Step Height

How high should your step be? That depends on many factors: your aerobic fitness level, your leg length, the choreography, your stepping skill and coordination, and the music tempo. Ideally, you want use the lowest possible step height that will allow you to stay within your aerobic training zone (60 to 75% of your maximum heart rate).

Although stepping is considered to be aerobic activity, it does have a strength training component to it, in that you're repeatedly lifting your body weight against gravity over an extended amount of time. Of course, the higher the step, the more weight you lift and the harder you work. With the correct step height you can maintain a full range of motion for all leg moves and can fully press your heels down during basic climbing on and off the step. Making this heel contact with the floor or step helps to absorbs the shock of stepping. However if the music is too fast or the choreography too complicated and your step is also too high, you may find yourself rushing to keep up, and your form and alignment will suffer. You'll be bouncing on the balls of your feet...adding impact that wasn't intended and you won't be able to use control during kicks, ham curls, leg lifts and repeaters.

Beginners to stepping should start with a 4-inch step. Once you gain experience and are no longer challenged at 4 inches, add 2-inch risers (one at a time) to a maximum of 10 inches, depending on your leg length. A new height can take getting used to because you need to lift your legs a few inches higher, which takes a split second longer, so you have to move that much faster. Speed up the music too and you could be in trouble. Often the step height is dictated by the music tempo and the choreography. You must be able to keep up with the footwork with good form...heels down, body upright, no extra impact (because you're rushing to keep up).

No matter how long your legs are or how experienced you are, your "loaded" knee (the lead leg that lifts your entire body weight onto the step) should never flex beyond a 90-degree angle. If you set your foot on the step your hip joint should always be a few inches higher than your knee. (If you were to place a small ball on your thigh, it would roll towards your knee, not towards your hip.)

Note: if you are just beginning an exercise program, you should begin with floor aerobic workouts for the first 6 to 8 weeks before trying a step workout.

Propulsion or Power moves

Jumps and hops onto the step are a way for intermediate or advanced steppers to add aerobic intensity to their stepping. However, depending on your fitness level, the condition of your knees and the speed of the music, it might be safer for you to raise your step height for more intensity rather than adding impact moves. Jumps onto the step should be done with great control...you should aim for a quiet (soft) landing on the balls of your feet and then press your heels down to the step.

When repeated too often (within one workout or in back-to-back workouts with inadequate recovery time) power moves can increase the risk of injury to your knees, ankles, feet, hips and legs. Jumping and landing on one leg increases your risk of injury even more than landing on both feet (plyo squats). Adding a turn or direction change with the hop increases the risk again (especially if you don't look at your step), and repeater hops (on the same lead leg) takes the risk a notch higher. It's recommended that during step workouts you never hop or jump off the step onto the floor.

If you're wondering just how you could injure yourself by overdoing power or propulsion moves, here's a list of common overuse injuries:

plantar fasciitis (heel pain), (from landing on the balls of your feet, and not getting your heel to the floor or step)
stress fractures of the foot (esp. if a woman has menstrual irregularities or osteoporosis),
sprained ankles (should you miss the step and slide off the side, or if your shoes are worn down such that your foot rolls over when you land),
knee tendinitis (jumper's knee) pain just below the knee cap,
quadriceps tendinitis -- pain just above kneecap
Achilles tendon strain -- pain between the calf muscle and heel (from landing with your heel hanging off the step)

Is jumping onto your step safer than jumping on the floor? Maybe not...if your step is hard plastic with no give. While your floor surface may be fine for high-impact floor aerobics, your step may not have enough cushioning for high-impact power stepping.

Arm moves

The quickest way to control aerobic intensity is by adjusting your arm movements. Follow the arm moves if you want to work harder, keep your arms lower or stop them when you're feeling tired. Some videos use very basic steps and simple foot patterns, so they include more complicated arm patterns to add aerobic intensity. For beginners, coordinating these arm and leg moves can be quite challenging, so skip the arms and get the footwork down first. You're still getting plenty of aerobic intensity.

Jane Fonda's excellent beginner step workouts show two levels of arm moves, above shoulder level for intermediates and advanced, and below shoulder level for beginners. When the music tempo is fast, exercisers with long arms may find it hard to go through the full range of motion for certain straight-arm moves. To reduce shoulder stress: shorten the range of motion for front raises by stopping at shoulder height, bend your elbows to 90-degrees for lateral raises, or change full arm sweeps (lifting straight arms from thighs to overhead) to a chest press forward (easier) or an overhead press (harder).

Dumbbells of any weight are still not recommended for use during step aerobics. Research has shown that the risk of injury to the joints far outweighs either the aerobic or strength building benefits. To effectively build strength with dumbbells your movements need to be slow and controlled, with a weight heavy enough to fatigue the muscles after a set of 12 to 15 reps. When you're lifting lighter dumbbells to a faster aerobic beat for an extended amount of time, it's easy to start swinging the weights. Your muscles, tendons and ligaments can be overloaded by their effort to control the fast swinging movements and change direction. And yes...I am aware that many FIRM video workouts use weights during step segments -- usually at a 1-up, 1-down tempo, way too fast for good control of the weights. If you choose to use them too, at least slow down your arms so that you take two steps to lift and two to lower. But be aware that your risk of overuse injury is increased, especially when you're lifting "up to tempo."

Choreography

Many step video workouts from early 90's use basic step choreography in simple-to-follow short patterns, including many leg lifts in all directions (ham curls, side leg lifts, glute lifts, knee lifts). They may offer power options, and an occasional change of direction, but most of their intensity comes from repetition of basic moves like "over the top", straddles, V-steps, L-steps, repeaters, turn steps, lunges and squats, often with coordinating arm patterns.

As step progressed instructors began to spice up their workouts by designing more intricate footwork combos and including dancier steps. Many advanced step workouts can take up a lot of floor space around the step and they often include more power moves, pivots and turns both on and off the step. As instructors try to make choreography more interesting, they sometimes forget that even seasoned steppers sometimes need or want low-impact options for advanced moves.

Step choreography is presented the same way as floor aerobics choreography. Steps are usually introduced one at a time, added together and practiced in short blocks. Each block might stand alone or the blocks might be added together and TIFTed (taken from the top) over and over again. Your success with stepping will depend on how skillful the instructor is at teaching the individual moves, combining them into a flowing pattern, designing smooth transitions and cueing the moves in a timely fashion.

Workouts meant for all levels generally show a non-impact "base" step first, then show how to add power or direction change for advanced. If the workout introduces a power move or a direction change as the "base" move you're looking at an advanced workout. An experienced stepper can usually find ways to lower the impact of a power move, but changing a pivot or hop-turn is harder as it often leaves you on the wrong foot or the wrong side of the step from everyone else. If your step video throws four or five new moves at you in a row you have an advanced workout. If you're an experienced stepper, you'll love this challenge, but if you're new to stepping you'll probably find it very frustrating. The rewind button will help you get the moves down, but you probably won't get an intense workout until you learn the moves. Previewing a new step video with remote in hand is a good idea.

At the same time that certain moves increase the intensity they also increase your risk of injury. There are a few basic guidelines that can reduce these risks. Most certified instructors will take them into consideration when they design their workouts. I'll list them here so you can check out your step workouts and make adjustments as needed.

......(1) Because the lead leg takes more stress, leading with the same leg should be limited to one minute, then a change should be made.
......(2) Because the support leg takes more stress, repeaters should be limited to 5 in a row, then a leg change should be made.
.....(3) Propulsion moves, lunging off of or jumping onto the step, should be limited to one minute before changing to less stressful moves.
.....(4) At no time should you walk forward off the step (i.e., your back is facing the step). The stress forces on your knee are higher in this direction than when you step off the step backwards or sideways.
......(5) When you're hopping over the step, changing direction and landing on the same leg, be sure to unload that support leg such that you're changing direction in the air.

Music Tempo

In 1994 the recommended top stepping speed was 122 bpm, you'll see this reflected in the early 90's videos that I review. As stepping has evolved, instructors pushed the envelope and step tempo rose higher and higher. In 1997 Step Reebok revised the top permissible stepping speed upward to a maximum of 128 bpm. Now, just a few years later, many advanced videos are going beyond the recommended 128 bpm guideline...again in an effort to increase the aerobic intensity. This trend is evident in the newer videos that I review.

According to the Gin Miller website, Michele Scharff Olson, Ph.D., an independent researcher of the Human Performance Laboratory at Auburn University Montgomery analyzed seven years of step research and found that at tempos faster than 128 bpm, the impact forces of stepping increase significantly...enough to then classify stepping as a high impact activity. Because the stepper must move faster in order to keep up with the speed of the music, this can lead to jumping or hopping onto the step and allows less time to press the heels down. In this way step speeds over 128 take the low-impact option away from step. Step tempos higher than 128 bpm can also take you out of your aerobic training zone and into your anaerobic zone, which raises your fatigue level and makes it harder for you to step with control.

It also seems that instructors have forgotten that warm-ups are meant to gradually prepare the heart and large muscle groups for the main workout, and so should be done either slower or lower (i.e., on the floor). Sometimes, the entire workout is done on the step, often with no change in music tempo from warm-up, to workout, to cooldown. Arguments could be made that these are workouts for advanced only, but that's not what the covers say! And even advanced steppers should follow safe warm-up/cooldown protocol of gradually increasing heart rate at the start and slowly letting it lower at the end.

If you want to read what aerobics instructors have to say about step speed and step height, go to the Aerobics Forum at Vita's Vibe website and search for step speed and step height. You'll see some very interesting comments.

Return to Step Aerobics Reviews or Step Aerobics & Toning Reviews or FIRM Step Aerobics & Toning Reviews.