The 5 Best Stair Climbers of 2021

Best Overall: ProForm Cardio HIIT Trainer

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Enjoy all your favorite features of your gym’s stair climber in the comfort of your home for a reasonable price. This model fits comfortably in smaller home gym spaces while maintaining an impressive weight capacity of 350 pounds. The individual, oversized and cushioned pedals carry your feet along a 10-inch vertical, 5-inch horizontal elliptical path, helping to build strength and burn calories while keeping the impact on your joints to a minimum.

It integrates 26 quiet resistance levels and iFit custom fitness programming to keep you motivated for every workout without disrupting the rest of your home. In addition to the 10-inch touchscreen that helps control your workouts, the HIIT Trainer includes in-handlebar heart rate monitor sensors and a chest strap, multifunction handlebars to keep your arms moving, a cooling fan, and a cup and tablet holder.

Best Portable: Sunny Health & Fitness Twist Stepper NO. 045

Buy on Amazon Buy on Staples.com

If you want to shuffle your favorite fitness equipment from your work desk to your living room to your porch with ease, consider this convenient stepper machine. It forgoes a center console and handlebars and focuses primarily on the stepping mechanism, making it easy to relocate and store.

Instead of creating a larger vertical step, this equipment uses a small inward-stepping motion that encourages slight hip rotation, activating the inner and outer thighs and firing up the core muscles as you move. It also helps to tone the calves and glutes.

This stepper may be small, but it’s made with sturdy steel that supports a weight capacity of 250 pounds. It also has oversized, non-slip pedals that make you feel safe and confident in working out more intensely without overstressing your joints. Plus, the little LCD monitor tracks your steps per minute, calories burned, time spent stepping, and total steps you take during each session.

Best High-Tech: Bowflex Max Trainer M8

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This stair climber from Bowflex was made for the exerciser who likes a lot of bells and whistles. It features 20 resistance levels, multi-grip handles, and heart rate monitoring capabilities. However, the technology components are what make this model particularly buzzworthy.

A burn rate display sets exercise targets for each user (up to four can be programmed) to help them achieve their fitness goals more efficiently. The stair climber also utilizes the Bowflex JRNY app that offers custom and dynamic coaching assistance for each workout.

The extremely sturdy design supports a weight capacity of 300 pounds while still remaining surprisingly compact for home gym use. It comes equipped with a USB charging port and a magnetic media rack for your tablet or smartphone.

Best Advanced: Jacobs Ladder Gronk Edition Step Machine

Buy on Amazon Buy on Gronkfitnessproducts.com

This pick comes with the highest price tag on our list, but it provides the benefits of a stair climber, treadmill, exercise bike, and elliptical all in one piece of equipment for your home gym. Basically, you “climb” on ladder-style rungs on a non-motorized continuous treadmill, self-pacing your workout to be as intense as you’d like.

It activates the upper body, core, and lower body, building strength and endurance with every use. Meanwhile, it remains a low-impact machine that is gentle on the joints. This equipment is larger and much heavier than the others on the list as well, but it is still compact enough to fit in most home gyms and is solidly constructed with high-quality materials.

It’s a surprisingly quiet climber, too, and despite the analog design, it still comes equipped with a battery-powered digital tracker that activates when you start stepping and shares elapsed time, feet climbed, climbing rate, calories burn, and heart rate.