I work in a place with lots of stairs, a few years back ive seen me (when i wore a fitbit) doing anywhere up to 200 flights in a 12 hour shift this didnt bother me until maybe 15 months ago but now when i do more than 4 or so flights in a row i get really out of breath. During lockdown everyone was meant to get fitter but I would say i stayed about the same or got slightly worse. Today I went for a 20k cycle along the abandoned railway beside the house so sort of gravel type ride and it took about 1 1/4 hours which is roughly 15 minutes slower than normal but there was ice everywhere so i took it easy, felt fine after it but show me some stairs and my good god.

Any ideas why stairs have it in for me?

COVID?
Weight gain?
General being unfit?

If anything, the stairs will be making you fitter.

Sorry, thought it was post by WCA!😁

Nah, stairs are just a killer anyway. Even at the height of my fitness in my late 20’s when i was on the bike daily, putting in 200 miles a week and had legs that didnt lead to gagging, a set of stairs really had me gasping for air.

Stairs is a different kind of cardio. For real.

I wouldn’t recommend going up the spiral staircase in Covent Garden tube station.

I laughed at all the warnings clearly visible before attempting it…..how hard could it be? I definitely wasn’t laughing by the time I got to the top.

If you’re (for talking sake) 10% less fit, and 5% heavier, that’s a 15% deficit in your power to weight ratio, and stairs are about as real as it gets for highlighting your power to weight.
I’ve recently (for 3 months!) been watching my diet and simultaneously hitting the turbo, I’ve lost c4% body weight, and my power is up by 10% or so, and i can really notice the difference when i hit a hill, my legs don’t instantly die like they used to.

I’m pretty fit and on my feet all day in the workshop.

I live on the ground floor. Two flights of stairs and I’m *****d.

Cheers for the replies, thing is less than a couple of years ago I was fine with stairs. If ive gained weight its a couple of pounds at most, as for COVID I had all the symptoms and some time off work at the start of it all but no testing at the time so cant be sure and this might have been a couple of months before I really started to hurt on the stairs then again I’d have thought that would have had me gasping on the bike as well.

I wouldn’t recommend going up the spiral staircase in Covent Garden tube station.

I laughed at all the warnings clearly visible before attempting it…..how hard could it be? I definitely wasn’t laughing by the time I got to the top.

I did the same – took the kids to that there London for a couple of days over Christmas and we got the tube to Covent Garden so I made them walk up the stairs. About half way up I realised it’s probably 20 years since I last did it, I was a right mess by the time I got to the top. Kids thought it was hilarious.

Descend only. Sorted.

Stairs – don’t talk to me about stairs.  104 into my flat.  roughly 500 times a year  30 years I have lived here.  Thats 1.5 million stairs or 1/4 million metres climbed ( If can do arithmetic)

almost every time I go out on a bike the bike goes up and down the stairs.

I’ve been noticing the same. Working from home for nearly 2 yrs now and really feeling a difference each time I have to walk back up to my office after a raid on the biscuit barrel.

As an elite stairrunner aka towerracing it is all about your diet and hydration levels.

Most people eat too much fat and their blood cells clump up and find it hard to pump around the lower limbs making you feel breathless as well as your blood flow in your lungs is restricted compared to your hypothetical twin who eats under 10g of fat per day, smashes in enough sugar and drinks enough water for clear urine every 2 hours.

I absolutely dominate on the stairs. 2 at a time and grab the rail. You need good upper body power if you want to go your fastest.

We would do Baiyoke Tower II in Thailand. 80 floors. Do it every second day full gas for a month as base training.

Surf?…..Mat….?

Really noticed my stair fitness has dropped the last couple of years. And trying to go up stairs masked is really no fun.

Took eldest back to uni a couple of weeks ago – had to park 400 yards from his accommodation, carry all his worldly goods from there and up 100 steps to his room. 4 times. Then parked in the multi storey further out on the fourth floor and used the stairs up and down.

That was on the Saturday. Was Wednesday before I could do the stairs at home without wincing.

Surf?…..Mat….?

Well they’ve just called Bernal a noob 🙂

We worked out that our DHL delivery driver at work did an Everest equivalent every two weeks or so! He wasn’t slim 🤣

Reckon you’ve leg AIDs, the bad kind.

My crazy fitness mate took me for stair bronco. 17 flights ranging from 4 to 15 steps.

Up 1 flight – back down
Up 2 flights – back down
Up 3 flights – back down
…
Up 17 flights – back down

Took me a week to recover. Down is the hard part. I didn’t expect that.

so basically shut up and get on with it 😀

My fitness is terrible has been for a long while. I try to use stairs whenever I can and had no real issue. A few months ago helping carry a post cardiac arrest patient down the stairs I was puffing away. So much so their partner asked if I was Ok. I put it down to wearing full PPE including a seated mask.

Turns out I had hypertension 188/110 all good again thanks to meds.

I must be weird then, I love going to London and running up and down the staircases to the underground stations. Where I work we used to have seven buildings open each with three floors. If it was pouring down at lunchtime my lunchbreak walk would be to go up and down each flight of stairs in each building.
But there again also like climbing hills on the bike.

so basically shut up and get on with it

I’d go one further and say you should be like durianrider and smash your hypothetical twin by eating his lungs, then dominate the stairs by weeing on them every two hours.

I haven’t used stairs for 2 years, they’re overrated 🙂

i go in the back garden when i need a pi55. cant be arsed going upstairs to the lavvy.

i go in the back garden when i need a pi55. cant be arsed going upstairs to the lavvy.

Is your piss clear though? Are you eating enough roids bananas?

As an elite stairrunner

He should be carpeted for this.

Chapeau sir – made me chuckle

As an elite stairrunner aka towerracing

You are Neg and I claim my Chicken Royale and Diddy Donuts.

I absolutely dominate on the stairs. 2 at a time and grab the rail.

Do you get a time penalty if you get caught sliding back down the bannister by the teacher marshals?

We worked out that our DHL delivery driver at work did an Everest equivalent every two weeks or so! He wasn’t slim 🤣

Powered by donuts, can’t outrun a bad diet 🙂

Just stayed at a hotel and 3 flights of stairs had me puffed out ,which surprised me.
Unless I drive to a multi story carpark there’s no way I can climb lots of stairs to get some fitness back.
Is going up my home stairs 50 times, walking 3 miles to work with ankle weights or attempting to run the best alternative?

When I was working in Kenya one of the Switch sites was on the 32nd floor and I didn’t trust African elevators, so I used the stairs every day. The only issue was arriving in a sweaty mess at the top as I generally attacked them as fast as a I could, carrying a rucksack full of laptop, PSU, tools etc. I quite enjoyed it (other than the sweating bit).