Scroll through GymTok, and you can’t miss the newest darling of at-home fitness equipment: the mini-stepper. Looking like a love child between an elliptical and a StairMaster—your feet stay on the pedals the whole time, but just go straight up and down rather than in arcs—the viral gadget is compact, portable, and typically pretty budget-friendly.
Plus, there’s really no learning curve; you basically just hop on and start stepping. All this explains why bouncing fitfluencers are singing its praises, touting its ability to get their heart pumping and legs burning.
But do actual fitness experts agree? We connected with personal trainers to see whether you actually can get a legit workout with this pint-size piece of equipment. Here’s what you need to know before entering your credit card info on the TikTok shop.
Mini-steppers can give you a low-impact cardio workout.
Whether you’re taking a work call at home or watching TV, hopping on a mini-stepper while you’re at it can add a little low-impact cardio to your day when you otherwise might have been lounging. Trainers say this simplicity and accessibility can help people stay consistent with their daily movement goals, particularly if they’ve got limited space at home (or time to head to the gym). “It’s a great alternative to the walking pad,” Lindsey Bomgren, NASM-CPT, founder of online fitness platform Nourish Move Love, tells SELF.
Once you step on, you’ll quickly feel your glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves kick in, and, since there’s nothing to hold onto—these machines don’t have any handrails—your core will also fire up to keep you balanced, Bomgren says. And because you’ll be constantly stepping, your heart rate will hit those moderate or even vigorous intensity zones (depending on how fast you’re going) too.
Sounds like what you can expect from an elliptical or stair climber, right? Similar, yes, but not exactly. It’s difficult to get quite as effective of a cardio workout as you could on a full-size elliptical or stair climber since it’s hard to move as intensely as you could on a sturdier piece of equipment that has handrails to grab onto. Plus, although you can obviously switch up how fast you’re pedaling on a mini-stepper at any time, to change the resistance, you typically have to get off the machine and turn a knob, which doesn’t exactly let you hit a flow state. In comparison, most full-length machines not only let you manually adjust these settings as you go, but many also come with preset workout routines like hills and intervals to guide you through an effective cardio workout.