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Taking the stairs instead of the elevator

Please explain this

The stairs I climb regularly are in an office building. It's no surprise that the ground floor (which is floor 1 the way Americans count) is taller than the other floors, and I have 27 stairs to take from the ground floor to the 2nd floor.

The other floors are equally spaced, with 22 stairs per floor, except the 3rd floor. It takes 23 steps to go from the 2nd floor to the 3rd floor. So to climb the whole building it's 27+22+23+22+22+22+...

Why would a single floor, not at the bottom, be different than the others? Engineers whose slide rules were out of order? Builders who confused inches with centimeters? Shall we call it a "rounding error"?

What might be the real reason for this?
 
Fender Bender

Oops, while taking my daily stair hike this morning, I bumped into somebody and knocked him down the stairs. He's still falling, as far as I know. ;)

futurama1.jpg
 
Doctor Q said:
Oops, while taking my daily stair hike this morning, I bumped into somebody and knocked him down the stairs. He's still falling, as far as I know. ;)
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MC Escher, what a guy.
How badly is knocking him down?? 2 stairs or the whole shabang??
 
Don't worry. I didn't really bump into anyone. I just came across the Futurama image and couldn't resist the joke.

I do hear other people clomping up or down stairs once in a while, and sometimes I pass them going the other way (me up, them down). I rarely see anybody else going up more than one floor. Since there is a health club within walking distance, perhaps they all go there and watch TV while working out, missing all the fun of seeing the same dingy stairwell every day.

Yesterday, I heard a strange noise on another floor of the stairs: footsteps and a thud-thud-thud. It sounded like somebody dragging something. You know - a businessperson with rolling luggage, a murderer with a dead body - something like that. They had disappeared into one of the floors of the building before I got to them, so I may never know what it was.
 
New Year's Resolutions:

* Keep taking the stairs at work every day. So far so good. :)

* Avoid Fritos, which I find highly addictive if I "sample" one. Oops, I blew that resolution already, and it's only January 3rd. :(
 
i am finally able to go up and down stairs since my knee surgery 2 months ago!! it's actually been 4 months since i've been able to go up and down stairs normally, as i wore a stiff brace 2 months pre-op.

it's so relieving and awesome to be able to do something as simple as walk up a flight of stairs (without pain to boot!).

who'd thought we could take something like walking up stairs for granted! i didn't realize it until i had to seek out elevators everywhere i went or had to have someone hold me up while going down stairs!

if you have functioning legs and feet (and knees!), use them!
 
Throughout part of high school I lived in a rural area. Walking really wasn't available, so when I got to college, I loved the fact that I could walk absolutely everywhere. There are stairs all over my campus in Savannah, and I think most of the students there that the "freshman 15" was a myth for them; the opposite actually took place.

I end up easily walking a few miles a day and love it.
 
Here's an update.

I've kept up my habit, taking the stairs up to my office from the parking lot every day. Some days I sneak in some extra floors, and I've been lazy about keeping an exact tally, but as of today I estimate that I've climbed a minimum of 27,742 stairs. How many hot fudge sundaes does that equal?

I counted the steps I take on landings, in addition to the actual stairs, so I can report that I've passed 35,256 total steps. These figures include estimates for vacation days off work.

Just as I arrived in my office today, there was a friend on the phone with a question about an iPod. I probably sounded a bit odd talking on the phone while still a bit out of breath. :eek:
 
nice work doctor q! no stairs where i work else i'd be doing the same thing. instead i'm trying to ride the bike to work instead of drive!
 
Doctor Q said:
I can report that I've passed 35,256 total steps.
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I'm disappointed. I would have expected an update at 32,768 steps. ;)

Doctor Q said:
How many hot fudge sundaes does that equal?
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Assuming a rate of 1 stair per second, and an average caloric burn of 7 calories per minute on stair climbing (guestimated from here), you've burned roughly 4113 calories climbing stairs.

Assuming you're eating Baskin-Robbins hot fudge sundaes, you've managed to climb off almost 8 of them.

Just go easy on the whipped cream.
 
When I worked in a 2 story building I took the stairs all the time. Now that I work in a single story building, there are no stairs for me to climb, just a corporate ladder. :(
 
My total stair count as of today: 43,441 stairs. Yes, I'm still climbing them regularly, but I never seem to get anywhere. After my next 1,003 stairs I'll see if I've at least arrived at a nice round number.

Note: I've counted the total number of stairs even for days when I go up 2 at a time. I hope that's not cheating!
 
I live on the 10th floor and I sometimes take the stairs instead of the elevator. I do run out of breath on the 5th floor, but I've never given up and always continue on. This makes me want to quit smoking and I've smoked alot less now, I just can't seem to quit though. :eek:
 
Dr. Q congrats on your new form of exercising. I had started to walk with my daughter but had to set it aside for a few weeks. We also started to go to the fitness center but then that also had to be put aside.
I am a "trying to quit" smoker and the walking did me a world of good. I actually got oxygen into my lungs. I felt great. Now that things have straightened out I can't wait to get started again on the exercising.
I recently was in Texas and walked up 4 flights of stairs about 2 or 3 times a day and I thought I was going to die. Great exercise but I was huffing and puffing way too much. Can't wait to put down the cigarettes permanently. Hopefully this week will do it for me.

So, from this day forth, unless I'm late for a meeting, I will take the stairs... all 20 flights of them.
maybe you should start out slowly. keep adding 2 flights a day until you get used to it.
 
heehee said:
I live on the 10th floor and I sometimes take the stairs instead of the elevator. I do run out of breath on the 5th floor, but I've never given up and always continue on. This makes me want to quit smoking and I've smoked alot less now, I just can't seem to quit though. :eek:
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Try Chantix that seems to have helped me cut down. Hopefully I will quit completely soon. I just have to remember to take the dang pills. :( :eek:
 
Just be careful when going down stairs. It is very easy to injure your knees because of the constant impact as your legs catch your body weight dozens and dozens of times. If you start feeling any kind of knee pain or discomfort, consider that if going down isn't the source, it's going to make things a whole lot worse.
 
yellow said:
How much weight have you lost, muscle have you gained, noted the positive side effects?
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If you are asking me, I have not lost weight, since I carefully compute how many hot fudge sundaes I can have to exactly balance any weight loss from exercise. My legs have stayed strong, but I need to be more systematic about using my hand weights and stretchy bands for arm exercise because so far it's only the stairclimbing that I'm relentlessly consistent about doing. And once you have a consistent routine, it's easy because you follow it without having to think about it.

Iscariot said:
Just be careful when going down stairs. It is very easy to injure your knees because of the constant impact as your legs catch your body weight dozens and dozens of times. If you start feeling any kind of knee pain or discomfort, consider that if going down isn't the source, it's going to make things a whole lot worse.
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Agreed. I quit going down the stairs because it wasn't a good source of exercise, just needless pounding. Like other "vehicles" we ride in, our bodies benefit from proper use, avoiding unnecessary hazards, proper fuel, and regular maintenance. That way we won't get recalled!
 
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