Is using the stairs in your own home unironically one of the best forms of cardio?

[TheJimmyRustler]

I'm an admittedly fat guy, so results may vary, but I think that going up and down the stairs in your home may legit be one of the best forms of cardio.

This evening I decided to put on my heart-rate monitor and see what it would tell me after a flight (15 steps) to get an idea of what (the HR monitor claims) I'd burn by going up and down, ended up being something like 6 calories all told. I eventually decided to try going for 10 flights up and down (ended up with 11 up/10 down) to see how it'd pan out. As mentioned I'm fat and incredibly out of shape, but after doing even just that I was surprisingly out of breath, and my heart rate monitor claimed I'd burned 68 cals. I figured that'd be BS as HR monitors can be inaccurate - according to that I'd burn about 700 cals just walking up and down my stairs for 40 minutes - but when I went online and looked up what estimates are for calories burnt walking stairs, that factored in weight, they agreed it'd be about that number. I figured if I was my ideal weight it'd be next to nothing but even then it's pretty significant according to the site I used.

I realise there's a lot of flaws to this line of thinking - what effect does speed have on calories burnt, it's often calculating just climbing an endless set of stairs, not climb up, turning around, going down, coming back up etc. But even so, it made me think that climbing your own stairs (or even better an entire building's if you live in an apartment) is probably the easiest and arguably most efficients forms of cardio out there. Probably boring AF but costs nothing, low chance of injury/low impact and it seems pretty effective.

Have any people here used stairs, be it in your own home, at the gym, stadiums etc as a form of cardio and what'd you think of it? I've got a rowing machine in my garage but between depression, injury and the prospect of using the rower the darkness of this time of year the stairs just seems like such a convenient but effective method (even if you look like a crank doing it).

[Tommy W.]

All I can tell you is I have a client that lost 20 lbs when he moved into the 3 story house I built him. He was in a 1 story the past 30 years. If you're really overweight stairs are hard on the knees and can have repercussions down the road so you need to be careful

[Darkius]

I was in great shape as a teen. I lived in a 2 store house and ran up the stairs often. I never thought that was the reason. I teresting. Sounds very believable. Now that my knees are injured, I wonder if it is too late for me to get those benefits again. On days me knees hurt, going up stairs is just about impossible for me. I'd rather live near a trail. Oh, I did live on a hill side and have a trail head in my backyard. I had no idea at the time how fortunate I was compared to other kids who are stuck in trailer parks.