Why do I get out of breath going upstairs?

[Mamalicious16]

I'm walking more than I've ever walked since lockdown. Today I walked for more than 80 minutes ( thanks Google fit!) with no breathing issues. Came home, had a cuppa and a sit down for half an hour. Went upstairs and I'm out of breath! I can't work out why?

Are you walking on flat ground?

Walking per se is not strenuous - only rapid walking - so “normal” walking will not really exert you. Walking upstairs will however exert you. Are you overweight? I am 2 stone overweight and can walk “normally” for hours but get breathless on our stairs.

It’s uphill. How do you fare on hills when out and about? Where are you walking? Try to seek out hills to walk up, or speed up when you encounter them. Home stairs can easily be a 30 degree angle. The steepest street in England is 22 degrees.

Maybe I'm slightly overweight. However, I'm fitter ( usually) than I've ever been. I can walk over hilly fields/ woods / a typres of terrain ( member of NT)) yet I'm out of on the bloody stairs!

*all types of

anaemia?

I find myself unintentionally holding my breath when I climb the stairs which then leaves me breathless at the top, maybe you're doing this?

I get this too sometimes and I'm reasonably fit. It's weird!

Climbing stairs is more intense exercise than walking - even when you're walking over hills and rough terrain.

It's like a very small session of HIIT.

I can walk for hours but when the lifts broke in my office building 6 flights of stairs was a struggle even though it only takes a couple of minutes.

I'm anaemic and get ridiculously out of breath on stairs. It's linked to periods and definitely gets better through the month then worse during.

Because you are hitting the stairs from a standing start with no warm up, therefore the oxygen hasn't had time to reach your muscles before you are at the top.

sam here. I think its either pressure on lungs (?) or just crap lung capacity

Stairs have much more of a gradient than even walking up a hill,
i.e. your movement has a much higher % in the vertical, so gravity is more against you

Stair-climbing is a form of HIT (High Intensity Training)
and many people who can do prolonged low level cardio, which is what walking is, don't have sufficient crdio fitness to do HIT without getting breathless very soon

Are you sure you don't have asthma? I have exercise induced asthma (which is made worse by hayfever) but I didn't get diagnosed until I was almost 30, because I don't get the classic symptoms of asthma i.e. obviously wheezing, so I think it just got missed when I was younger. Spent years wondering why I was so unfit that I could walk for miles and miles but couldn't run for a bus... It was just asthma!

Are you usually like this or just lately? A lot of my friends who had covid found getting up the stairs totally wiped them out.

Me too, yet I can walk for miles with no problems !

You aren't as fit as you think. Simple.

We are designed to walk on the flat without it being much of an effort.

Sounds like you either need to lose weight, or do something more aerobic that gets your heart rate up for at least 20 minutes a day. Start with climbing the stairs 20 times!

I can run for 5k but find sometimes I’m slightly out of breath after a flight of stairs.

Oxygen debt after sudden intense activity.

www.teachpe.com/anatomy-physiology/oxygen-debt-recovery

Ps it's normal. You can improve in this area by regular anaerobic training.

Walking on the flat doesn't really require a great level of fitness.

I have an underactive thyroid and this was one of my symptoms before I started medication.

Are you walking up the stairs or running full pelt up the stairs?

To add, I hadn't realised it was a symptom of anything, I just thought I was unfit. My underactive thyroid diagnosis cleared up a few random symptoms!

I always seem to unintentionally hold my breath when I walk up the stairs and I’m always panting when I get to the top, I also have really low iron levels so that doesn’t help