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The Stair Stability Tests




Today let’s take a walk [literally, for a change] through a few old school diagnostic tests that you may find of use in every step you take in life.

[The video demonstrates one exercise from Unleaded 2B: Stabilizing Muscle-The Hips, which delves deeply into today’s topic.]

Old School physical culturists were more than just surface thinkers, physical culture was not simply what you could do in the gym, it was what you brought to life, with every breath and with every step.

Just as important, and to many Old Schoolers more important, than the weight you could walk under in the gym was how you walked under control of your body in everyday life.

Movement under weight or in a given calisthenics is a movement in a set finite period with deliberate attention paid to it.

Old School thought wanted this deliberate attention brought to the inattentional movements of all aspects of moving under the load of your own body.

There were a series of “tests” to assess such mundane movement.

One such series of tests requires only you and a staircase.

Step 1

·        Ascend the stairs as you normally would.

·        Pay no attention to your climb, simply do what you always do.

·        Consider this your “warm up.”

Step 2

·        Now ascend in sloooow-motion.

·        Take approximately 8-10 seconds to mount each step.

·        This will require each leg alternately to be under unilateral load for longer than normal ascent but…

·        It allows us to hone in on the dynamics and techniques we normally blow right by.

·        During this slow ascent, pay attention and ask the following questions…

One-Do my feet hit each stair tread with toes facing forward? Facing slightly inward? Facing slightly outward? Does foot position vary in the ascent?

Two-Do my knees track towards my toes no matter the toe-point direction? Or do the knees fall slightly to the outside? To the inside?

Three-Does the slow-motion cadence reveal a surprising amount of wobble or instability? Do you require the handrail for balance? Do you find that you need the handrail to pull you through the last few treads of a long slow-motion flight?

Four-Did your cadence stay true through the entire test? Did you need to “rush” the last step or two as a burn set in?

Five-Do your hips remain level during the ascent? Or do they alternately rise and fall with each stride? If they rise and fall, is one side given to much greater variance on the rise and fall than the other?

Ok, now you have some feedback. You can likely see where this is going, instability or inefficiencies in everyday life in common tasks do more to affect overall performance than the finite time we spend in the gym to “correct” or “improve” what we insist on doing in the remaining 23 hours per day.

Step 3

·        Now that we’re at the top of the staircase and have our assessment in mind…

·        Descend the stairs with the same slooooow cadence.

·        Repeat the question battery and notice if there are any consistencies or any inconsistencies.

The descending test also asks this question…

Six-Are you able to control the slow descent to each step or did a slight “fall” or speed up” to get to the toe touch occur?

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Step 4

·        Ascend the stairs again—normal speed this time.

·        Once at the top, turn around and descend going backwards at the 8-10 second per tread cadence.

·        Repeat the question battery.

Likely your rational self has already discovered perhaps one or two, “Ah, that seems a little unstable” aspects or a “Hmm? That left knee did not appreciate the slow-motion as much as the right knee did.”

Any and all such observations are excellent.

They allow us to know what to “work” on in the gym but…more importantly what to work on with every step we take.



The Old-School Staircase Ideal

·        No need to rush in any version of the tests.

·        Excellent balance and stability of knee and hip in all portions of movement.

·        No excess or inequalities in hip movement.

·        Toes turned slightly to the outside in all forms of the test.

·        Knees tracking towards toes in all test versions.

·        No handrail required or wavering from the upper body.

Myriad mundane tests abound in Old School physical culture thought, and mighty interestingly also in indigenous warrior practice—we’ll talk Pasa’nu’ya Nemito another day, which asks us to see every step as an opportunity for readiness.

In summary, these schools of thought are not impressed with gym/drill/training performance that is not backed up with minute-to-minute life performance.

Should we ask for anything less than being in-balance Life Artists  and ever Ready Warriors?

[More Unleaded Conditioning Programs.]

[For more Rough& Tumble history, Indigenous Ability hacks, and for pragmatic applications of old school tactics historically accurate and viciously verified see our RAW/Black Box Subscription Service.]

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