[WanderSin]

Hey,

I’m approaching the second cycle of the 12 week Mountaineering program which focuses on ME and it has considerably more vertical gain sessions than the first one where I was doing mostly flats except for the long day on Sundays.

Due to incline limitations on the treadmills in my gym (15%) I was wondering which machine would be better between the Incline (15%) treadmill and the stair machine (steps are not too high either) for the different workouts in Cycle 2, sessions being:

• Zone 2 Aerobic Hike – STEEP: For this one, you will want to find the steepest trails you have available in your region.
• Zone 2 Aerobic Hike – WEIGHTED: Use the steepest trails you have available in your region.
• Long Aerobic Workout – Vertical Gain: This can be a run or a hike in hilly terrain.

I personally prefer the incline treadmill for several reasons (it’s more comfortable to use and the max use timer is 1 hour which means only 2-3 resets vs the 20 minute reset on the stair machine) but I was wondering if there is a preferred machine to use when you have no access to hills or mountains nearby or if either of them do the work.

Regards,

Ander.

[Scott Johnston]

For mountaineering the stair machine will be MUCH more effective than a 15% inclined treadmill.   It will do a fantastic job of building the fitness for going up mountains. How many mountains that you aim to climb have slopes of 15%?   It is a pretty guess to say “zero”. Whereas the stair machine angle is in the range of 756-100% depending on the machine.  But the escalator type like the Stairmaster brand are brutal taskmasters and we have seen folks like yourself who are “terrain challenged” do all their vertical on these machines and are able to develop their fitness to climb the biggest mountains. Just have some entertainment 😉.

Scott

[Author]

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