There’s a famous… or rather infamous set of stairs at the San Diego Convention Center, and quick look around social media demonstrates exactly how popular these stairs are. So in the spirit of my self-styled “San Diego Challenge” creating a workout for these stairs was definitely on the list. If you’ve followed along on Instagram, you can see that I’ve been busy…
Here’s the basic idea of the overall challenge:
1. Walk a minimum of 5 miles per day (I’ve been averaging 7+ just because I like to wander around and look at things.
2. Eat good things (yes, that includes the 1lb carne asada burrito from yesterday as well as the paleo burger the night before)
3. Perform some kind of outdoor strength workout that also includes at least a little high intensity cardio.
The day before, I had a lot of fun exploring the parcourse on the Embarcadero:
and
I’m headed back there today after taking a taco eating tour (yes, this is a real thing, what a world!).
So, a little background on the San Diego Convention Center Stairs, mainly so that you can replicate the workout wherever you are. What I did was loosely based on some of the old Parking Garage Workouts we used to do in Downtown Winter Park, except with zero equipment. There are exactly 100 stairs (counting each landing as 1 stair) and a big break after 70 stairs before the last 30 stairs to the very top. That flat, straight break area was perfect for adding a traveling exercise to the mix. It was fun to use the stairs for a workout, since there were several other people there doing the very same thing. At the peak, about 20 of us were doing our own workouts of various difficulties and intensities. One especially enthusiastic guy was doing frog leaps up the stairs!
Anyway, here’s what I did after a quick joint mobility warmup:
Round 1:
- Run up 70 stairs
- Do walking lunges across the large flat landing
- Run up the last 30 stairs
- Do 10 8-count bodybuilders at the top
- Quickly walk down the stairs for active rest
Round 2:
- Run up 70 stairs
- Do LOW side shuffles (switching sides in the center) across the large flat landing
- Run up the last 30 stairs
- Do 8 8-count bodybuilders at the top
- Quickly walk down the stairs for active rest
Round 3:
- Run up 70 stairs
- Do standing walkouts to pushup* across the large flat landing
- Run up the last 30 stairs
- Do 6 8-count bodybuilders at the top
- Quickly walk down the stairs for active rest
Round 4:
- Run up 70 stairs
- Do traveling sumo squats (then spin on the lead foot to travel forward a little with each squat… maybe I need to do a video about this…)
- Run up the last 30 stairs (or try to)
- Do 4 8-count bodybuilders at the top
- Quickly walk down the stairs for active rest
Round 5:
- Run up 70 stairs
- Do a low, slow, controlled crawl across the large flat landing
- Run up the last 30 stairs (agghhhh)
- Do 2 8-count bodybuilders at the top
- Walk down the stairs for active rest
Round 6 (optional bonus cool-down round):
- Walk up 70 stairs
- Do 1 leg deadlift, then take 3 steps, do 1 leg deadlift on other side, take three steps, repeat until at the end of the large flat landing
- Walk up 30 stairs
- Handstand against the wall at the top
- Walk down 30 stairs to the flat landing
- Do a few bridges at the landing
- Walk down the last 70 stairs
- Do a few Cossack squats, prying squats, and quad stretches
Oddly enough this all went very quickly! I’d consider going for 10 rounds and then a cooldown round next time. Today I’m heading back to the parcourse for more upper body challenges!
*These are like the old “inchworms” from PE class. Start at standing, walk out with your hands (feet stay planted), do a push up, then jump your feet up to your hands, stand up and repeat.
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