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     Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 1165 Registered: 04-2006 |
Latest runners world has a very nice article: "beyond the burn ) How training above your lactate threshold can teach your body to push harder for longer of time. Summary " the start out , as any of the todays articles, that Lactic acid is not the reason for fatigue anymore.( wELL TOOK ONLY 20 YEARS ) They than use examples like he learned in university track to shake his legs, strecth and go to a post workout or race massage to get ride of lactic acid. As a summary than he concludes., that lactic acid is a very val;uebale energy and to the culprit of DOMS. So the conclusion than is , that you can without risk of high lactic acid values train hard and harder to learn your body to accept the burn and this will help you to run faster for much longer. On the other hand he points out, that really the H+ accumulation is the culprit , and that lactate will move H+ into the blood stream. So far so good. Here some questions: 1. If H + is so close connected with H + and in the "earlier" days we blamed Lactate for the burn than there could be the question , whether a high lactate level may be a marker for a potentially high H+ or at least a biomarker for an indication , that somehwere in the working muscles ( under exercise) there is some energy production going on oxygen independent. Metabolic acidosis ( H+ ) is discussed to the limit in our forum and the regular reader knows some of the potential ( for the moment known ) effects this can have. Now the article , as we all do . backs up the claims for "beyond the burn " with a study from a well accepted University. It is a study from the University of Western Australia. The had 2 groups. Group one train 3 x / week for 5 weeks with an intensity of 120 - 140 % above lactate threshold. Group two did over the 5 weeks no training above lactate threshold but only up to 95 % of LT. After 5 weeks they came ( no surprise ) to the findings, that the group 1 could buffer H + much better . The conclusion of the Runners world was, that therefor they can run faster. Here some open questions: a) I will start 2 "reseaerch" ideas. - 1. I will take 2 people ( or groups) 1 group will do 3 x / week over 5 weeks 100 push ups. the other group will do over 5 weeks 3 x / week 100 squattings. At the end of the 5 weeks I will assses and I am interested to see, which group makes better progress in push ups. Hmm shall I spent the time for that or can somebody give me the result already ? 2. I could repeat the Western Australian study but let it run over a period of 2 years. Are we sure, that the faster marathon runners are the group 1 with above LT training. If I can leanr to buffer H+ , that would mean that I potentially can drag out oxygen independent energy production , but the question is over what time period. Do we talk about seconds ( 400 m run / 800 m run ) or do we talk about minutes ( 10'000 m run Marathon ) - As th article points out , lactate can be used in mitochondria , so that leads back to the short term functional reaction in the enzymatic improvement of H + buffer ability ( c Cytochrome ) versus the question of structural adaptation pf first capillarization and than actual increase in mitochondrial numbers. Summary : 1 LT . how do you find it ? 2. If you shoukd find it , how do you check , whether you run by 120 - 140 % of LT. 3. what is 120 % of a LT in lactate numbers ? 4. So if you can't find a lactate value you seem to have to take "speed" in km/h ? 5. If lactate , as the LT believers tell us, does not ( NOT ) rise linear but exponential or sudden, how can we use % as a way of a speed definition , who is a clearly linear increase ? How do we knoe , that after 3 or 4 workouts the LT is still the same. If , as they claim we learn to buffer H + should the LT not change steady during this 5 weeks. Therefor we would have to adjust the 120 - 140 % intensity steady otherwise the speed in the 5 th week if still the same as in the start week . The study shows a 25 % improvement of H + buffer capacity. So 25 % above LT in teh first week would be therefor ???? in the last week. Last but not least is the question: What actually is improveing to buffer the H+. 1. Is it an enzymatic change 2. Is it perhaps the fact , that the learn to breath harder and get ride of CO2 better as one of the fastest way of H + buffering 3. Do they simply prodcue a better MCT4 system and not really buffer the H + but remove it into the bllodstream ( Higher lactate readings as a trend info. 4. Do they simply improve their running efficiency due to the coordination work in this intensity and therefor have a better intermuscular coordination , which gives them more helper to move that fast and theerfor prodcue less H + As we can see, it is not that easy and even the reseaerch is an interesting work done it falls in the categories of interesting only with very little if any conclusion to the fact , that we knew the outcome without any help of University and research money spent in thsi field, as any coach out there had done that sine the time of coaching , wich falls back to far before the old greek olympics. As a side note to greek olympics. The power athltes at that time would drink bull bllod to get stronger and the runners would drink deer blood to run longer. Which was the smarter idea ? |