I am a 76 years old man, I train regularly at the gym and I do lapses on an outdoor track three times a week. Lately, I decided to step up my training on the jogging track by gradually increasing the number of lapses.
A few weeks after stepping up my training, my cardio performance has improved so much that I can now easily do 20 lapses ( about 5 km) instead of the initial 5 and at a much lower pulse rate.
This was expected. However, I also train on a very steep staircase in a local park, probably 300 ft long and here, in spite of my improvement on the jogging track, I seem to have hit a wall: no improvement at all ! Now, as before, my pulse shoots up almost immediately to 140-145 b.p.m., which is way beyond the recommended maximum for my age ( 125 b.p.m. at 80% at 76). It is just as hard on my cardio as it was before.
What puzzles me is that I often do reach 140 b.p.m. while running on the flat jogging track , but it is not as exhausting as 140 b.p.m. on the staircase. It is as though the legs, more than the heart, bear the brunt and I have to stop..I can never do it in one shot!
Perhaps my leg muscles( the calves) are not strong enough for leaping up the stairs and this puts a strain on the cardio-vascular system, because the increased oxygen demand is not met by an adequately developed, more vascularized muscle mass, allowing a better transport of oxygen to the muscle cell.
True, I have been told that cardiovascular efficiency is muscle-specific and it cannot be transferred ( at least not entirely) to other activities engaging different muscles, but running on flat terrain and running up a staircase engage the same muscles leg muscles, after all and I wonder why I don’t see at least SOME improvement…
Any comments ?
Thanks
Ittiandro
A few weeks after stepping up my training, my cardio performance has improved so much that I can now easily do 20 lapses ( about 5 km) instead of the initial 5 and at a much lower pulse rate.
This was expected. However, I also train on a very steep staircase in a local park, probably 300 ft long and here, in spite of my improvement on the jogging track, I seem to have hit a wall: no improvement at all ! Now, as before, my pulse shoots up almost immediately to 140-145 b.p.m., which is way beyond the recommended maximum for my age ( 125 b.p.m. at 80% at 76). It is just as hard on my cardio as it was before.
What puzzles me is that I often do reach 140 b.p.m. while running on the flat jogging track , but it is not as exhausting as 140 b.p.m. on the staircase. It is as though the legs, more than the heart, bear the brunt and I have to stop..I can never do it in one shot!
Perhaps my leg muscles( the calves) are not strong enough for leaping up the stairs and this puts a strain on the cardio-vascular system, because the increased oxygen demand is not met by an adequately developed, more vascularized muscle mass, allowing a better transport of oxygen to the muscle cell.
True, I have been told that cardiovascular efficiency is muscle-specific and it cannot be transferred ( at least not entirely) to other activities engaging different muscles, but running on flat terrain and running up a staircase engage the same muscles leg muscles, after all and I wonder why I don’t see at least SOME improvement…
Any comments ?
Thanks
Ittiandro