Put away your Nordic walking poles: the new fitness trend is Finnish stair training

HELSINKI – “I am not a runner,” says Minna, 49, as she gulps air to catch her breath. “Actually, I hate running but I love to run stairs. It’s something good for me. It feels good and I feel it everywhere.”

Her face is dripping with sweat after an effective morning workout.

“I have said to myself – not less than 10 laps. I always try to do more. I would say that this is my fifth time this week.

“Next year I turn 50 and I have decided that by then I will be in better shape than ever.”

^‍The local resident is not alone. Joining her in the park this Saturday morning are two other women, a male jogger and an older man doing laps while carrying his dog.

This quiet park, located just north of Töölö Bay in Central Helsinki, is the latest to receive a novel upgrade. The stairs may seem unremarkable to casual observers, but for those living nearby – and beyond – they are a sensation.

Minna is typical of the many thousands of people around the capital who are taking part in a radical health and fitness trend. Finland is the country that invented Nordic (Pole) Walking and took it global in the 1990s. Now Finns have invented so-called “stair training” and the emergent sport is booming. Finns are flocking to exercise on these stairs at every chance they can, both after work and at weekends. And the nation more broadly is getting fitter for it.

“These are very wide stairs,” adds Minna, pointing to the new facilities, which also feature bike racks and coat hooks. “They can fit a lot of people, of all ages. There are families with children. There is one gentleman over 70, who said ‘I come here almost every day, and this keeps me going’.”

Planners at the City of Helsinki have been building a “stair-training network “across the wider region for the last two years. The scheme is part of a policy programme for 2020-2030 launched in late 2019 to develop a network of “fitness staircases” for the city’s residents.

There are at least six exercise stairs in the capital region currently and three more are due for completion in 2022. The average cost for each set of stairs is estimated at €150,000-200,000 (roughly the same in US dollars).

The stairs at Mäntymäki are the newest, having opened in the spring. They have already been nicknamed “the Lilliput Stairs” by users. With just 79 steps rising 12.5m, it is the smallest in the city-wide network of fitness stairs. The largest, in northwest Helsinki, is popular with athletes because it has 347 steps, is 147m long and 56m high.

A grass-roots urban initiative
‍Although runners from Brazil to China have always sought out challenging staircases among existing infrastructure to build strength and endurance, there is little evidence of any form of purpose-built exercise stairs existing anywhere in the world. On the face of it, the stair-training phenomenon appears unique to Finland.

The Nordic nation, which declared its independence from Russia in 1917, has a long history of being a global pioneer of civic ideas. It was the first country to give full political rights to women, the first to make internet access legal right and the only country to (almost) end homelessness.

Despite being a recent phenomenon, much of the origin story of the fitness stairs is vague at best. Exactly how this new form of exercise all came about in such an organised way is intriguing. In typical Finnish manner, no one is seemingly willing to take the credit for them.

“I believe this is quite a new movement that has appeared in the last 5 years,” says Mikko Malmström, author of the 2019 City of Helsinki policy programme, who now works for a neighbouring city. “It has come about almost by accident.”

Malmström gives most of the credit to grass-roots efforts and fitness enthusiasts who campaigned to restore an old, crumbling staircase in the north of the city. These had originally been built to reach the lookout on the highest point in Helsinki.

“The hill at Malminkartano used to be a landfill site,” explains Malmström, “but the stairs were getting so popular for doing exercise. There was much noise coming from there.”

In 2015, residents and fitness enthusiasts petitioned the city to not only replace the crumbling staircase but also to widen it to allow more people to use it at the same time. Runners wanted to be able to pass each other.

The word got out when the media got involved in the push to turn them into dedicated exercise stairs.

“The citizens then started to demand it in other locations as well,” explains Malmström. City planners then answered the call. He believes that the remaining credit should go to local authorities. “Over half of the implemented stairs came through the politicians.”

“With the newer exercise stairs, we wanted to help citizens to exercise more and be healthier,” he adds.

“And the City of Helsinki aims to target services in every part of the city,” he explains. “We wanted to make a comprehensive network plan, to be sure that you can find this kind of service everywhere in the Helsinki area.”

Landscape architect, Jere Saarikko, is a project manager involved in the training-stairs project at the City of Helsinki’s Urban Environment department. He outlines the ambitious plans in terms of numbers.

The original programme published in 2019 set out to develop a network of new and refurbished fitness stairs by 2030.

“There are at least seven new ones planned, two more are old,” reveals Saarikko. “Four of them are already built and this year we have planned to build three new ones.”

When asked if the idea was modelled from elsewhere, Saarikko says no. “I don’t know of any examples from abroad.”

                                                                       *           *            *
‍

Neither official is aware of similar programmes existing anywhere else in the world. The concept of stair training as a form of organised sport or exercise appears to have simply evolved spontaneously.

Malmström reports that there has been a lot of interest from planners in other cities in Finland who wish to adopt the stair-training concept. So far there have been few enquiries from the rest of the world.

“I have some requests from Sweden, a city in Sweden that was interested and asking about the stair-exercise programme,” concludes Malmström.
‍

Free and democratic fitness
‍The highest point in Helsinki is the former landfill site of Malminkartano. Following decommissioning in the 1990s, the 91m summit was served by a staircase leading to a lookout offering a rare, panoramic view of the city.

As well as sightseers, the 426 steps had long been frequented by fitness enthusiasts and athletes. These were Helsinki’s original exercise stairs. They were, however, not designed for athletic training or high traffic. Two decades of frequent use took its inevitable toll.

Endurance athlete and 2013 World Champion in orienteering, Mårten Boström, was approached in 2015 to take part in the campaign to save them. He and a team produced a slick video shot with a drone of him ascending the 56m-high staircase in a record time.  

The video went viral and was seen by countless millions of people around the world.

“It was done really nicely, and it was seen by millions of people,” he says. “There was a threat that they were going to be torn down and not replaced.”

It was these efforts to save the Malminkartano stairs that undoubtedly were the spark that ignited the City of Helsinki’s subsequent fitness-stair programme.

“All of the publicity first made them renew those stairs and then build a bunch of others,” concludes Boström.

Seven years since making that historic video, even Mårten Boström himself is intrigued by the Finnish stair-training phenomenon.  

“Maybe the fascination about stairs is that you can go there any time of the day,” he ponders.

“I guess Finns like to spend lots of time outdoors and workout outdoors. It’s a cheap way to be outdoors, get your fitness levels up and get a good, trained workout.”

For something that on the surface looks so straightforward, the endurance athlete explains that stair training is far from basic. It offers the potential for an incredible range of variation, is suited to every level of fitness and can target specific muscle groups.

“It all depends on how you make your way up the stairs,” he explains. “You can go up once, as fast as you can, or you can do it 15 times.”

“If you do it 10 times or more, then you build endurance – building muscle that can last for a long time in hilly terrain. But then if you go up with really long strides – 2 or 3 steps at a time – then you build explosivity.”

“I know people who go up in lunges – if you want to train your buttocks. You can go sideways. There are so many things you can do on stairs, actually. At every level.”

“These stairs, because they are so long, you also need to be able to tolerate lactic acid to run with good form. And all that comes … with stair training.”

The broad view is that Finnish stair training is an important counterweight to an increasingly sedentary world. It strengthens muscles, promotes cardio health and better oxygen intake. For older generations, better overall strength also promotes better coordination and balance. For others, stair training can be done socially in pairs or in groups, at a more leisurely pace and combined with a walk.

“And being free, it is good for the general population to gain access. It’s very democratic,” concludes Boström.
‍

A new sport in the making?
‍The remarkable thing about the health and fitness revolution taking place across Finland is just how matter-of-factly Finns view the emergence of this network of exercise stairs. Finns are traditionally modest people, so it is little surprise that no one wants to claim any credit for their creation.

Any suggestion among Finns that this trend amounts to anything like a new phenomenon, let alone even a “thing”, is quickly dismissed. Yet the evidence on the ground is undeniable.

“It’s true. I haven’t noticed this kind of training stairs in other countries or cities. Or at least I have not spotted them yet,” says Tapani Virtanen, events director, Runner’s High in Helsinki. “It is quite unique.”

“They are really popular during the spring, summer and autumn periods. Those are almost always crowded if you go there. People are going stair training, running, walking etc.”

“I would say they are quite crowded at weekends and evenings, when people have free time after work,” he adds. “It’s impossible to say how many, but I would say it’s tens of thousands of Helsinkians.”

Questions about whether this could potentially be a new organised sport in the making tend to be met with genuine surprise.“Yeah,” laughs Virtanen. “It’s true. There hasn’t been any competition in that field [stair running], no organised competition – at least not yet.” “It is a kind of sport, too, but not organised that well at the moment. People are also timing themselves to see if they can do it better.”“They have had a time challenge at the Malminkartano stairs. They have invited athletes from different sports, such as athletes from track and field, also ice-hockey players and orienteerers, etc. And they measure the time to see who will run it the fastest. “We have also used the stairs in our training sessions several times,” adds Virtanen.

Andrew Armitage, 56, National Development Director at Cricket Finland, thinks the exercise stairs – Malminkartano in particular – are “absolutely brilliant”.

Armitage sees stair training as a great addition for Finland’s cricketers to enhance their fitness levels.

“From a cricket perspective, I can definitely say that we use the stairs both on a personal level across the management team, as well as in team development,” he reveals. “The coach of the Finnish Bears national cricket team, also swears by them.”

“Now that we are out of the indoor training halls from over the winter, they give a good workout no matter what the conditions are. They not only add an extra layer of activity for the players, but it’s also great for team building and bonding.”  

“I think the beautiful thing about them, being in Finland, is that they are in use and kept in use all year round – snow, rain, shine, whatever.”

Jesse Karjalainen is an author, illustrator, podcaster and YouTuber (@JesseDotExpert). This article is extracted from his book, Sisu Mindset: the secrets of Finland's can-do spirit (on amazon).