Agar Steps – 67

Dawes Point

Continue on Hicksons Road past Walsh Bay Wharves towards Dawes Point. Ferry Lane Steps are quite unlike any of the other steps – tightly squeezed between two buildings, with 51 narrow, dark steps. Ferry Lane Wharf dates from 1890, these concrete stairs replaced an earlier laneway. In January 1900, a plague infection spread from the first recorded infection, Arthur Payne who lived in Ferry Lane. The plague ultimately lead to the redevelopment and modernisation of the wharves. Sea walls to protect Sydney from plague infected rats, and the constructions of pedestrian access steps such as High Steps, were part of the response to the plague and the redevelopment of the area.

A set of 61 nameless steps link Pottinger Road to Lower Fort Road, with a sign noting the steps are the Gateway to Walsh Bay, on the Walsh Bay Heritage Walk.

Ferry Lane Wharf
Ferry Lane Steps – 51
Pottinger Rd Steps – 61

The final set of stairs are Hicksons Steps, 83 risers in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge, opposite Pier One.  Lookout for an intriguing lump that resembles a dead white pigeon on the side of the steps – closer inspection reveals the word “nothingness” on the back of the body. The artist is Will Coles.

Hicksons Steps link Fort Street to Hickson Road, and unsurprisingly are named, like the Road, after RP Hickson, Chairman of the Sydney Harbour Trust between 1902 and 1912. Hickson led the re-development of the Walsh Bay wharves after the plague of 1900. Want to know more about the Hickson Heritage Walk?

Counting steps is hard. Sometimes it takes all my effort to breathe, or look at the view, or not fall over. Go count them yourself and let me know if I’ve got any wrong.  You can link all these stairs into a circuit that is about 5km long. Climb each set once, and that’s a neat 1000 stairs (ok, 1018 to be precise).

Hicksons Steps – 83
Hicksons Steps Pigeon Nothingness By Will Coles
Hicksons Steps – 83

Staying Indoors

1000 stairs not enough?  It’s raining and you don’t want to go out?  The buildings in Barangaroo are Big. Very Big. And some of them follow the current office trend for beautiful internal stairs designed for employee communication, collaboration and incidental exercise. Healthy workers are good workers. Sadly, to access most of these stairs, you’ll need to be an employee to get past security.

One staircase however appears open to the public (no access gate stops you, although a troll might leap out and demand to know your business). In International Tower 2, a beautiful white stair case reminiscent of a shell winds up a few floors from the public space. Smile at the staff and climb these stairs at least once.

Barangaroo Office Stairs
International Tower 2 Stairs

A Route

2018-01-05

Barangaroo Stairs

  • Distance 7 km
  • Time 0 s
  • Speed 4 km/h
  • Min altitude 5 m
  • Peak 29 m
  • Climb 359 m
  • Descent 350 m
  • Distance Instructions
Label

Stair locations

-cmloc-locations-map category=stairs-

Urban Stairs Part 2

All of these stairs are west of the Harbour Bridge, west of Wynyard Station.  In Part 2 I’ll look at stairs to the east : The Rocks, Circular Quay, Botanic Gardens and Woolloomooloo.  If I haven’t flagged by then, I might head across the Bridge for Part 3.

Make your own Muesli Bars!

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, Health & Fitness Recipes

Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the slice of an English Mum!  We have some creative and healthy cooks in our group.  This recipe is for Fee’s delicious and healthy muesli slice. 

Oat and Choc Chip Muesli Bar

Ingredients

  • 150g honey
  • 2 tablespoon molasses (use more honey if you don’t have molasses)
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt
  • 2 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or other spices as preferred)
  • 150g melted butter
  • 1 1/2 cup quick oats
  • 3/4 cup ground pumpkin or sunflower seeds
  • 3/4 cup shredded coconut
  • 2 medjool dates, pitted
  • 60g (approx. 2/3 cup) hazelnut or almond meal
  • 1/2 cup (2 scoops) protein powder
  • 2/3 cup currants (or other dried fruit)
  • 2/3 cup choc chips (or cacao nibs)

Method

  1. Grind or blend the seeds, dates and coconut – but don’t grind for too long as it is nice to have some texture.  You only need a few seconds of grinding.  Chop dried fruit to the size of currants.
  2. Caramelise the salted honey with the molasses, salt, vanilla and cinnamon by bringing to a slow simmer for 8-10 mins
  3. Mix all of the other ingredients (including the melted butter but excluding the choc chips) thoroughly in a large bowl
  4. Add honey mix to ingredients in large bowl and mix well. It should be sticky but not so sticky that it doesn’t come away from the sides of the bowl.
  5. Grease and line a brownie tin with baking paper.
  6. Pour approximately half the mixture into the tin, then add half of the choc chips spread evenly across the mixture.  Follow this with the remaining sticky mix and then the
    final choc chips. Press down well.
  7. Bake at 100C for 1 hour. Allow to cool completely before cutting (you can refrigerate overnight).

Makes 12 large bars or 25 square bars.  Store in the fridge but best eaten at room temperature. Keeps for two to three weeks.

See our other hiking food recipes: Pecan Candy Cake and Peach Tea Fruit Cake.

Pecan Candy Cake

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, Health & Fitness Recipes

Anna’s delicious, fruity, nutty treat to give you an energy boost while outdoors on the trail.  Easy to make and even easier to eat and share with your hiking friends!

Ingredients

  • ½ cup glace cherries
  • ½ glace pineapple
  • ¾ cup dates
  • 1 ¾ cup pecans
  • ¾ shredded coconut
  • 1 tblsp SR flour
  • 2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk

Method

  1. Chop fruit and nuts
  2. Mix in coconut, milk and flour
  3. Squash into a lined loaf tin
  4. Bake for 1 hour in a slow oven

See our other hiking food recipes: Homemade Muesli Bars and Peach Tea Fruit Cake.

Healthy Steps – simple recipes for a healthier life

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, Health & Fitness Recipes

On nearly every trail walk we go on, food is a subject that consistently crops up in our conversations. We tell each other stories about food, we share recipes and the challenges we face with family and food on a daily basis. Of course food keeps us in tip top shape for the Sydney Sole Sisters walking schedule! So here we share some of the fantastic ideas and tips we hear out on the trail with a wider audience.

Changing your man’s eating habits to a healthier diet, and still living together in harmony

No, this isn’t an agony aunt article or a new fad diet, it’s just a subject that I’ve recently been faced with. What initially appeared to be an impossible challenge opened our eyes to some of the bad habits in our lifestyles (even when we think we’re not ‘that’ bad!) Something that has become ‘normal’ in our society today and one which could touch anyone, at any time in their lives…

The story of Gary

From the outside Gary looks fine. He’s not overweight (more of a one pack man than a six pack man), plays golf once a week (ok the battery operated golf trolley does most of the work), doesn’t drink alcohol or smoke. He has a pretty stressful job but what’s new. I’m sure you get the picture!

I think it’s fair to say that men like their food, and Gary is no exception…

Gary enjoys food, even though he knows ice cream, pastries, take away, pizzas, etc are all treats and not daily nutritional necessities. A ‘wakeup call’ is needed to remind you that ‘you are what you eat’ when your body starts rebelling and saying ‘no’. Illness can go undetected for a long time without any obvious symptoms. Men aren’t great at going to the doctor to have a ‘chat’ about their well being!

Well this is exactly what happened to Gary. Like a naughty school boy being reprimanded by his teacher, Gary’s doctor gave him the bombshell news: blood sugar level too high, blood pressure unprintable but flippin’ high (mind you doctors do tend to cause this reaction with some people).

Doctor: ”You need to start taking this seriously…or sugar reducing medication is the only way forward.  Health is for life not just for Christmas (as they say!)”

After the initial shock, Gary’s reaction was “Oh” (or a slightly stronger unmentionable word). “How the hell am I going to do this?”

Health Steps

Healthy Steps

Which is where Gary’s partner comes in to the equation (let’s call her Izzy). As we know, at the end of the day, the only way Gary is going to make this major change in his life (in a sustainable way) is for the person closest to him to help take control of his diet and help him work out what to do! This is no mean feat for anyone: changing long standing behaviour takes courage, patience, understanding and a lot of deep breathing!

Food (generally the bad stuff) is constantly in our vision. From observing men ‘globally’ (well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration), a lot of men find it very hard to make a change in their eating habits.

Izzy isn’t an expert dietitian, nutritionist, doctor, personal trainer, motivator, counsellor – yet these are all the hats she needs to wear. She is an ordinary person who has to help put into practice all the theoretical recommendations the experts churn out, in a way that works for Gary!

There are so many books out there on this subject! Plus an enormous amount of conflicting information on the internet. No wonder everyone gets so confused. But what is fundamentally obvious, the best solution for Gary (and Izzy) is to follow a ‘type 2’ diabetic/low GI diet and life style. In reality, this life style isn’t only for diabetics, it’s a normal, sensible, balanced way of living which everyone can benefit from and there are a lot of yummy recipes out there that provide healthy options!

Healthy Steps Food Challenge #1

How to satisfy a partners very sweet tooth and love of fruit cake – finding a recipe for fruit cake that can fit in to a healthier life style

Impossible I hear you say. But this really simple recipe works. A fruit cake with only ‘3’ ingredients – amazing!!  No sugar, no eggs, no butter and no cream. Goes perfectly with a cup of French Earl Grey!

A slice of this fruit cake can be an ‘occasional’ treat for anyone.

Soak 1 kg dried mixed fruit and 500ml of light peach iced tea in a bowl in the fridge overnight. Stir in 350g wholemeal self raising flour then spoon in to a 20cm cake tin. Bake for 2.5hours on 125C at the lower part of the oven. Leave to cool. Will keep in an air tight container for up to 4 weeks.

Healthy Steps Food Challenge #2

Have you got a great recipe or solution to fill the gap of potato crisps?  That doesn’t involve rice crackers or anything that tastes like polystyrene?

See our other hiking food recipes: Pecan Candy Cake and Homemade Muesli Bars.

Fitness tracking with my phone

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, Gear & Skills, Health & Fitness

Being fit for bushwalking ensures that you get over the hill with energy to spare and a happy smile on your face.  A smartphone app like Walkmeter tracks your fitness training efforts and measures your fitness improvements over time, hopefully giving you new motivational insights.  

My early foray into quantified fitness back in 2012 was a Fitbit.  Fitbit gave me awareness into my sedentary life and motivation to move more. I loved the daily feedback it gave me on steps, distance and stairs climbed (I even loved the helicopter badges). Sadly, my Fitbit died in early 2014 after I took it for an unplanned swim.

But I had acquired an iPhone 5s by then and I had also moved up the evolutionary fitness tracking tree. I wanted more than a new Fitbit could deliver.  So enter my new smartphone pedometer and tracking app, Walkmeter.

Using Walkmeter for bushwalking fitness training

At its very simplest, Walkmeter on an iPhone 5s acts as a pedometer, tracking your steps in the background, so long as you carry your phone around with you.  The Walkmeter pedometer only works on the iPhone 5s, which has a M7 chip motion detector that tracks movement without draining the battery.

When heading out training, I use Walkmeter for GPS tracking.  I start up the Walkmeter app, confirm I have a good GPS signal, and hit the Start button.  I turn the screen off (so I don’t accidentally hit the Stop button) and pop the phone away to keep on tracking while I get busy walking or running.  You can still snap a picture while it’s tracking, and send messages or make calls, but why would you want to take calls while out in the bush?

GPS tracking uses up your battery, so make sure your phone is charged before heading out, and manage your battery on longer walks.

Out on the track, I’ve configured Walkmeter to talk to me occassionally.  It tells me, in a nice Australian accent, things like how far I’ve walked or run, and what my current and average pace is – which is usually enough encouragement to make me speed up a little. When I have finished training, I hit the Stop button.

Walkmeter keeps a detailed history in the app, and allows me to organise my training using Routes.  I can optionally share the training session details, review them later, and compare them to previous attempts on the same route. Walkmeter has a Lap button, which is useful to measure your exact time over a hill climbing interval for example, by hitting Lap at the top and bottom of the climb.

Do trends count more than accuracy with fitness tracking?

I’m not an elite athlete or sports scientist, I’m a normal middle-aged woman.  Ok, maybe I’m not normal, unless technology geeks are the new normal?  I’m not training for the Olympics, but to have fun and enjoy life.

Purveyors of specialist GPS watches would have us believe GPS tracking with a smartphone app suffers from accuracy issues. Perhaps they are right, but Walkmeter accuracy is more than good enough for me.

I’m more interested in observing my general fitness trends than obsessing over precision accuracy numbers.  Did I get off the couch?  If not improving in great leaps and bounds, am I at least still moving? Walkmeter stores a history of all my efforts, and it’s motivating to see just how far I’ve walked, how high I’ve climbed and how many calories I’ve burned over longer periods of time.

It is also interesting to look through the detailed statistics collected – I was surprised to discover that I climb a hill faster than I descend it!  I better work on my agility and balance to fix my descent times. Oh and that social morning tea stop on our training walk, turns out it wasn’t a quick 10 minute stop after all.

The lowdown on using Walkmeter

Walkmeter has a free version, with an in-app purchase ($6.49) for additional “Elite” functionality.   I use and recommend the Elite upgrade. If you already have an iPhone, then at $6.49 it is a lot cheaper than a wearable like Fitbit, or a GPS watch.

I also like the simplicity and convenience of having only one device to carry and charge. Everything is stored on the app – no website login and password needed.  There is no gamification, it won’t send you any helicopter badges.

Walkmeter does a lot more, including offer training plans.  It links to apps like MyFitnessPal  and Strava, as well as to heart rate devices and bike computers.  It comes in multiple flavours (Runmeter, Cyclemeter).

Besides being useful to bushwalkers for fitness tracking, it also helps with navigating, more on that in a later post.

Walkmeter is available in both an iPhone and an iPad version, with synching of your tracking data in the Cloud.  Walkmeter is an iOS only app, which means Android users need to look at other app options.

While walking or running, I carry my phone with Walkmeter activated around my waist in a neat little Runbag,  made and sold by my awesome sister-in-law Audrey in South Africa.

Out on the trails, I keep my iPhone safe and recharged with a nuud Lifeproof case and a portable recharger for multi-day trails.  Besides being a fitness tracker, my phone is also my camera and a multi-function communications and safety device in the Sydney bush.

Trees

, Health & Fitness

Have you ever been overcome by the sudden need to hug a tree when walking by an ancient, smooth skinned, salmon-coloured angophora?

People need trees.  They meet the functional needs of hikers by pumping out oxygen, shading the path, and providing shelter from unexpected weather.  Trees are helpful foot or handholds when climbing, and are useful way-finding aids (turn left at the scribbly gum).

More than that, there is considerable evidence that walking amongst nature and trees has a healing effect , reducing stress, anxiety and depression, lowering blood pressure,  and improving your cognitive ability.  The Japanese have a word for it,  shinrin-yoku, and hold that forest bathing has therapeutic benefits, including improving your immune response and potentially preventing cancer.

So go ahead, hug that comforting tree.  Look around you as you walk, and enjoy the beautiful shapes, colours, scents, leaves and bark textures of our local Australian trees.

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