Climb 50 steps every day while singing, this is the challenge launched to the French to prevent cardiovascular diseases

“Climbing the steps won’t get you to the podium but it could save your life.” This is the slogan of a campaign by the Heart and Research Foundation launched for the Olympic Games. A campaign that has just been labeled a major national cause.

The Heart and Research Foundation is challenging the population: during the Olympic Games and until the end of September, everyone should climb at least 50 steps a day, if possible while singing. Why 50 steps? Because an American study, published last September and involving 450,000 adults, showed that this habit of climbing at least 50 steps a day reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease by 20%. The idea is therefore to adopt this reflex of abandoning escalators and elevators during the Olympic period so that it becomes a permanent habit afterwards.

The question was asked to Professor François Carré, cardiologist and member of the Heart and Research Foundation. It is not mandatory but the singing challenge allows you to have a benchmark on your level of breathlessness because the final objective is to succeed in climbing the five floors without being out of breath. And when we talk about five floors per day to reduce your risk, it is not in a row but during the day.

Let us remember that cardiovascular diseases are the cause of 400 deaths per day in France, it is the leading cause of mortality for those over 65.

If you don’t have stairs handy, the equivalent challenge for heart health this summer could be three ten-minute walks. That’s really the minimum amount of activity you should be doing each day, because sitting in a chair all day, “in the long run, it kills us slowly rather than resting us”, explains Professor François Carré.

And if you lack motivation to walk, run or climb stairs, headphones and music can help. For 30 years, dozens of studies have shown that music increases motivation for sports and sometimes also performance, the ideal is to listen to songs whose tempo is around 120 heartbeats per minute.

Motivation is also greater if the music is familiar to you. For example, this music, tested on panels of volunteers, facilitates the effort:

And for those who weren’t born in 1982, this song is also high on sports playlists right now: