Mountain Biking - I can ride, ride, ride, but get winded on stairs! What gives?

I consider myself in fairly decent shape and get embarrassed when I huff and puff up stairs. It's weird. I've started walking 4-5 flights multiple times per day at work to build up some tolerance, but maybe I need to add stair climbing to my workouts. Is this just a matter of not having my "climbing muscles" in good shape?

Fitness is partially activity-specific. If you keep working at the stair climbing, you'll get better at it.

i'd probably increase the aerobic activity in my work-outs...biking is a combination of aerobic and anaerobic...great for building muscle, but unless you do some challenging climbs or roadie time trials, its more of a maintenance cardio exercise

I found that XC skiing in winter and steep bike climbs made me stair-worthy

I consider myself in fairly decent shape and get embarrassed when I huff and puff up stairs.


try riding faster uphill. And faster in general.

do jumping jacks in the elevator

It's not so much about how hard you breathe, it's about how long you can keep it up, and how quickly you recover. You breathe hard while you're climbing stairs because you're working hard. But if you're in good shape, you can keep going for a lot of flights, and you can "catch your breath" quickly once you stop. If you're in bad shape, you have to stop sooner, and it takes you longer to get back to normal breathing.

I am the same. I think it is because I don't breathe properly while going up and down the stairs.

I tried the jumping jacks in the elevator - it stopped between floors and a voice came over the intercom, telling me to knock it off. I hadn't noticed the video camera...

rofl

ahaha that gave me a good laugh :P

This happens a lot to professional cyclists. The muscles you use for climbing stairs or running are very different ones than you use for cycling. You must do all different types excercising to be bullitproof! Crosstraining is the ticket!

I was just thinking was samster posted :P

Also, I think riding a bike is easier because you can put your weight into pushing the pedal down, however with stairs you have to push your weight up then lift your like up higher afterwords.

I kick ass on stairs but I can't sustain a decent cycling speed for sh*t. So there.

I consider myself in fairly decent shape and get embarrassed when I huff and puff up stairs. It's weird. I've started walking 4-5 flights multiple times per day at work to build up some tolerance, but maybe I need to add stair climbing to my workouts. Is this just a matter of not having my "climbing muscles" in good shape?

just ride your bike up the stairs.

just ride your bike up the stairs.

Teach me!

I tried and just get stuck.