a quick heart-health test

Over at Instapundit, there's a quick post linking to an article about a heart-health test that you can perform, assuming you have normal use of your legs:

Walk up four flights of stairs (60 steps) in 45 seconds—no stopping or resting, and no running. You must climb the steps at a brisk walk.

Simple as that.  People in the Instapundit comment section—always on the lookout for exceptions, loopholes, and ammunition for clever rebuttals (because they're men, and that's the nature of male discourse, i.e., to always defiantly pick "c" when given a choice between "a" and "b")—complain that they don't live in buildings tall enough to have four flights of stairs, or that they're using a cane, etc.  I say this:  if your knees are shot, or if you're otherwise handicapped, then of course this test isn't for you.  But if you can put one foot in front of the other without your heart exploding, then think about giving the test a try.  (And if you already know your heart might explode if you tried walking up 60 steps, then you don't really need a test to know what condition your heart is in, ja?)

At my place of work, it's two flights of steps to go up one floor.  It's an old Korean building, built before building codes were modernized and standardized, so the flights are uneven:  14 steps, then 12 steps, for a total of 26 steps per floor.  So I did a slightly scaled-down version of the above test by walking upstairs from the first floor to the third floor, i.e., four flights at a total of 52 steps.  

My time for 52 steps:  30 seconds.  To get the result for 60 steps, I did a proportion:

30/52 = x/60

Result:  34.615 seconds.  Let's round up to 35 seconds.

According to the article, "anything under 45 seconds is good.  Around 60 seconds means you might have some work to do.  Anything over 90 seconds and, well, make a doctor's appointment."  Seems like good advice.

I'm not in shape by anybody's standards, but my penchant for distance walking means that, even in my current deconditioned state, I can pass the stairs test with flying colors.  If you're concerned about your heart health, and if you've got the use of your legs, give this test a try.  It's not meant to be minutely precise; it's only supposed to give you a rough-but-reliable measure of your current cardiovascular health.