Comparison Between Stair Climbing and One Mile Walking in Relation to Cardiorespiratory Fitness

Overview

The worldwide epidemic of physical inactivity is rising significantly and the main cause is sedentary lifestyle. In this era of globalization and rapid advancement of technology, people are chasing after worldly matters, leading them to abandon the most important factor in their life and that's their body. Most people are leading a sedentary lifestyle as they indulge themselves in their never-ending work. There is a significant lack of awareness on the importance of physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness to health as people are focusing more on factors such as smoking, cholesterol and hypertension. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of stair climbing (SC) and 1 mile walking (1MW) in relation to cardiorespiratory responses and fitness.

The incidences of chronic diseases and cardiovascular diseases are escalating rapidly and fingers are being pointed to physical inactivity and poor cardiorespiratory fitness as one of the few main 'predictors of premature mortality. According to WHO (2015), 23% of adults above the age of 18 years old were insufficiently physically active in 2010, with men scoring 20% and women 27%. Comparing high income and low income countries, 26% of men and 35% of women of high income countries was said to be insufficiently physically active compared to 12% of men and 24% of women of low income countries. This may be due to the fact that people of high income countries are more engrossed in chasing after worldly matters at work and preferring a sedentary lifestyle at home after work. Globally, adolescents between the age of 11 to 17 years old scored a high percentage of 81% of being insufficiently physically active and this may be because adolescents prefer to spend more time on internet, playing games on computers or watching dramas or movies. In the Physical Activity Statistics 2015 by the British Heart Foundation, it is reported that North West of England has the highest level of physical inactivity with 26% for men and 31% for female. It was also mentioned that household incomes play a role in the level of physical activity in England. In 2012, 29% men and 34% women from the lowest quintile of household income in England were physically inactive compared to 11% men and 18% women of the highest quintile of household income.\[1\] In Malaysia a research conducted on physical activity index among Malaysian youth and out of 1801 respondents, 23% men and 31.3% women were insufficiently physically active.\[2\] In another research on the Prevalence and Factors Associated with Physical Inactivity among Malaysian Adults, the overall prevalence of physical inactivity was 43.7%.\[3\] Similar to other researchers, results also show that women are more physically inactive at 9 465 (50.5%) out of 18 744 female respondents compared to men at 5367 (35.3%) out of 15205 male respondents. It is important to ensure that everyone participates in physical activities in effort to improve their health and indirectly reduce the risk of mortality. Hence, the researcher aims to compare the effects of stair climbing and one mile walking in relation to cardiorespiratory responses and fitness to find which one is better compared to other as these type of activates can be performed in any settings and does not require sophisticated equipments.