Ep. 111 Why You’re Always Out of Breath on Hikes (and What to Do About It)

In this episode of the Fit for Hiking Podcast, I dive into why so many of us feel constantly out of breath on the trails, and what we can do about it. I share my own struggles as a beginner hiker, break down common causes like pacing, altitude, and training gaps, and give both quick fixes and long-term strategies to help you hike stronger, breathe easier, and enjoy the journey!

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What is Fit for Hiking?

Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!

Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the fit for Hiking podcast. This is your host, Brady. And today we're going to do a quick chat on why you're always out of breath when you're hiking and what you can do about it. So if you're someone who finds that you're just always mouth breathing stuck in, wind hikes are honestly not that enjoyable because you feel so winded and not equipped when you're out on the trails, then this is for you. And the good news is there is something that you can do about it. This isn't just what it's going to be like forever, especially if you're new to hiking. It can definitely feel like that and stick around for a little discount code at the end for my self-paced hiking fitness program. Okay, so make sure you listen for that at the end of the episode. Um, so one thing about me that you might not know if you are new to the show is that I did not grow up in the mountains hiking. This was all very new to me. In my early 20s, I moved to Denver, Colorado from Indiana. So as you can imagine, not a lot of peaks and high altitude type of hikes. In Indiana. It is extremely flat. I wasn't even a part of a family that like did mountain type trips for vacations. We never went out west or anything. So all of this was completely new to me when I relocated to Colorado in my early 20s. So I decided, hey, let's give hiking a try. That's what everybody does here. Like, it's just the culture in Colorado. There's so many different trails. So I went for it and started doing some small hikes, just kind of in the foothills surrounding Denver. Um, and I loved it. I fell in love immediately. I was like, wow, this is so cool. This is like going for a walk on steroids because you have these amazing views. And everything was so novel and exciting for me. So I fell in love with hiking pretty quickly, and I found that it was a very low barrier to entry as far as outdoor activities. You know, you didn't need a ton of gear if you found, you know, a good pair of shoes and some workout gear and maybe a backpack. Good to go, right? Compared to some of the other sports out here, it was pretty cheap, pretty not intimidating, and I was able to jump into it pretty quickly. Um, however, as I started progressing and trying harder hikes and then eventually dabbling into big summits and backpacking. I realized that not all hikes are created equal. And if I wanted to do the really tough but very rewarding, amazing view type of hikes like access places that you just absolutely can't access without doing these hikes, then I needed to start training properly because the first few backpacking trips I went on were honestly brutally painful. Um, not in a way where I was like, you know, in physical pain, like I can't move my body. But I was struggling so hard with trying to catch my breath. I honestly felt like I'm going to pass out or have a heart attack on these hikes because I just wasn't, uh, fitness wise, equipped to go out and do these things. I was always sucking wind. I felt like I was hanging at the back of the pack, and it was kind of embarrassing and not super enjoyable because anytime there was an incline, I was miserable. Um, so after a certain backpacking trip I can remember so distinctly, I was in the back the entire time. It wasn't very fun for me. It was beautiful, but all I remember was struggling and just feeling like I'm going to pass out or have a heart attack, and it's going to be this is the end. Like I have no service. I can't even keep up with these people. They won't even know I went down. Um, and that was kind of a low point and definitely a point where I was like, I got to figure this out because at the time I was managing a fitness studio? I was working out every day. It's not like I never worked out or I was completely out of shape. I just wasn't doing the right things. Okay, so if you've ever felt like that, if you've ever been in a situation similar to that, or you are completely new to hiking and you're just anticipating, okay, if I want to get into this, I know I got to start, you know, putting in the work now because I'm sure it's not going to be easy. Then this episode is for you. So let's talk about kind of what normal expectations are when you start out hiking. And you are starting to really push it as far as the distance, the inclines, maybe you're starting to do some higher altitude hiking. It's normal to feel winded. Okay. That happens even honestly. As a very experienced hiker, I just recently went out and did two fourteeners back to back and because they were so high up, I was extremely winded for the last few thousand feet as we got closer to the summit. So it doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing something wrong just because you're winded. But if you're doing kind of like really low altitude or smaller hikes and you're just kind of winded the whole time, then that's a sign that there's something that you need to probably do about it. But it's not. It doesn't mean that you're out of shape forever. It just means that we need to take a better approach. Right. So there is going to be. Some winded moments on hikes, especially if you're getting above 10,000ft. That's going to be somewhat expected, but you can manage it and make it much more enjoyable. And, um, and not quite so extreme by doing some of these approaches that we're about to talk about. So first of all, why does this even happen? Um, so it can be due to the lack of proper strength to cardiovascular training ratios. So if you're only doing strength or only doing cardio or just not doing enough of these things or not doing them frequently enough, that can definitely be a big contributor. Um, starting out too fast on the trail, if you're just taking off and trying to go as fast as possible, maybe to keep up with whoever you're with, but you're not ready for that type of challenge that can also kind of set you up to struggle. Altitude differences. You know, if you are gaining even 500ft of altitude on a hike, that's going to be tough if you're not used to gaining altitude. Um, and then also the altitude at to where you're going versus altitude that you're used to. So for instance, in Denver the altitude is just above 5000ft. That's already pretty high. But most people who live in Denver are going to be acclimated to that. But when you go hiking in the mountains, a lot of these hikes could be above 10,000ft. That's over double what you're used to. So even that is going to feel pretty drastic and tough. Okay. So even just 2 to 3000ft will make a really big difference. As far as your oxygen availability, uh, how tough a hike feels, and also whether there's so many different things that the altitude can affect. So that's going to make a big, big difference. Hiking in the Midwest is going to be completely different from hiking in the western states. Okay. Um, carrying a heavy pack without training is another thing that can really affect you. If if you're adding, you know, £20 plus to your back, that hike is going to feel a whole lot harder. So you just got to be prepared for that and and train appropriately depending on what type of hiking you're doing. Also, another cause is living a largely sedentary life. If you are training a couple times a week, but then the rest of your day, you're just sitting and working at your laptop, or you're just on your phone or watching Netflix all night, and you're not up and active throughout the other 23 hours a day apart from your workouts. Then that's going to catch up to you, and you're not going to feel optimal on the trails, right? Because hiking some hikes you're going to be hiking for, you know, hours and hours and hours, especially if it's a backpacking trip that's multiple days. So if you're not even used to being on your feet for more than an hour a day, then that's going to definitely feel a lot tougher. And I think oftentimes we think, well, I work out three times a week really consistently. So like I'm definitely an active person, but if you are not doing a whole lot during those other, that's only three hours a week, right? Like if you're not working out all of those other hours, or you're not going for walks or just like up and active, then you're still pretty much a sedentary human. So this is why a lot of times, other countries are a lot healthier than the United States, because everybody's walking places. People are just sitting all the time. Obviously, it depends on the city or the culture, but a lot of places are much healthier, not because they work out all the time, but because they are walking a lot. They're non exercise activity is much, much higher than what it is for a lot of locations in the United States. And then the final reason is poor nutrition leading up to hikes. Not that this necessarily affects your oxygen, but it can affect your energy with which you're able to do some of these big ascents. All right. So let's talk about a few quick fixes. Things that you don't need to train for. But you can just try out on the trails right away. One is a pacing strategy. So instead of just going for it right away, make sure that you're pacing yourself, taking some breaks to hydrate, and having some carbs along the way so that you don't get burnt out too fast. The next is breathing techniques, so breathing through your nose and exhaling fully through your mouth, um, and then focusing on more rhythmic steps. The next is taking micro breaks. So pausing before you get to the point where you're just sucking wind and feeling like you're going to pass out, right? Especially if you're with other people, you have to be a little bit more intentional about saying, hey, I just need a quick break. Like literally just 1 to 2 minutes and then I'm good to go. Um, and then hydration and fueling, like I mentioned before doing this throughout, but also beforehand. So if you are going into a hike, especially a big or long hike, completely carbohydrate depleted, then your energy is going to suffer. And I've definitely experienced that firsthand. When I thought, what the heck, why am I so out of shape? I thought, I've been training for this. Turns out I just needed some carbs. I just hadn't been eating enough carbs leading up to that hike. All right. So what about some long term solutions, things that are going to really, really benefit you leading up to your hikes that you need to start implementing it in your day to day life and training. So the first one is cardio training off of the trail. The more that you can be doing this, the more it's going to translate to your cardiovascular efforts while you're hiking. So this is usually done best in a combination of steady state cardio. So think like doing the same movement over and over and over again for, you know, 30 plus minutes. There's not a lot of variation and effort or intensity that's steady state cardio versus intervals, which is going to be something where you're really spiking up your heart rate, your effort levels go really, really high, and then you scale it back and let your heart rate come down again before you go into another high burst effort. Okay. So doing a combination of the two is going to produce the best results to really mimic what you're doing on the trail. So this can be done through things like treadmill incline walks, elliptical or StairMaster. Backwards treadmill walking is actually a really great thing for improving knee health, which definitely matters on the trails, especially if you're doing a lot of downhills. And then for intervals, you can do hill sprints or kind of just push efforts on things like the elliptical, jogging or StairMaster. Okay, so there's a lot of different options that you can try, especially if you want some variety. And I do recommend doing this maybe a couple times a week. If you are an avid hiker and really want to feel the effects, and this isn't something that you should just do, like a few weeks leading up to a hike, right? This should just kind of be a part of your routine. Maybe during off season you're doing one good cardio session per week, and then as you get closer, you can ramp it up to maybe 2 to 3 so that you feel your best as you head into peak hiking season or before a big hike. Next is strength training. I am such a big advocate of making sure that you're doing proper strength training, instead of only focusing on cardio for your hikes, and our clients definitely reap the benefits of this. And in terms of how their joints feel, how they feel muscular soreness the next day, and just also body composition and metabolic health. Like there's just so many benefits to strength training for women. Longevity. Um, so let's talk about that. So as far as what you want to be focusing on as a hiker, you're going to want to make sure that you're focusing on lower half, obviously big time and then a little bit of back and core as well. So training your quads, glutes, calves and hamstrings. So making sure you're not just hitting the quads, a lot of times we just focus on squats or lunges, but there's so many other varieties of lower body exercises that are going to be more effectively target hips, glutes, and hamstrings. We don't want to neglect the back side of the body will make such a big difference for the health of your knees while you're hiking. If you're powering through your glutes instead of just the quads. So we want to make sure that we're incorporating all of those different lower body exercises every single week. And then single leg work makes a massive difference as well as far as your balance, your stability and strength being equal on both sides. A lot of us are actually not really even when it comes to our strength. And so by doing unilateral or single leg work, we're able to make sure that both sides are going to be equally as strong. Um, this has made a massive difference in my success with hiking and my stamina, as well as just my muscular strength and stability. As I mentioned before, don't skip the glute and hip work. We want to make sure that our glutes and hips are going to be powerful as we are going uphill, especially instead of just relying on the quads on the uphill, you want to be able to power through the glutes. Back in core work. This is important because if you're carrying a heavy pack, we need to have good postural muscles. So we want to make sure that we're training back, which is often neglected, especially by women. So making sure you're doing things like rows, pull downs, pull ups, pullovers, things like that, any sort of pole work is going to be very helpful in building your back, and then core work to make sure that you have just a stable midsection as you are doing some tough hikes, especially if you get into like some scrambles and things like that. And to support you with a big pack on core strength will make a big difference as well. So when you're training for strength, you want to think about doing a couple different ranges of reps. So strength range, hypertrophy range and muscular endurance ranges are all really, really helpful. So let's explain kind of the difference between those. So strength range is going to be lower rep higher weight. So things like 4 to 8 reps with a much higher tension much harder weights. That's going to build strength. That's going to help you increase your power and your output. What your muscles can really handle. Hypertrophy range is going to be kind of more like that 8 to 12 rep range, which you often see. And that's helpful for building muscle mass and then muscular endurance range is going to be more like 12 to 20 plus reps. So if you think about things like Pilates or bar or things where it's like really low weight, high rep, that's going to be much more for muscular endurance. A lot of people say like, oh, that's for toning. That's not a thing. No matter what, you're going to be able to build muscle. If you're putting enough stress on your muscles, it doesn't matter if you're, you know, doing all muscular endurance or hypertrophy or strength, if you're doing enough volume and really challenging yourself, you you will be able to put on muscle and doing that kind of like low weight, high rep sort of deal is not really beneficial for toning more so than the hypertrophy range. So that's definitely a myth. But where that type of training is helpful is equipping your muscles to do the same thing over and over again without getting exhausted. So you can really resist that fatigue while you're hiking. So it's perfect for those long hikes when you're doing like these massive climbs over and over and over again. If you train for muscular endurance, you're going to be much better equipped for that. So I definitely recommend incorporating a variety into your training cycles instead of only ever doing hypertrophy. You're only ever doing, you know, strength or muscular endurance. Um, and then the next one is practice hikes start with short. Shorter elevation gains shorter durations and then progressed from there. You don't want to just go for a three day backpacking trip. If you never do shorter day hikes, you really want to make sure that you're progressing in a way that is going to make sense for what your body can handle, and also your comfort level on the trails. Um, day to day walking. Like I mentioned before, if we are mostly just sitting down throughout our days, apart from the hour that we're working out a couple times a week, we're really not doing ourselves any favors. So if you can get out for daily walks or even just a few, like quick walks throughout the day, that will definitely add up and add a weighted vest if possible. Um, in addition, if you can add any sort of like weighted vest or pack to your workouts, that's also going to really be beneficial. I have a weighted backpack that I use for step ups when I'm at home, and that is really, really helpful to kind of simulate exactly what I'm doing on the trail, which is going up and down, up and down with weight on my back. Um, and I can link that in the show notes if you guys are interested in that way. Two pack definitely makes a difference and really helpful for it. At home. You can even bring it to the gym and then altitude prep. If you're able to practice at higher elevations, that will be the best thing that you can do for altitude prep. But if not, just doing things like stair climbers and incline walking is very effective as well. And then before you jump straight into a hard hike at high elevation, maybe do some moderate to light activity at that same elevation. In the days leading up to your big hike, I don't recommend flying in somewhere, and then the next morning, immediately jumping up, you know, 6000 plus feet from what you're used to, because that will be more likely to give you some altitude sickness, and you're not going to be performing your best. A few episodes that you can go back and listen to for a little bit more on all of this would be episode 105 on how to hike longer and stronger, what you might kind of be missing in your training. And then our actual first episode, which is called How to Get in Shape for Your hikes. Definitely going to be a good one for just some basics, but kind of going over this again with more detail. All right. So to kind of recap, progress is not going to be instant. You know with some of these long term solutions I would give yourself a good three months to prep for a really hard hike, especially if you aren't actively in shape for something like this to begin with. If you have been very inconsistent with your exercise, you might need a little more time. And if you're someone who's already been exercising, maybe just not doing some of these things that I've mentioned today, then you might be able to get away with three months or even a little bit less, but you want to give yourself time to adapt. Um, and also being winded does not mean that you're weak. It just means your body is ready for some growth. And even if you are fully equipped at high, high altitudes, you can still expect to be a little bit winded, right? It's not going to completely go away, but you can make the whole situation feel a whole lot better by trying some of these tips that we've gone over today. Um, so, you know, as someone who has experienced both being an out of shape hiker and a really prepared hiker, I can assure you that the experience will be far more enjoyable when you're physically prepared and confident about your strength, being able to say yes to all the adventures. Is priceless, honestly, at all ages. I know I want to be able to keep hiking for the rest of my life. I often see people out here in Colorado who look like they're probably upwards of 70 plus, and they're out on the trails crushing it, and that is like life goals. That is what I want to aim for, because I want to be able to pursue my hobbies and feel good doing it for the rest of my life. So it really starts with these day to day habits and how I can start equipping myself now and then, just keeping it going so I can continue doing this for the rest of my life. So if you want to kind of get started with all of this, setting a goal hike is a really good way to kind of get yourself kickstarted. So pick a hike that's exciting that you can start training for. Maybe it's like a group retreat thing. Maybe you're just going on one single group hike. You have a friend who's like, yes, let's do this together so that you have someone more experienced with you. But picking something with a specific date, people who are going to hold you accountable and and setting that goal hike so that, you know, okay, I have four months to get ready for this. I have a whole year to get ready for this. Whatever you feel like you need. Make sure it makes sense seasonally as well. With weather in the mountains, you definitely gotta factor that in. Next, I recommend grabbing one of my four levels of the fit for hiking self-paced guides. You guys hear me talk all the time about Mountain metabolic coaching. That's kind of our higher level, much more intense as far as accountability, personalization, one on one coaching with our app. So that's going to be different from this fit for hiking guides are going to be self-paced. Therefore, if you just need a super cheap quick option to get started and you're going to get three months of coaching and all you need or sorry, not coaching, but three months of workouts and all you need is dumbbells so you can do these from home. You can pick one of four different levels depending on kind of where you're starting out. We have beginner, intermediate, advanced, and summit Crusher. Um, and since your podcast listener, as promised, I'm offering a little discount so you can check the link in the show notes for browsing, the fit for hiking guides. And if you use Code Podcast 30, you're going to get 30% off. So you're going to get all of this for just 56 bucks. Really great place to start. And then if you find that over time, maybe you want to step it up, you really need some personalization due to injuries. Maybe you're not really showing up for yourself the way that you want. You haven't been consistent. Um, and maybe you really want to work on things like hormone balance, body composition, then I definitely do recommend looking more into our mountain meadow metabolic coaching, which is going to be a much more holistic approach to your health, your goals, and your hiking. So make sure you check the link in the show notes and use Code Podcast 30. If you want to start with a fit for hiking guide and go from there. All right guys, thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope that this, uh, podcast episode about how to not be a massive mouth breather on hikes has been helpful, and you will feel confident and good moving forward. Um, just trying out some of these tips and if you love the show, please give us a little rating and review. Takes just a few minutes and it really does make such a big difference for little shows like this. We really appreciate the support, and you can also connect with us at the Fit Underscore for Hiking Instagram page. Would love to chat with you there. If you have any requests for episodes that you would like to hear, let me know. Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll chat with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this. Be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on Etrailer.com. Happy and healthy trails.