Breathing

KevGuinness

Hi folks, wondering which of you smart people will be able to tell me I am being stupid (a frequent occurrence whenever I open my mouth!)

anyway, been cycling a wee while now and my legs seem to have found that they like it, mrs likes how they look, I fit into jeans easier and can go accelerate faster and get to a higher top speed than I used to.
This is great but my lungs seem to disagree that cycling is a good thing, I do not find it easier to breathe really, getting properly wheezy at times and having a bit of a rattle in my chest, especially in the mornings when I just woke up.
I mainly do runs of between 15-25 miles but have done some longer ones too up to about 60, for all of them I try and keep a high cadence rather than grinding a harder gear.

Have a touch of hayfever but not that bad and I take meds for it, far as I know I do not have asthma or anything so any ideas what I should be doing to bully my lungs into working normally?

nferrar

Dunno really but my lungs are pants to and I sound like a 30-a-day smoker going up hills (but I don't smoke ), I bought a powerbreathe lung trainer thing once but used it like 3 times before I got bored with it.

Sirius631

KevGuinness wrote:

so any ideas what I should be doing to bully my lungs into working normally?

1) Buy pulse meter.
2) Find your level 2 anaerobic zone.
3) Do lots of winter miles in that zone.

louthepoo

your symptoms sound exactly like my situation. get checked out for asthma. Thats how mine started and now i'm on 3 inhalors and have chronic asthma. It is getting better the fitter i'm getting though.

KevGuinness

forgive my ignorance, can asthma develop if you never had it when younger?

how much do you find it affecting your riding?

daviesee

Wheezing sounds like asthma.
Rattling sounds like bronchial.

Short term could just be a chest infection. If it has been on-going, I would visit the doctor.

KevGuinness

man but my doctor is funny and she is good looking, would be terrible if I had to go there!

cheers for advice folks

garryc

I was diagnosed with asthma at the age of 48, although I had the symptoms for years previously and had discounted it as hayfever/allergies.

I still use a puffer from time to time but since I started cycling the asthma has virtualy dissapeared.

danowat

Could be exercise induced asthma, google it.

louthepoo

KevGuinness wrote:

forgive my ignorance, can asthma develop if you never had it when younger?

how much do you find it affecting your riding?

i developed asthma at 29 after having the symptoms for over a year. It doesn't affect my riding unless i go all out, then i wheeze and cough my guts up. Always take my inhalor with me though. I have lung damage from pneumonia so i have the rattle on my chest as well. Its not so bad during the summer, its the cold winter riding that makes me struggle!