Phys.org – A team of researchers at the University of Milan has found that climbing stairs or walking for short bursts allows people to consume 20% to 60% more energy than if they do the same activity nonstop for the same distance.
In their study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group asked volunteers to walk on a treadmill or climb stairs while also monitoring their oxygen intake.
The research team noted that available reported energy expenditures tend to reflect activities that are done at a metabolically steady state, which only becomes established after performing such an activity for a while.
They wondered if there might be differences in expenditures if people engaged in start-and-stop-type exercise multiple times. To find out, they recruited 10 volunteers.
The volunteers walked on a treadmill or climbed a short flight of stairs for different lengths of time, ranging from 10 seconds to four minutes. As they did so, they wore a mask to measure their oxygen intake, a means of measuring energy consumption.
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The researchers found that the volunteers used more energy if they started and stopped multiple times compared to engaging in a steady, longer-duration activity, as they covered the same amount of ground …