Does stair climbing bulk up your legs?
I’ve always been worried about this. Read on…
How muscular your legs get is genetically determined. The only way to increase the size of the muscles in your lower body is to do progressive, intense strength training (read: lift increasingly heavy weights over time) along with eating more to fuel muscle growth. But even body builders who work super hard to try to build muscle find it difficult (think of the beefy guy with big muscles on top, but scrawny legs).
While someone who has never climbed a stair may experience some slight increase in muscle mass from lifting their own body weight, it’s highly unlikely that stair climbing provides enough resistance to stimulate muscle growth if you’re used to doing it. Even if it did, the gain would be minimal.
