StairMaster workout: how to use the stair climber, what it trains, and a plan for beginners

StairMaster is a brand name for a stair-climbing machine, and it's the word most people type when they mean any of them. The gym has two kinds: the stepmill, a short revolving staircase you climb, and the pedal stepper, two platforms that sink under your feet. Both ask your legs to lift your whole body, step after step, which is why ten minutes on one feels like more than ten minutes on a bike.

This page uses "stair climber" for both. It covers how to set it up, why the handrails matter more than the level, what the stair climber trains, what weeks of stair climbing did in the trials, the honest answer on weight loss, the mistakes, and three workouts for a beginner. Which machine to pick beside lifting is on cardio and lifting; the pace that keeps a session steady is on zone 2 cardio.

How to use a stair climber

1. Start on a low level and give it a minute. Most machines count levels or steps per minute; the first session is about finding the speed where you can still speak a few words, not the highest number you can survive.
2. Stand tall. Hips under your shoulders, a slight lean forward from the ankles, eyes ahead rather than at your feet.
3. Hands off the rails, or resting so lightly you could lift them. The rails are for balance, and the section below is why.
4. Take whole steps. On the stepmill, put your whole foot on each stair and push through it. On the pedal stepper, let each pedal travel most of its range rather than bouncing at the top.
5. Finish easy. Two or three minutes at a low level before you step off, because legs that have just climbed for twenty minutes are wobbly on flat ground.

What the stair climber trains

The legs, first and most. Two studies measured why a stair climber feels the way it does.

• The legs tire early. In 25 healthy volunteers with an average age of 35, climbing on a stair machine at step rates set to 60, 75 and 90% of their maximal oxygen uptake, leg-muscle activity rose at all three levels and the signs of local muscle fatigue appeared mostly at the hardest one; the combination of leg fatigue and the cardiorespiratory load limited the hardest climb to about four and a third minutes on average.¹
• Lactate climbs sooner than on a treadmill. In 30 volunteers, 15 men and 15 women in their early twenties, maximal oxygen uptake was higher on a treadmill than on a stair stepper, and at the same relative submaximal workload blood lactate was higher on the stepper. The authors read that as early fatigue limiting what people could do at their maximum on the stepper.²

Which leg muscles, exactly, those studies don't name beyond "the legs." The nearest evidence is from walking uphill: in 10 young adults, walking up a 9-degree grade raised the activity of the hip, knee and ankle extensors compared with level walking, with the biggest rise at the hip.³ Stairs are steeper than that, so the glutes and hamstrings, the front of the thighs and the calves are the working muscles, and the page makes no claim beyond that.

What weeks of stair climbing did in the trials

• A draw with the treadmill, over 12 weeks. In 22 moderately active women, average age about 29, assigned to a stair climber, an elliptical or treadmill running three days a week for 12 weeks at matched heart rates and session lengths, maximal oxygen uptake rose in all three groups, from 37.4 to 39.2 mL/kg/min on the stair climber, with no significant difference between the machines.⁴
• Close to running, over nine weeks. In 23 physically active college-age women, nine weeks of four sessions a week on a stair climber raised maximal oxygen uptake 12% and cut their 1.5-mile run time by 8%; the running group improved 16% and 11%.⁵
• Real stairs work too. In 15 sedentary young women, eight weeks of climbing a 199-step public staircase, one ascent a day building to five, raised maximal oxygen uptake 17.1% relative to controls.⁶ In 50 sedentary women, average age about 32, eight weeks of stair climbing five days a week, at home or in a gym, raised maximal oxygen uptake by about 1.6 mL/kg/min relative to controls, with similar results from the home and gym groups.⁷
• Even stair "snacks" count. In 24 sedentary young adults, three vigorous climbs of a three-flight stairwell a day, three days a week for six weeks, raised peak oxygen uptake compared with a control group, though the authors call the increase modest.⁸ In 42 inactive young adults, three all-out 30-second stair climbs a day, three days a week for six weeks, raised peak oxygen uptake 7%, while 40 minutes of moderate cycling three times a week produced no significant change over the same period.⁹

Every trial above measured fitness in women or young adults, most of them sedentary or only moderately active before; none compared a stair climber with lifting, and none followed anyone for longer than 12 weeks.

The stair climber for weight loss

Two honest things. First, the energy it asks for: at the same rated effort, the treadmill used the most energy, or tied for it, in all three studies that compared machines (13, 19 and 30 adults), and the stair climber ranked above the bikes in all three.^10,11,12 Second, what the training trials found on the scale: in the 50 sedentary women above, eight weeks of stair climbing went with a weight change of about one kilogram less than controls,⁷ and in the 42 inactive young adults, the stair-climb program didn't change the rate at which they burned fat during exercise.⁹ A PubMed search for this page found no trial of a gym stair climber that followed body fat as its main result.

So the stair climber is a hard-working cardio machine, and the scale is still mostly about what you eat. Walking and steps and why you can't lose fat cover that side.

Why the rails matter more than the level

Holding the rails takes work away from the legs, and the machine doesn't know. In 15 healthy women exercising on a step treadmill at 25 and 33 steps a minute, continuous light and even continuous very light handrail support reduced oxygen uptake compared with no support, and light support reduced heart rate too.¹³ Level 8 with your weight on your hands can be less work than level 5 with your hands free. If you need the rails to keep up, the level is too high.

Going backwards is a trend, and the one study that tested it found less than the trend suggests: in 20 men, average age about 24, stepping backwards on a stair stepper raised heart rate at the two highest levels, and metabolic rate, energy use and rated exertion at the three highest, but the authors judged the differences not practically meaningful.¹⁴ Face forward unless you want the variety.

The common mistakes, and a fix for each

• Leaning on the rails. See above. Fix: lower the level until your hands can hover.
• Hunching over the console. Fix: eyes ahead, hips under shoulders.
• Tiny steps. Skimming the top of each pedal or stair shortens the work. Fix: whole foot, full step.
• Starting at the level your friend uses. Leg fatigue is part of what ends a hard climb on this machine;¹ a level you can hold for 15 minutes beats one you abandon at four.
• Doing it before leg day. It's leg work. Fix: after lifting, or a day away from a heavy lower-body session (cardio and lifting).
• Climbing through something that hurts. Burning thighs and calves are the machine; a sharp or lasting hurt in a knee or hip isn't. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

Three beginner workouts

Build the steady session by two or three minutes a week until it's 30 minutes. For how hard "harder" is, use your breathing: a few words on the hard minutes, a sentence on the easy ones (HIIT vs steady-state cardio covers the trade). A treadmill set steep is the other way to climb: the 12-3-30 workout. The ladder borrows the shape of the trials that used short, hard climbs,⁹ at a gentler dose. Counted with the rest of your week, 20 to 30 minutes of steady climbing is 20 to 30 of the World Health Organization's 150 to 300 moderate minutes, or 75 to 150 vigorous.¹⁵

Common questions

How long should a beginner stay on the StairMaster?

Ten minutes the first few times, then 20, then 30. In the trials above, 30 to 40 minutes three days a week improved fitness in moderately active women over 12 weeks,⁴ and much shorter, harder climbs improved it in sedentary young adults over six.^8,9

Is the StairMaster good for glutes?

No study on this page measured the glutes on a stair climber. Walking uphill raised hip-extensor activity the most of any muscle group in 10 young adults,³ and stairs are steeper. For building the glutes, the glute workout is the page; the stair climber is cardio that happens to use them.

StairMaster or treadmill?

For fitness, a draw in the one trial that compared them for 12 weeks,⁴ and close in the nine-week one.⁵ The treadmill used more energy at the same rated effort in all three machine studies.^10,11,12 Pick the one you'll stay on.

If you'd rather have the week planned

The machine is simple; deciding how many sessions fit beside your lifting, and on which days, is the part a page can't do for you. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one around what's coming. Coaching for a week that doesn't hold still explains how that works, and apply is the first step. Otherwise: ten minutes, hands off the rails, this week.