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?

Low b12?

Does your arm tingle? It's much more likely to be low blood pressure, anaemia, or anything already mentioned, but I know someone who had an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. Also walks for miles, but got breathless going upstairs. But also the tingling in the arm, which was what triggered the tests.

Homeostasis.

Say you start walking 5km a day and it was a challenge. Very soon you adapt, it gets easier and your body adjusts so that you can walk 5km without exerting too much and burning too many calories. Soon you can walk 5km at a good pace but only burn 200 calories. Your lower body gets stronger and you may lose lean muscle in your upper body because you’re not using those muscles.

Going up stairs is a wholly different movement, using different muscles so your body hasn’t become used to it. You exert more effort and burn more calories. If you want to, you can adapt to that by taking the stairs like you would a 5k. Go up and down repeatedly until you adapt.

That’s why banging out cardio in the gym is so ineffective for weight loss. You need exercise that constantly challenges your body. Instead of doing 15 x 5 rounds of sit ups, do as many as you can manage until you can’t do any more each time you do it. The number will never be the same, your body can’t adapt to that so you’ll always be in max fat burning zone.

I used to play or train at football 5 times a week & do another couple of HIIT / circuit sessions.
I can still remember not being able to walk up the one flight of stairs at university without sounding like I was about to collapse!
The other sets of stairs would raise my breathing but the above ones I couldn't even talk to people on.

I felt like this when I was anaemic