[One Day Ten Thousand Steps, One Day One Thousand Characters] Why Stair Climbing Competitions Are Held at Girls' High Schools

Stair climbing is an exercise that combines the benefits of walking and hiking. It is an aerobic exercise that burns fat for energy, reducing body fat, and an anaerobic exercise that improves stamina and helps with body shaping?offering both effects at once. The calories burned per 30 minutes are 63 kcal for strolling, 120 kcal for brisk walking, whereas stair climbing burns 221 kcal. Above all, stair climbing is a high-intensity exercise that can be done anytime and anywhere without time or location constraints.

Choi Wanjeong, the director of Dapsimni Film Media Art Center located in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, is an actress, singer, entrepreneur, and president of the Korea Stair Climbing and Walking Association. While working as an actress, she suffered from severe stress, depression, and insomnia, but her life changed when she started climbing the stairs of her apartment. Usually, she climbed the 20 floors of her apartment five times (100 floors), and sometimes up to ten times a day (200 floors), day and night, which cleared her mind and strengthened her body. She even participated in fitness competitions and won three titles at the 2019 Muscle and Model Asia Championship held in Beijing, China. This experience led her to establish the association to promote stair climbing. She said, "Exercise is the way to live, and stair climbing and walking are free exercises that anyone, regardless of age or gender, can do as a gap exercise. I will work even harder to make these exercises a habit for all citizens."

The Korea Stair Climbing and Walking Association will hold the ‘UPGO Stair Climbing and Walking Competition’ both online and offline again this year. Now in its fifth year, this event is organized to support the Seoul Single-Parent Family Welfare Association. For the online competition, participants pay an entry fee (5,000 won) and choose an app that records stair climbing or walking at their preferred location. Walking requires recording more than 10,000 steps, and stair climbing requires more than 20 floors, after which participants verify their records.

The offline competition will be held on the 26th of this month at 1 p.m. at Haeseong Girls' High School in Dongdaemun-gu. The principal of this school, Seo Eunjeong, promotes stair climbing exercises to students, which aligned with Director Choi Wanjeong’s vision, making the school the chosen venue. After stair climbing and walking exercises with celebrities at the offline event,

there will be prize and gift giveaways for both online and offline participants, as well as magic shows and celebrity performances.