Signs you’re at risk of ‘bungalow leg’: What happens to your body when you never take the stairs, the danger to your heart health and what to do NOW to counteract the damage

As you get older, swapping your two-storey house for a bungalow with everything conveniently on one floor might seem like the perfect solution. But increasingly research suggests living without stairs can be bad news for your health.

A major new study by the University of East Anglia has revealed that regularly climbing the stairs significantly reduces your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

This follows other research which has found that having stairs in your home can help prevent age-related decline.

In fact, the evidence supporting the health benefits of stairs is becoming so strong that some question whether there should be a rethink about how appropriate bungalows are for older people.

Academics at Newcastle University, writing in the Journal of Urban Design in 2024, pointed out that using stairs can ‘maintain healthy body weight, lower blood pressure and increase aerobic fitness [when] entering older age’.

They questioned whether ‘removing every physical challenge’ [such as stairs] from where we live may have ‘unforeseen consequences’ – among them, the dreaded ‘bungalow’ legs (more of which later).

The impact of your home environment on how you age should not be underestimated.

Researchers in Japan monitored the health and physical independence of almost 7,000 over-65s living in a single-storey home, a home accessed by a lift, or a home with stairs, for three years. The results, published in the journal BMC Geriatrics in 2018, found that those in the homes with stairs showed the least age-related physical decline.

The idea that taking the stairs is good for you might not sound new – but what scientists had not realised was just how good it is for you.

‘We went into our study expecting to see some benefits, but we were surprised how much of a boost climbing stairs can give your health,’ says Vassilios Vassiliou, a clinical professor of cardiac medicine. He led the recent University of East Anglia research, published in the American Journal of Cardiovascular Drugs.

He and his team reviewed the outcomes of five studies involving 450,000 people (aged 35 to 84) and found that those who regularly climbed stairs were 39 per cent less likely to die from heart-related problems and 24 per cent less likely to die from any cause – compared with people who didn’t climb stairs as often.

What’s more, the stair climbers were less likely to suffer major cardiovascular conditions such as a heart attack, stroke and heart failure during the 14 years they were monitored.

Professor Vassiliou says ‘the vast majority of the benefit of stair climbing is obtained at around six flights – equivalent to 60 steps – of stairs per day’ – but, he says, even doing ‘one or two flights of stairs every day is by far better than nothing’.

He told Good Health: ‘People don’t appreciate that climbing stairs could be so beneficial – this study proves it is a useful fitness tool.’

And he warns: ‘If you live in a bungalow and don’t encounter stairs very often, you’re removing one opportunity for short bursts of relatively vigorous activity from everyday life.’

Climbing stairs is classed as vigorous activity, as it causes a fast increase in heart rate. (It’s recommended that adults do at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week.)

‘Stair climbing trains a lot of muscles in your body, especially your legs – but it also trains your respiratory muscles, so over time your overall cardiovascular health improves,’ says Professor Vassiliou.

‘We also know that, over time, people who regularly climb the stairs have better-controlled blood pressure and cholesterol.’

Because stair climbing involves lifting your body upwards, it requires your muscles to do much more than is required during ordinary walking, adds Helen O’Leary, a physiotherapist based in London.

‘You have to lift your body weight vertically, control it on one leg, transfer weight from side to side and then control your body as you come back down on to the other leg,’ she says.

‘And the leading leg has to lift high enough to clear the step. The hip and knee flex, while the ankle bends upwards to help clear the foot. Once the foot lands, the movement changes from lifting the leg to lifting the body. The quads extend the knee and help raise the body on to the next step.’

On top of that, there is also a significant balance component to stair climbing.

‘For most of the movement your body is supported on one leg,’ says Helen O’Leary. ‘So stairs aren’t simply strengthening your legs; they are repeatedly challenging the strength, balance, sensory and coordination system that allows us to move confidently through the environment.’

Climbing stairs puts a load on the whole body, which helps to maintain the strength of bones and joints too, says Dr Gurdeep Dulay, a consultant rheumatologist at Nuffield Health in Portsmouth.

‘Climbing stairs takes the hips, knees and ankles through a useful range of movement and can help maintain mobility,’ he says.

‘This is especially important as we age because it helps us continue to carry out everyday activities such as walking and getting up from a chair.’

This combination of benefits could be why living in a home without stairs is associated with ‘bungalow legs’ – the term for the gradual weakening of muscles in the legs, which is often apparent in people who have moved to a single-storey property.

Helen O’Leary says that she has often seen patients develop this and lose fitness generally after moving to a single-storey home.

‘When you are walking up and down stairs regularly, or over a larger square footage – which is usually the case when you own a multi-floor house – you tend to simply do more steps,’ she says.

‘If everything is that little bit closer your steps will naturally decline. This can reduce your overall fitness levels.

‘It doesn’t matter the age of the person or their fitness levels. If you do less, you will lose general fitness.’

Professor Vassiliou emphasises that for some people, a bungalow is the ideal home.

‘If individuals have difficulty with mobility, or they have a lung condition that does not allow them to go up stairs, for example, then a bungalow becomes the perfect option,’ he says.

Even then it is possible to build movement into your day. Dr Dulay suggests incorporating regular simple exercises such as sit-to-stand from a chair, or step-ups on a low-level exercise step.

‘These also help to add strength, mobility and cardiovascular activity into everyday life. We need to keep challenging our bodies as we get older,’ he says.

No stairs? Try these moves

Helen O’Leary, a physiotherapist in London, suggests these three exercises to replicate the effects of stairs. For each exercise, do three sets of eight to 12 reps each side.

Single leg bridge

Working a single leg at a time ensures that each side is as strong as the other.

Lie on your back on the floor, with your feet on a sofa edge. Lift one leg into the air, then press down into your other foot (on the floor) as you lift your hips up towards the ceiling. Keep your hips square.

To make this harder, hold a weight over your hips.

Squat to calf raise

This works your muscles in the same way stairs do, pushing you up against gravity.

Stand with your feet slightly wider than hip-width apart.

Send your bottom backwards, as if you were sitting on a chair, as low as you can comfortably go, then push yourself back up, pressing through your feet, until you are standing tall, and lift up onto your toes to work your calf muscles.

Curtsy squat

This replicates the strength you need for going up stairs.

In this version, you can get really low while balancing on one leg, so as you push up, you work your muscles through an even larger range of motion than when going up stairs.

Stand on one leg. Bend the other leg so that your foot is behind you. Now bend down on your standing leg and aim your bent knee towards the back of your standing ankle. Next, push back up to standing.