– Dr Deebanshu Gupta, Interventional Cardiologist, Sarvodya Hospital, Jalandhar
Jalandhar [Punjab], August 31: Have you ever experienced that your heart starts to pound after climbing up a few flights of stairs – despite regular workouts? It can feel alarming, especially if you can run or cycle for much longer without any issues. But stairs are a completely different cardiovascular exercise since it uses gravity; the effort level goes up all of a sudden and works out big muscle groups.
The Physiological Reasons Behind the Issue
The resting heart rate of an adult person is between 60 and 100 beats per minute. When climbing up the stairs, leg muscles need much more oxygen, and this stimulates the heart to beat much faster and pump more vigorously.
Heart rate may spike quickly when doing the intense exercise, depending on age, fitness level and the intensity of physical activity involved. Jogging or cycling, which are steady-state exercises, imply that there are short bursts of intense effort against gravity, and this gives the body less time to adapt. As a result, there is a sharp rise in heart rate and breathlessness.
When the Heart Is Acting Normally
Faster and stronger heartbeats after climbing up the stairs are generally physiological responses of the body to physical activity, especially if they normalise right after ceasing it. There is nothing serious in it.
But When to Be Concerned
Though racing or pounding heart should not necessarily be considered to be a symptom of a fitness problem, medical assessment is needed when palpitations or breathlessness occur:
- Are felt when you are resting or doing a light exercise;
- Are associated with chest pain or discomfort;
- Cause the pain to spread to the jaw, shoulder or arm;
- Are felt along with dizziness, fainting or near-fainting;
- Feeling of irregularity, fluttering or skipping of the heart beats;
- Persist for several minutes even after stopping;
- Are newly appearing or have changed
These symptoms may sometimes indicate heart rhythm irregularities or underlying heart conditions such as structural abnormalities or coronary artery disease. Individuals with risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol levels, and a family history of heart diseases need to be more vigilant.
Why Does Stair Climbing Seem More Intense Than Jogging?
In case of running or cycling, there is ample time for the body to gradually raise the heart rate and respiration rate. But stair climbing may lead to an abrupt cardiovascular response within a few seconds, whereas jogging might be done at a constant pace.
The Bottom Line
Thus, what makes all the difference is how the heart reacts to such an activity and whether or not it recovers from it. A gradual increase in heart rate which then subsides on resting is normal.
On the other hand, unusual and new palpitations, especially with any chest pain, lightheadedness, fainting, and excessive shortness of breath, should not be ignored.
Fitness does not mean no more heart palpitations; it means knowing the difference between the two.
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