Both walking and climbing improve strength, but if you want to get fit in the shortest amount of time, opting for the stairs will give you a slight edge, a fitness expert says.

While both walking – even a few hundred steps – and climbing the stairs are better for you than inactivity altogether, if you want to know which is healthier, choosing the stairs provides a slight advantage, according to Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario.

Recent estimations show that slowly climbing stairs demands almost twice as much energy per minute as does walking along a flat surface at an everyday (not brisk) pace, Dr. Gibala told the New York Times.

In practical terms, those numbers mean that you can burn nearly twice as many calories per minute climbing the stairs as strolling down the hall. Not only that, but even descending the stairs requires more calories, per minute, than walking over flat ground, he noted.

What it all adds up to is that opting for stair climbing will give you a bigger “bang” for minutes spent walking, he added.