Stairmaster Stepmill VAM Training Goals

The Stairmaster Stepmill doesn't have as many adjustments as any incline treadmill, so the VAM Chart, below, is quite a bit simpler. The angle of the tread is fixed, so just measuring the height and depth of each step is enough to feed into the calculation for creating the chart.

Stairmaster Stepmill VAM Goal Chart

VAM	200	400	600	800	1000	1200
Steps/Minute	16	33	49	66	82	98
Top 10 Classic/Extreme
Record Qualifier/Extreme
Finish Qualifier/Extreme
Finish Classic
Record Classic
Top 10 Qualifier
Women's Record Classic
Women's Record Qualifier = 900
Women's Record Extreme = 650
< 4000 M Overcompensation Training

For purposes of using the Stepmill in the Elbrus Race Training Program, keep in mind that there is no direct way to correlate mileage on the Stepmill with the plan. Since the depth and height of a step are within an inch of each other, you would have to go approximately 5,280' of vertical gain in order to get 1 mile of horizontal gain. If your weekly goal includes 10 miles of horizontal distance you'd have to get in about 53,000 feet of vertical gain to achieve it. You'll have to do some running, either on a treadmill or outdoors, in order to get in your weekly mileage goals.

Riding the Stepmill

Testing the Qualifier

One of my favorite things to do on a Stepmill is to test an Elbrus Race achievement. The Qualifier is especially easy to test. Once a week get on a Stepmill set to 50 Steps Per Minute and ride it for 2 hours. Here's the stats from that workout:

Time: 120:00

Steps/Minute: 50

Vertical Feet: 4000.00

Miles: 0.85

Average MPH: 0.426

Average Pace: 140:48

Vertical/Hour: 2000.00'

Vertical/Minute: 33.33'

VAM: 609.6

That's a Qualifier well within the cutoff. If you want slightly better specificity then carry a couple of small dumbbells to simulate hauling trekking poles with you, and wear a 10 pound running pack to simulate having extra mittens, jackets, water and food. Monitor your Heart Rate and either work to lower your Heart Rate over the course of a training cycle, or bring up your speed while maintaining the same Heart Rate. Either will do wonders for your performance in the upcoming Elbrus Race.

I feel this is quite easy to recover from, and could be done twice a week as part of the Phase 2 training program, leaving you free to do 2 x 5 mile "runs" at a really low incline to get in your miles.

Testing the Classic

This is a little bit more intense and requires a bigger commitment and expenditure of time and energy so I don't recommend doing this every week. While a measly 33 steps per minute will get your Classic finished under the cutoff, that would be 5 hours on the Stepmill. Set it to 66 steps per minute and you'll be done in 2:30, a much more realistic time for training while maintaining work and family commitments. At that pace you're also training for a Record Classic, which because of the altitude difference will end up being merely Overcompensation Training and possibly a Top Ten Finish.

Time: 150:00
Steps/Minute: 66
Vertical Feet: 6600.00
Miles: 1.41
Average MPH: 0.563
Average Pace: 106:40
Vertical/Hour: 2640.00'
Vertical/Minute: 44.00'
VAM: 804.7

This is realistic, and with a little bit of work you could pull this off once a week. In fact, for the best specificity to the event, do a Qualifier Test on Wednesday, and a Classic Test on Friday. Do nothing on Thursday.

Here's how to get in something like a Phase 3 Training Week:

• Monday: 5 mile low incline run.
• Tuesday: High Rep/Low Weight Strength Training.
• Wednesday: Stepmill Qualifier Test
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday: Stepmill Classic Test
• Saturday: 12 mile low incline run
• Sunday: Rest

Manitou Incline - 2000' vertical in .8 miles - like an outdoor Stepmill

That's a hint of things to come. I'll write more later on Phase 3 protocols with variations for Treadmill and Stepmill Training.

Updated Incline Treadmill VAM Training Targets

When I updated all of the statistics for the current course records as of Elbrus Race 2013 it revealed a need to update the incline treadmill training targets.

% Incline/VAM	200	400	600	800	1000	1200
3	4.14	8.28	12.43	16.57	20.71	24.85
6	2.07	4.14	6.21	8.28	10.36	12.43
9	1.38	2.76	4.14	5.52	6.90	8.28
12	1.04	2.07	3.11	4.14	5.18	6.21
15	0.83	1.66	2.49	3.31	4.14	4.97
18	0.69	1.38	2.07	2.76	3.45	4.14
21	0.59	1.18	1.78	2.37	2.96	3.55
24	0.52	1.04	1.55	2.07	2.59	3.11
27	0.46	0.92	1.38	1.84	2.30	2.76
30	0.41	0.83	1.24	1.66	2.07	2.49
33	0.38	0.75	1.13	1.51	1.88	2.26
36	0.35	0.69	1.04	1.38	1.73	2.07
39	0.32	0.64	0.96	1.27	1.59	1.91
40	0.31	0.62	0.93	1.24	1.55	1.86
Top 10 Classic/Extreme
Record Qualifier/Extreme
Finish Qualifier/Extreme
Finish Classic
Record Classic
Top 10 Qualifier
Women's Record Classic
Women's Record Qualifier = 900
Women's Record Extreme = 650
< 4000 M Overcompensation Training

As you can see, I've included color coded columns for easier reading. I added in a 1200 VAM overcompensation training column. I added in more specific targets for the following categories:

• Cutoff (finish)
• Top 10
• Course Record
• Women's

I've been considering this spreadsheet before every one of my treadmill workouts so I have some motivation to attempt to stay inside one of these categories for training sessions where possible. No, at 1% I will not be going 30+MPH.

Training Considerations:

We'll skip the Extreme in this section. If you're training for the Extreme I'll trust that you can figure out from this next section how to adjust these numbers for your own training. To squeeze it into the Phase 2 training from a previous article, at least once a week you should, at minimum:

• Finish a Qualifier
• Finish a Classic
• Simulate the Downhill Sections

Finish a Qualifier:

Incline Treadmill: Set your treadmill to 24-36% and cruise at 600 VAM for 3 miles.

Standard Treadmill: Set your treadmill to 15% (or max) and cruise at 600 VAM for 3 miles.

In general, a VAM is a VAM and going 1.3 MPH at one angle and 2.6 MPH at another should have some carry-over benefit, though it's not as sport-specific. You should be able to plug your data into the Incline Treadmill Calculator and get more than 2.8 miles and more than 3500' of vertical. These are your targets for a Qualifier simulation.

Downhill: set your treadmill to 1% and cruise at 4-6 MPH for 3 miles. If you want you can do this on the same day or another day, though on the same day it would simulate the same type of load as on the event day. Vertical is irrelevant. If by some chance you have access to a decline treadmill then set it to -6% and cruise at 4-ish MPH (I think that's the max speed at -6%) - adjust accordingly for your own treadmill capacity, but don't set it to -1% and 8.0 MPH or something else tempting and enticing.

Duration: On the incline treadmill this will be about 2 hours for the uphill section. On a standard treadmill this will be about 80 minutes. The downhill section should take 30-45 minutes. If you do this all together in one day it will take up to 3 hours for the whole workout. If you are also doing running training, like for a half or full marathon, this will take the place of one 5-8 mile, or 3 hour day.

Finish a Classic:

Incline Treadmill: Set your treadmill to 24-36% and cruise at 400 VAM for 5 miles.

Standard Treadmill: Set your treadmill to 15% (or max) and cruise at 400 VAM for 5 miles.

In general, a VAM is a VAM and going 1.3 MPH at one angle and 2.6 MPH at another should have some carry-over benefit, though it's not as sport-specific. You'll want to see Incline Treadmill Calculator stats of more than 4.8 miles and more than 6500' of vertical. Adjust your speeds and inclines to make it work for you.

Downhill: Set your treadmill to 1% and cruise at 4-6 MPH for 5 miles. If you want you can do this on the same day or another day, though on the same day it would simulate the same type of load as on the event day. Again, if you have a decline treadmill available set it to -4% and 4-ish MPH and cruise gently for your 5 miles. Don't worry about vertical when you do this. 

Duration: On the incline treadmill this will take about 5 hours uphill. On a standard treadmill it will take about 3 hours. For the downhill it will take 50-80 minutes. If you do it all on the same day it will be a total of anywhere from 4 to 6.5 hours. If you're also doing running training, this should replace your long run day, just for the time investment, if nothing else. You should have about the same physical/cardio load as running at your endurance or long pace.

Warnings:

Be warned that training downhill running can be tough on your joints and soft tissues of your feet. Go slow, use whatever cushioning you need, and if you have to, work your way into it at about .5% decline at a time until you're comfortable.

When going uphill that steeply and that quickly  you'll be tempted to grab onto the treadmill and hang on for the ride. When you are first training like this it's better to just get in the vertical and miles and slowly work your way into Hands-Free Mode. Ultimately you want to not be hanging on. Otherwise you'll be surprised at how weak and slow you feel when you're suddenly out on the mountain without a handrail. Trekking poles will take up some of the load, but there will be intermittent times between placing them when you have no support. Don't get used to hanging on.