“Stairs are the most honest kind of cardio. You either climb them, or you don’t.”
That truth lands differently when you remember what cardio looked like before StairMaster entered the industry.
Most fitness floors were built around flat ground. Treadmills mimicked running. Bikes simulated riding. Cardio moved forward, not upward. If you wanted the intensity of climbing, you had to find it in stadiums, hotel stairwells, or emergency exits. Elevation wasn’t programmed into fitness environments. It was something buildings happened to have.
The founders behind StairMaster didn’t accept that limitation.
StairMaster didn't begin in a fitness lab. It began in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during an energy industry collapse.
Jim Walker and George Schupp owned a manufacturing company that primarily served the oil industry. When oil prices peaked and then fell in the early 1980s, the pair began exploring new directions. By chance, Walker bought a used car from a hobbyist inventor named Lanny Potts — and that transaction changed commercial fitness forever. (Smithsonian Magazine, "The History of the StairMaster," Michelle Delgado, January 31, 2020)
The three formed a close partnership. Potts brought the inventive spark; Walker and Schupp brought the manufacturing infrastructure. As they explored fitness equipment, Potts kept returning to a memory from his time in the Air Force — living in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment while stationed in Italy. The machine he envisioned would replicate that climb, minus the joint damage of descending. As he'd been told by his doctor, stair climbing is excellent exercise, but you do nearly as much damage coming down as benefit going up. (Smithsonian Magazine)
By 1983, the three had founded Tri-Tech, Inc. and were ready to debut their first machine — originally called the Ergometer 6000, and renamed the StairMaster 5000 by then-marketing director Ralph Cissne. (Smithsonian Magazine)
From the start, StairMaster approached cardio the same way breakthrough strength equipment like Nautilus had approached resistance training, by respecting the movement itself rather than asking the body to adapt to the tool's limitations.
The brand's earliest machines stood apart for several reasons:
In March 1984, Tri-Tech released the StairMaster 6000, mechanically identical to its predecessor, but now featuring a digital screen that displayed calories burned and chimed when users climbed a virtual flight of stairs. For the first time, stair climbing had data behind it. (Smithsonian Magazine)
The next evolution was more significant. In 1986, Lanny Potts filed a patent application for the StairMaster 4000 PT — short for Personal Trainer. Rather than a rotating staircase, it introduced two independent pedals that simulated climbing, allowing users to adjust step height individually for a more personalized stride. The compact footprint made it viable for smaller facilities, hotels, and corporate gyms. Two days before Thanksgiving in 1987, the patent was granted. (Smithsonian Magazine)
The principle across all three machines stayed consistent: respect a movement people instinctively understand, and engineer it for progression.
The timing of StairMaster's arrival mattered enormously.
The 1980s fitness boom was already transforming how Americans approached exercise. Health clubs were expanding. Aerobics classes were exploding. Treadmills and bikes were becoming standard. But there was still a gap between steady-state cardio and the kind of muscular endurance that climbing demands — and StairMaster stepped directly into that gap.
According to historian Natalia Mehlman-Petrzela of The New School in New York City, fitness "absolutely exploded" during the 1980s. "Gym culture evolved from being a very strange subculture as late as the 1950s and even 1960s to being the ubiquitous cultural phenomenon that we see today." (Smithsonian Magazine) The data reflected it: by 1987, 69 percent of Americans self-reported regular exercise, up from just 24 percent in 1960. Gym membership had grown from approximately 1.7 million Americans in 1972 to an estimated 17.3 million by 1987. (Smithsonian Magazine)
StairMaster didn't just ride that wave — it helped shape it. For members, the experience was brutally simple: step, breathe, repeat. No complex technique to master. No learning curve. The machine immediately told the truth about your fitness. For operators, it offered something equally valuable: a modality that was easy to coach, easy to program around, and hard to ignore.
The cultural footprint grew rapidly. By 1990, public figures including Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, and Oprah Winfrey had all publicly declared their enthusiasm for the machine. Athletes including the New York Knicks' Patrick Ewing incorporated it into their training. (Smithsonian Magazine) As historian Marc Stern of Bentley University noted, "When you see the rich and famous exercising in a particular way or with a particular machine, that operates to make a product aspirational — not necessarily just a program you do to lose weight or to get stronger." (Smithsonian Magazine)
In many facilities, the brand name became shorthand for the experience. Whether or not the machine carried the exact logo, "We've got a StairMaster" communicated something specific about a facility's commitment to serious cardio. That kind of category ownership doesn't happen by accident. It happens when a product earns its reputation through performance, not marketing.
Like many influential fitness brands, StairMaster's story includes both rapid success and the industry turbulence that tests what you actually stand for.
Tri-Tech merged with Randal Sports/Medical Products in 1992, and the brand moved through several ownership transitions before being acquired by Nautilus, Inc. in 2002; joining a portfolio that already included Nautilus strength equipment, Bowflex, and Schwinn. (Wikipedia, "StairMaster")
This shift changed the context in which StairMaster operated. Instead of standing alone as a category creator, stair climbing became part of a broader ecosystem. For operators, that shift mattered: facilities could now source multiple training modalities, strength, bikes, and stair climbers, through a single commercial partner. Cardio floors began integrating treadmills, bikes, and StepMills into complete endurance zones rather than isolated machines.
StairMaster remained the climb. But it was now part of a larger training journey.
The financial crisis of the late 2000s forced widespread recalibration across the fitness industry. As Nautilus, Inc. pivoted toward consumer fitness, several commercial assets were divested. What could have fragmented the brands instead created the opportunity for a new vision.
In 2009, entrepreneur Michael Bruno acquired StairMaster along with the commercial rights to Schwinn Indoor Cycling, forming Core Fitness, LLC. (Wikipedia, "StairMaster") This wasn't a random collection of logos, it was the beginning of a deliberately assembled commercial fitness platform. Star Trac soon joined the portfolio, bringing one of the most respected names in commercial cardio performance. Later, Nautilus commercial strength returned to the fold. Together, these brands formed the foundation of what became Core Health & Fitness, headquartered in Vancouver, Washington.
Each brand held a clear role: strength, cardio, conditioning, and group training. Instead of isolated machines, operators could build a complete training environment through a single commercial partner. The industry had moved toward integrated fitness floors, and Core Health & Fitness was built to serve them.
There's a reason the StepMill became a fixture in serious gyms long before fitness trends started cycling at internet speed. Strength athletes and bodybuilders didn't adopt it because it was popular. They adopted it because it worked.
In the 1990s and 2000s, when physique training and performance culture were colliding inside commercial gyms, the StepMill earned a specific role: a conditioning tool that didn't compete with the strength goal. It didn't demand a new skill. It didn't punish the joints. It just produced results that other cardio modalities couldn't replicate.
Bodybuilders were among the first to recognize what the StepMill offered: low-impact, high-output conditioning that targeted the glutes and hamstrings in ways a treadmill simply couldn't match. That reputation was built by champions who put it to the test. Jay Cutler, 4x Mr. Olympia, made StairMaster a cornerstone of his contest prep and has been direct about why. On his Cutler Cast podcast, Cutler stated:
"The StepMill, just that slow steps squeezing, it's gonna condition you — I don't care what anyone says. It definitely makes a huge difference. Every time you step, it gives that separation — that glute-hamstring. The treadmill is not going to do what the steps will do for people. I don't care." (Jay Cutler, Cutler Cast podcast)
The tradition carries forward. Chris Bumstead, 6x Mr. Olympia Classic Physique Champion (2019–2024) and the current standard-bearer of the division, incorporated StairMaster into his Olympia prep as part of his morning conditioning work, proof that what worked for the champions who came before him still works now. (Generation Iron; Set For Set)
For lifters building strength and muscle, the StepMill became the cleanest "second gear" after weights:
Strength builds capacity. The StepMill applies it under fatigue.
Lifting develops force. Climbing turns it into sustained work capacity.
Leg training builds structure. The StepMill builds stamina without impact.
That pairing matters because it reflects how real training happens. Most people don't live in "only strength" or "only cardio." They train to feel capable, see results, and build conditioning that supports their lifts rather than competing with them. The StepMill fits that reality because it keeps intensity high while remaining mechanically simple and repeatable. In a well-designed facility, the synergy is clear: build strength on the floor, then express it on the climb.
More than forty years after the first rotating staircase debuted at an NSGA trade show in Chicago, StairMaster remains the defining brand in the climbing category. (Smithsonian Magazine)
The user base has expanded well beyond competitive bodybuilders. Today the machine serves:
Elite athletes and bodybuilders using StepMills to elevate heart rate without sacrificing muscle mass
Performance coaches programming climbs for metabolic conditioning and lower-body stamina
Firefighters and first responders replicating stair-based demands in full turnout gear
Everyday members looking for a high-intensity challenge that is easy to understand and difficult to master
Under Core Health & Fitness, StairMaster continues evolving the StepMill concept with equipment designed for today's commercial environments, from boutique training spaces to global gym chains. Recent innovations like the StairMaster 10G show how the climb continues to develop: the deepest step in the industry for a more natural climbing stride, and OverDrive Training Mode, which integrates sled push and farmer's carry demands directly into the climbing experience. Together, these innovations expand what stair-based training can represent, not just cardio, but a true bridge between strength and endurance.
The essence, however, remains unchanged. Vertical work. Continuous effort. Honest cardio.
What started as an engineering solution to a walk-up apartment in Italy has become one of the most enduring cardio modalities in commercial fitness history and the next era isn't about reinventing the climb. It's about elevating what the climb can represent.
We're in a period where cardio is no longer an afterthought. Conditioning is central to performance culture, longevity training, and everyday fitness goals alike. Athletes want tools that complement their strength work. Operators want equipment that retains members and delivers visible results. Coaches want modalities that are programmable, coachable, and honest about effort. The StairMaster has always delivered on all three and the platform is positioned to do that at greater scale than ever.
The brands that endure in this environment aren't the ones chasing trends. They're the ones that have earned trust through consistent performance, thoughtful design, and respect for the people using the equipment every day. StairMaster comes from that place. Built on the conviction that a simple climb, engineered with precision, could change how people train; it now carries that same standard forward.
When you step on a StairMaster, the machine doesn't negotiate.
It simply invites you to climb.
Sources:
Delgado, Michelle. "The History of the StairMaster." Smithsonian Magazine, January 31, 2020. smithsonianmag.com
Wright, Andy. "From Oil to Oprah: An Oral History of the StairMaster." Medium / Elemental, 2019.
"StairMaster." Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StairMaster
Cutler, Jay. Cutler Cast podcast. cutlercast.podbean.com
"Chris Bumstead Reveals His Olympia 2020 Workout Routine." Generation Iron, June 2021.