When you exercise consistently, your body adapts to that level of exercise after a while, doesn’t it?
That’s how I’ve always read it, and that’s always been my experience when trying something new (taking up a sport, or doing a new exercise).
But is there some minimum level of duration to the exercise to get your body adapted to it?
I ask, because around 4 months ago I started walking up a short but steep hill twice a day. I was breathless when I reached the top. I was walking up that hill twice a day for 3 months (I think there may have been one or two days where I only went up once per day, but that’s all - I was very consistent). Then for this last month, I have been walking up the hill 3 times a day, without fail.
Yet I am still just as breathless when I reach the top. And while I huffed and puffed this morning, I got curious and wondered why? Why hasn’t my body adapted to give me enough breath to get to the top of the hill that I’ve been walking up so consistently?
Well, I googled around for info about this awhile ago. Looked at from one perspective, you’re moving the same mass up the hill, same exertion, therefore the same breathlessness as a result. Except I know this is not true. We have a walk that we begin doing after winter’s cold that also has a short, steep hill near the end. When we first start doing this walk each spring, I am out of breath at the top of the hill. After 3 months of doing this 3 times a week, I have become acclimated to it and am no longer out of breath at the top of the hill.
During the Googling I mentioned earlier, I did come across physical conditions that will consistently leave you out of breath after exertion. I trust these types of conditions are not at play in your case. Google “out of breath” to get some idea of what I mean.
BTW - our total walk is about 3 miles, if that has any bearing.
I’d say you need some data to answer that question: How long is your walk? How long does it take you and has this time improved? What’s your pulse rate (at the end of your walk and possibly also during)?
Aside from this hill were you allready in very good condition before you started doing this. Has your speed going up the hill been increasing? this makes a big difference as well.
I used to quail hunt a big hillside durring the season each year. I made one trip a week. By the fourth visit I would be up to it and not out of breatk, next season repeat.
I take the stairs at work up four floors, 92 steps. Similar to you, I have noticed that I still get out of breath. However, the change I’ve noticed is how quickly I recover after.
Have you noticed any change in your recovery time?
To answer some questions:
It’s about a 90m walk (295 feet), and at the end I’m about 20m higher (65 feet). I’m pretty confident I’m not going up any faster than in the beginning. No idea about my pulse rate, as the climb is just part of my daily activities and never occurred to me to check it. I hadn’t considered recovery time - that’s interesting.
I walk around the area a fair bit, not purposely exercising just getting stuff done (walking, lifting, raking, etc) so it’s at a low intensity. I’m not a total couch potato, but I’m not very aerobically fit either - to go for a 5K run would require training, for example. I would say I’m mainly sedentary, as I have a desk job. I’m in good health according to my doctor, though I know I should be doing more exercise
It’s the only part of my daily activities that leaves me breathless - everything else I do is at a much lower intensity, I guess. It’s not a big deal or a worry, I just would’ve assumed I’d adapt by now to this small but regular hill to the point that I wouldn’t be breathless, since I do it so often and consistently.
So I’m going to WAG that it takes you 2-3 minutes to walk up the hill. So you’re doing 4-6 minutes of aerobic exercise per day. And at a rate that’s really quite anaerobic, given that you’re huffing and puffing at the end.
IANA expert, but my WAG as a guy who does exercise & work out most days, is that you’re doing far too little to obtain much adaptation.
If you were doing 20 continuous minutes of aerobics at the level of difficulty where you could just talk while walking / jogging, then I’d suggest you’d be pushing yourself in a way that will promote adaptation. What you’re doing now is very briefly overdoing it, followed by stopping just as it might have started to do some good.
Short version: the body responds well to gentle overexertion for a sustained time. Not for great overexertion for a short time.
Definitely less than 3 minutes, yes. I would’ve guessed 2, but that’s just an unscientific guess. I suppose I could time myself tomorrow
I don’t consider the hill climb to be exercise, BTW, and was quite surprised at the way you phrased it but I guess it comes down to semantics and definitions. It’s just part of my daily routine, same as carrying heavy stuff around, walking dogs, etc. I have to climb the hill to get a task done. I don’t consider this to be 5 minutes of aerobic exercise any more than I consider any of the other activities I do during the day to count as aerobic exercise. It’s more that I felt my body would adapt to my daily routine; I’m regretting using the word exercise in my OP already!
I was just curious as to why I was still puffed after months of doing it.
So LSLGuy, are you saying that 5 minutes a day, split into two sessions obviously isn’t enough for the body to adapt to. So, what is enough? And is the problem the short duration, or the fact that it’s too much exertion? Would I adapt if I did it at a speed that meant I wasn’t puffed? Or if I went up and down the hill 10 times so it was sustained exertion? I’m just really curious as to what is happening to make the body adapt to a small exertion, but not a large exertion. Or where the cut-off is. Is there a time/exertion gradient that you have to stay above for the body to adapt to?
It may be a regular task, but it’s not a very long one. You are talking about less than 4 minutes a day. For aerobic exercise, you need more like 30 minutes a day of activity to show benefits. I dare say that if you did this task 10 or 20 times a day, your body would adapt by going faster or easier or both.
Also maybe in the past it was taking you something like 2.5 minutes, but now you are going faster. As Greg LeMond, Tour de France winner, said “It doesn’t get easier. You just get faster.”
Then there’s also the possibility of something like asthma or some other breathing problem is the root cause.
Yeah I regularly cycle over to a friends about 8 miles away, the final stage is up a not especially steep but decently high hill.
I still am out of breath by the time i get to the top ( thank god for gears), but I noticed how quickly my breathing returned to normal after a few months of this.
To be fair I was cycling other places as well, but that was generally the most intensive part of my week.