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     Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3358 Registered: 04-2006 |
With the incredible increase of use in the medical field with the LACTATE Pro, we as well see a revival of user out of the sport and coaching field. The main reason is the now clear acceptance of the great accuracy and repeatability for test values with the lactate pro in fields, where accuracy is most important.The field of saving lifes.This fact seems to resonate back to the sport and coaching field. This will give us some motivation to show you here a review over accepted lactate test and assessments. The review will blend back 35 years to the origin of lactate and its introduction into the coaching and sport field. The studies and test options I will show over the next few weeks are all accepted studies done in accepted universities and are used these days from Olympic test centers to coaches and universities for further studies and publications. One of the other reason to give you here this overview and later more detailed info is , that many coaches and clients ordering Lactate Pro ask often, how to use the equipment. This summary will give us an opportunity to refresh some of the current ideas on how to use lactate values in coaching and testing. Here first a summary on the accepted ideas on lactate testing. I like to start in chronological way and this is in no way a value on the test ideas,rather a summary of the historical developpment of lactate testing. 1976 Mader et all developed the idea of 2 and 4 mmol lactate. 1979 Keul et all and Simon et all developed the idea of an individual anaerobic threshold. 1981 Stegmann et all further developed some new ideas on assessing individual anaerobic thresholds. The drive was out there to see, whether there would be one or the other way to find the individual anaerobic threshold noninvasive. 1982 Conconi et all showed one possible way for an assessment noninvasively to find the anaerobic threshold. Than a few years later another new idea . 1985 Bunc et all developed a further idea of finding the individual anaerobic threshold. As more different concepts where out there as more confusing it got. 1990 Heck et all developed a so called lactate "Dauertest" to find a new term, the so called MAXLASS or maximal lactate steady state. In 1991. a group than developed something called " Laktate senken test" 1991 Tegtbur et all der " laktat senken test. The latest developpment in this direction than got published in 2009. 2009 Strupler M. et all : "der laktat minimum test). This huge amount of different accepted studies and test versions creates for many coaches a lot of choices on which system may be best for their clients and how to apply the information. Over the next few weeks, I will show you the concept of each of this test, so that when you buy a lactate pro you have different choices on how to use them with an accepted study in front of you . To make a very short start here. The possibly easiest way to use lactate in a step test situation is the original work done by G. Mader in 1976. It is the concept of the 2 and 4 mmol use. 2 mmol stands for aerobic threshold, 4 mmol stands for anaerobic threshold. The part in between 2 and 4 mmol is the aerobic anaerobic transition area. This assessment is very easy to use. You do a step test and you take lactate always at the end of each step. You plot performance( Wattage and or Speed) on the horizontal axis and you plot lactate on either the primary or the secondary axis. Now you have performance versus lactate values. You now can draw a line by 2 and 4 mol and you have the according performance for your training intensities. Here two examples.  The first test example is done possibly with another medical graded analyzer from a great canadian testing center group. The second test is done with a lactate pro from a worldclass athlete in a worldclass testing center in europe.  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3359 Registered: 04-2006 |
Thanks for the short feedbacks. 1. No software but it is because a simple fast excel template will do a perfect work to have your own printout for your test center. 2. Wording from the original ideas by Kindermann . See here a short print.  | ||
| Andrew Senior Member Username: Andrew Post Number: 515 Registered: 04-2006 |
For those interested.... We have developed a new software program that helps to clearly show biomarker trends as a function of time OR independent variable such as wattage or speed. It will be available to anyone interested in completing the new online curriculum we have developed as part of our rebranding of FaCT Education. This will be available through the FaCT-education website until we switch over to the new Balance Point Education site which is coming soon!!! The new courses will be titled Biomarker Assessment Modules, with the first purse being Lactate Biomarker Assessment (LBA). This will have three separate modules: Theory Technical Practical Successful completion of all three modules will lead to Certification and the ability to attain insurance through our new Education business (Balance Point Education Inc.). Future courses will include Respiratory Biomarker Assessment (RBA) VO2 Biomarker Assessment (VBA) etc. Please see www.fact-education.com for more information. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3360 Registered: 04-2006 |
Here a further developpment out of the great idea of Mader on the introduction of lactate into the sport community. Keul et all as well as the group around Simon very early on realised,that a system ,where we could use lactate as absolute numbers possibly had its limitations. They did some more extensive studies. Mader's original work was based on a group of 16 people. This next group had a collection of 60 people and where looking for Maders 4 mmol lactate idea, but added some additional ideas in there, as they assumed 4 mmol as the possible MAXLASS. The end result of this two study groups was, that they had the same idea but ended up with 2 different end results. Simons idea of 45 degree is more often used here in North America, possibly due to the much easier way on finding a 45 degree testing tool. Here in a very short way how it may look on a screen.  As we will go further in the history of lactate use in sport, you will see many very interesting studies out there, each learning from the previous studies and therefor helping us to understand and develop further ideas of using different Bio-markers, as we go along in search for optimal individual assessment ideas. The fascinating part is now,that there is a way of using noninvasive assessment tools to actually find the individual levels of changes. Many regular readers of our forum and emails over the last years where able to see, how the different ideas start to develop further. One of the fascinating parts is now, that we had to do a closer look at our idea of lactate balance point assessments. By combining the older ideas of lactate with the newer development of knowledge, we found some crucial mistakes we made as we moved on to the Lactate balance point testing. Sometimes it is hard ,but it is the fun part to go back, see the mistakes and review many years of work to find the nice "ahaaa" feeling , once we understood closer, what was great and what was not yet understood. Here a short inside view in the handbook of IP, which will show you one of this classical reactions.  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3361 Registered: 04-2006 |
Great discussion going on and the main question I get is : Why a review on stuff who does not work ? First any review will always help us to see, where historically changes where made, how the changes got justification and why "old " ideas have a very big value in the ability to move forward and learn from the past. Keep in mind, that the start on lactate assessments was under a very different picture Lactate was considered the ugly , the bad, the waste product. Even up to this days lactate is still considered a "problem" You look at reasons for "cooling down" and the justification of this as to get rid of lactic acid.A drop in lactate faster with " cooling down" is considered a good sign of " recovery ". You look at for reasons of active recovery as a justification of reducing lactic acid. You read this daily you still hear this daily. To understand this you have to know the past and the steps moving towards today and the future. I will keep you involved in the history and you will see how from an ugly waste product lactate evolved in a "live saver " Today we actually understand more than ever but more news are coming in. Under this trend it is time to review for us many ideas in sport and rehabilitation in connection with Zoning and testing. Using lactate as a tool during an assessment seems to be less and less favorable. Using it during workout seems to make more sense. Our own idea on lactate balance point is under severe scrutiny just now and we are abolish the use of taking lactate in initial assessments possibly all together. There are so many different informations, which are faster and more accurate than lactate with its ability to be moved all over the body , that using the idea of LBP in an assessment to actually find " zoning " is possibly not an optimal way to go. The latest in development shows ,that there are many other physiological information much more reliable for intensity information and lactate is moving to a level like we can use HR and wattage and other information during a workout to get informed on metabolic trends as we go along. Here a much better info from the "Lactate center "itself in and around G. Brooks et all. " The Lactate Shuttle: The Shuttling of lactate between cell compartments, cells, tissues and organs is a major means of distributing carbohydrate energy, supporting glycemia via gluconeogenesis, and intracellular as well as cell-cell signaling. Lactate is formed continuously, but especially after carbohydrate nutrition and during physical exercise. Most (70-80%) of lactate formed during exercise is oxidized and used as a fuel energy source. Working red skeletal muscle and heart are fueled by lactate during exercise. Other tissues, such as brain, also use lactate as a fuel during exercise. The remainder of lactate disposal (20-30%) during exercise is for conversion to glucose in the liver and kidneys, but the magnitude of lactate turnover during exercise is so great that lactate is the main gluconeogenic precursor. As well, in it’s role as a signaling molecule, lactate has been characterized as a “Lactormone.” In our laboratory we study the regulation of Cell-Cell and Intracellular lactate Shuttles and of the cell protein constituents that facilitate functioning of lactate shuttles. Micrographs at the Top of the page show organization of components of the Mitochondrial Lactate Oxidation Complex in cultured mammalian muscle fibers. The Crossover Concept: Information on the relative use of fuel energy substrates (carbohydrates, fats, proteins) has been used to develop a model of Energy-Substrate Partitioning in which the effects of exercise intensity, gender, endurance training and nutrition are coordinated and regulated. The Crossover Concept holds that during post-absorptive resting conditions, in muscle and at the whole body in general, fats are the major fuel sources. But, as exercise intensity increases, in working muscle there occurs a switch (Crossover”) from dependence on fats to carbohydrate energy forms as fuel sources. In this context, some amino acids, such as the essential amino acid leucine are used, but in general most amino acids are not important muscle energy sources. A model of the Crossover Concept in which the effect of relative exercise intensity is depicted is shown below." | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3362 Registered: 04-2006 |
I was actually planning to show you today the work on IANT from Stegemann, but I got a few mails asking back , why lactate may in fact not be that useful in an assessment situation like as a combination with VO2 or other step tests. As well how to use lactate in sport if not in assessment ideas. If you go back, far back in our Forum you will see a way we use lactate as a marker for "nutritional" energy source levels.Glycogen level in the liver as one example. In sports like Ice Hockey , soccer and similar sport activities, where we may have a few games in a short time frame(tournament), the key is often not to recovery structurally but to reload functionally. The team with the best " reloading program " may have the best chance of performing well over a span of a tournament. In individual sports where we may have stage races the same is the key. In fact more vital organs and body reactions will functionally adapt very nicely to a stage situation. The plasma volume will be able to increase with proper nutritional intervention, which makes it easier for the heart to work (Preload) The heart itself will actually functionally react. You will see in the first 1 or 2 days a drop in some cardiac hemodynamic functions but the interesting part is an adjustment of what we call CCT after 3 2 - 4 days of long distance events. The heart seems to allow itself to have a longer time frame for blood flow to the coronary arteries. What we see is a change in LVET rather than an actual change in SV. SV changes in the first 1 or 2 days possibly due to change in plasma volume.. Now lacate is one of the easiest and fastest to use marker to see, whether you or your team has re-loaded the glycogen storage. You take a resting sample from your team members before breakfast , than you eat, than you retest about 5 - 10 min after the breakfast . You will see in the team very big differences between the players, as some may have perfectly re-loaded and other show clear signs of a very active glyconeogenesis taking part and they have to adjust the feeding accordingly. In the situation of activity the lactate in combination with HR and or wattage to name two additional markers can great be used as you go along in a specific workout, where you may push the line between oxygen dependent and oxygen independent metabolic activity. Workouts to improve the carrier like MCT 1 and MCT 4 are perfect in combination with lactate in the field. As we have millions of people using blood sugar equipment we can use the same way during workouts the lactate Pro and enhance the control of training intensities very nicely.. Is this from us? No remember the part from the group around Brooks. Here as a reminder: "Lactate is formed continuously, but especially after carbohydrate nutrition and during physical exercise. Most (70-80%) of lactate formed during exercise is oxidized and used as a fuel energy source. Working red skeletal muscle and heart are fueled by lactate during exercise." | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3363 Registered: 04-2006 |
Here our next step in the review of lactate and the development of ideas. 1981 ( so 30 years ago) Stegmann developed a very unique way to assess the IANT. The big step forward was less his mathematical use of the information but rather the step towards the idea to understand, that diffusion rate and elimination rate ( what we may discuss this days as MCT1 and 4 ) may have an influence on the setup of the IANT. In hindsight we can learn a lot from his work and it helps to understand, why we sometimes get stuck on an idea , rather than assessing the possibilities to go forward. Stegmann's ideas where the initial trigger to find a noninvasive way of assessing metabolic changes. At that time finding a noninvasive way to find IANT was the big push. It was as well the time, where a group started to question the idea of lactate as the "Bad" guy , but the possibility , that lactate could have some benefits. In the practical world this idea started to motivate coaches to go their own way. One of the leading personalities in this direction was Millonig. He coached his brother together with Markus Ryffel with using lactate in a very different way. Unfortunately at that time we only had the YSI and where too slow to get many samples in a short time. The key of this time was to actually forget lactate in the lab and move it out into the field.Silverstar assessments on Skis in the early 1990 with Dr. W. Sanders and Herb Chlebek) Wowww sounds familiar again and it just seems , that older ideas where not that bad at all and we move towards this direction again with the difference, that lactate changed its reputation. Assessments in the lab without lactate and than confirmation tests and workouts in the field from the athlete itself. With the today's equipment like the lactate Pro this is now very easy to achieve compared with the 1980 where we had some major problems even running an YSI outside in steady changing temperature and locations and so on. This revival of the actual feedback system of lactate in real workouts are thanks to the equipment now reality. We already see now coaches moving in that direction and in sports like ice hockey and or soccer it is fast,easy and with no complication. In endurance sport we see now individual athlete again using the equipment similar as when we started with Geoff Kabush and Ryder Hesjedal in Victoria around the airport. Here a short picture for the "historian in lactate testing see Stegmann 1981 )  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3364 Registered: 04-2006 |
Remember, we are in the year 1982. Altitude 1800 in St.Moritz. 400 m track and some of the worlds fastest marathon runners from Italy circle in a very interesting way teh track together with Prof. Conconi and some of his assistant on the side. The are some regular beep signals and some flags along the track about every 25 m. The first ideas of a noninvasive lactate threshold testing was underway and it was fascinating to observe how it may take place. 2 weeks later in the former Yugoslavia a group from the biggest track and field club in Switzerland with some of the worlds fastest middle distance runners in circling the track to try out what we observed b by the Italian group. Yes we did the conconi test but we added a small handheld pacing device developed in the 2 weeks. A Casio Pb80 calculator with a small ability to actually give us the pacing. So the athletes would run with that device on them and had it much easier to hit the markers perfect. The Polar PE250 with the first ability to download over an interface was our big help and off we went. Here a great summary on how to do a Conconi test in the field on a track or on the treadmill. " http://www.brianmac.co.uk/coni.htm Despite many critics on this idea it was a big help for us to understand the first time the connection between actual performance and the relationship to physiological markers like HR and lactate. Over the years we dissected this idea, added different new thoughts to it, moved it around or gave it up again. In any case the step conconi offered in the further developpment of assessments in the field was a very important one. Instead of simply neglect its value, we embraced the great thoughts this group put into this idea and started to try to combine this observations with the existing lactate ideas. So when you start looking back now. We had the idea of 2 and 4 mmol , who triggered the step to search for an IANT. than the step looking toward the actuall trends in production and elimination to the step of trying to find some noninvasive ideas for assessing LT or ANT. Form all of this there was a small step to go further but as well a big and incredible step, when the discussion increased, that lactate ( lactic acid ) may be not as bad as it was pushed to be. The idea of lactate as a great survival energy source and marker started to change our vision on how lactate may be useful and where the possible limitation in sport testing may be. This was the start of a never published idea of the lactate balance point ,the idea of bio markers and the idea to look further for noninvasive ways to find the individual metabolic shifts . The search started with a great group in and a round Andreas Zahnd in Switzerland Erlach. A huge script got developed ( never published ) and a company got created with the idea to further develop this path on a private level. This was in fact the birth of FaCT training and the first step on ideas like LLL ( lower linear limit ULL ( upper linear limit ) Lactate rather as trend than absolute numbers. Combination of lactate with the classical lactate testing and comparison. Using VO2 equipment and combine it with lactate trends. Using respiratory ideas and combining with HR and so on. So nearly a quarter of a century of fun and progress, step backs and forward and still many many questions. Now lets go back in the history review and you will see how many of the discussions and point on the forum had its root many years back. More interesting is, how out of a non published collection of ideas certain names and words started to get into the public use. Google lactate balance point and you will be surprised on the hits. Google bio marker and you will be surprised on the hits. Google FaCT. There was never a publication , as there was never a clear study done on LBP as it was considered a physiological assessment, but nevertheless there are many people out there using this terminology without any idea of the historical back ground and the flaws and benefits this ideas created. Here a classical picture of a CONCONI test as one of the great step in sport assessment's.  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3367 Registered: 04-2006 |
Remember, where we are. Beginning 1980. So let's make a fast jump forward to the north American continent. " Optimize Endurance Training By Lance C. Dalleck, M.S. & Len Kravitz, Ph.D." They have some very nice info and I just take some out of their great summary. : "Lactate Threshold and Endurance Performance Traditionally, maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) has been viewed as the key component to success in prolonged exercise activities (Bassett & Howley 2000). However, more recently researchers have proposed that the lactate threshold is the best and most consistent predictor of performance in endurance events. Research studies have repeatedly found high correlations between performance in endurance events such as running, cycling, and race-walking and the maximal steady-state workload at the lactate threshold (McKardle, Katch, & Katch 1996)." Now it looks, as the VO2 idea is getting a more critical review and lactate somewhat a more favorable push ? But . Is the idea of LT or ANT as the 1970 group started to search for really solved ? Here one info from the above group. "The lactate threshold refers to the intensity of exercise at which there is an abrupt increase in blood lactate levels (Roberts & Robergs 1997). Although the exact physiological factors of the lactate threshold are still being resolved, it is thought to involve the following key mechanisms (Roberts & Robergs 1997):" " LT where there is an "abrupt " increase in lactate. Sounds pretty much what the early groups where looking for. The main problem here for that time being was, that the equipment used to test for lactate was not able to produce a set of lactate readings in a very short time so the "abrupt " increase was rather a product of equipment limitation than actually a result of physiological reactions. The second interesting part in the above info is : " Although the exact physiological factors of the lactate threshold" Meaning ??? we still have a mystery on our hands on how to find really a LT. Nevertheless when you where reading teh " warm up " suggestion by Saifer we seem to have a very clear info on LT and therefor can calculate % of it. Reality is, we do not know, where and whether LT actually exists and how to find it and even less, whether there is some relevance we can use to make any kind of intensity zoning based on this calculations. Now here some "speculation " on LT from the above article we started on this thread. LT seems to indicate some shifts in the following area. " 1) Decreased lactate removal 2) Increased fast-twitch motor unit recruitment 3) Imbalance between glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration 4) Ischemia (low blood flow) or hypoxia (low oxygen content in blood)" The last point and with it the idea of LT as a part of hypoxia and or ischemia is heavily under fire. : " Ischemia and Hypoxia For years, one of the primary causes of lactate production was thought to include low levels of blood flow (ischemia) or low levels of blood oxygen content (hypoxia) to exercising muscles (Roberts & Robergs 1997). This led to the term anaerobic threshold, which will be discussed in more detail shortly. However, there is no experimental data indicating ischemia or hypoxia in exercising muscles, even at very intense bouts of exercise (Brooks 1985)." This is one of the very interesting statements for us, as we have a set of studies now in hand, where we would counter argue this point to a level , where we agree and disagree. There are cases, where we see metabolic shifts due to both the above ideas like partially lower blood volume and or reduced oxygenation. Can we make a point on this : NO as it is very individual but it is very clear where and when it is happening on individual people. Remember the idea of LIMITER and COMPENSATOR. Try to follow the ideas by thinking through all this historical papers and you see, how they add one puzzle piece to the other. The key s just now to put them all together in one single assessment. Now the result of teh different ideas and paper lead to a major confusion and it reads : " Unfortunately and confusing, the lactate threshold has been described with different terminology by researchers, including maximal steady-state, anaerobic threshold, aerobic threshold, individual anaerobic threshold, lactate breaking point, and onset of blood lactate accumulation (Weltman 1995). Whenever reading on the topic of lactate threshold it is important to realize that these differing terms are essentially describing the same physiological event (Weltman 1995)." This confusion is still existing and it just may be, because there is no such thing like a LT or what ever to find by using a very dynamic blood value, which is the so much discussed lactate. It just may be, that lactate is what it may be , a great live bio marker at the current time you test it , during a workout or at rest for nutritional reloading purposes. or as a great marker for possible developpment of Sepsis. Let's go back to 1981 and Conconi. This was teh first attempt on using different ideas to find the "LT" , which may not exist and opened a full wave of ongoing research in that idea on assessing shifts and metabolic changes in our systems during workouts independent from lactate. The main reason is and was the frustration to be able to repeat lactate values and or trends as there where great results in some people and very different results in other people. This lead to statistical results and this statistical results solved many questions and where easy to use for the coaches in the field. This is one of the reason of the still very popular idea of 2 and 4 mmol and or the very popular idea of 45 % tangent against the lactate curve. Both easy to use and easy to show on any kind of graphic. Again a very nice example "against" the early philosophy of science. "IF A NEWLY DISCOVERT FACT CONTRADICTS A CURRENT THEORY , THAN THE THEORY HAS TO BE MODIFIED OR DISCARDED TO ACCOMODATE THE NEW FACT." Aristotle ( out of the new handbook of IP- innovative performance ) Now the drive for another non-invasive method to find the "LT" started and in the 1985 the term VT ( ventilatory threshold showed up and many immediately used that term as equal to LY. This made again a very nice theory for people using non-invasive ideas to assess and the idea, that VT and LT is identical just simply moved into many coaches sport science terminology. Many equipment used or abused this trend to sell the equipment with the promise, that you can now find the LT by assessing respiration. Here again from much smarter people the info: "What is the Ventilatory Threshold? As exercise intensity progressively increases in intensity, the air into and out of your respiratory tract (called ventilation) increases linearly or similarly. As the intensity of exercise continues to increase, there becomes a point at which ventilation starts to increase in a non-linear fashion. This point where ventilation deviates from the progressive linear increase is called the ventilatory threshold. The ventilatory threshold corresponds (but is not identical) with the development of muscle and blood acidosis (Brook 1985). Blood buffers, which are compounds that help to neutralize acidosis, work to reduce the muscle fibers acidosis. This leads to an increase in carbon dioxide, which the body attempts to eliminate with the increase in ventilation (Neary et al 1985). Because increased ventilation occurs with increasing blood lactate values and acidosis, scientists originally believed this was an indication that the ventilatory and lactate threshold occur at similar exercise intensities. This interpretation is appealing because measuring the ventilatory threshold is non-invasive compared to the lactate threshold. And while numerous studies have shown a close correlation between the thresholds, separate studies have demonstrated that different conditions, including training status and carbohydrate nutritional supplementation, can cause thresholds in the same individual to differ substantially (Neary et al 1985). Where does that leave for the moment our review. Well let's read a much better summary using English here : "What is the Anaerobic Threshold? The term anaerobic threshold was introduced in the 1960’s based on the concept that at high-intensity levels of exercise, low levels of oxygen (or hypoxia) exists in the muscles (Roberts & Robergs 1997). At this point, for exercise to continue, energy supply needed to shift from the aerobic energy system (mitochondrial respiration) to anaerobic energy systems (glycolysis and the phosphagen system). However, there are many researchers who strongly object to the use of the term anaerobic threshold, believing it is misleading. The main argument against using the term anaerobic threshold is that it suggests oxygen supply to muscles is limited at specific exercise intensities. However, as previously mentioned, there is no evidence that indicates muscles become deprived of oxygen - even at maximal exercise intensities (Brooks 1985). The second main argument against using anaerobic threshold is that it suggests at this point in exercise intensity, metabolism shifts completely from aerobic to anaerobic energy systems. This interpretation is an overly simplistic view of the regulation of energy metabolism, as anaerobic energy systems (glycolysis and the phosphagen system) do not take over the task of ATP regeneration completely at higher intensities of exercise, but rather augment the energy supply provided from mitochondrial respiration (Roberts & Robergs 1997). What is the Heart Rate Threshold In the early 1980’s, Conconi and fellow Italian researchers developed the methodology to detect the lactate threshold through a running test by determining the heart rate deflection point (Conconi 1982). This easy and non-invasive approach to indirect lactate threshold measurement has been utilized extensively for training program design and exercise intensity recommendations (Hofmann et al 1994, Janssen 2001). However, some research has shown that the heart rate deflection point is only visible in about half of all individuals and commonly over-estimates lactate threshold (Vachon, Bassett, & Clarke 1999). Because of these findings, and the grave errors associated with its use, personal trainers and fitness professionals are discouraged from recommending the heart rate threshold method when designing endurance training programs for clients. Summary of Anaerobic, Ventilatory, Lactate and Heart Rate Thresholds In summary, ventilatory and lactate thresholds, although very similar, should not be viewed as occurring at precisely the same exercise workloads. The use of the term anaerobic threshold in the lay community and with exercise professionals has led to much confusion and oversimplification of the function of the body’s energy systems. So much error presently exists with the heart rate threshold technique that further research is needed to be able to confidently utilize this technique.:" Where does this leave us. Well the careful reader can see. Our own idea moving towards lactate only using as trend information rather than absolute numbers, is perhaps not that bad of a move. . What was possibly not a great idea, but helped us now to move to the next step was the introduction of the LBP ( lactate balance point ) this move helped us to find many more questions and in some cases some great answers. On the other hand it opens many critical questions with no clear answers and the mistake we always make in these cases. We adjusted the facts to the current theory. This over the last few years started to crumble and in the last year + we now collected enough LBP tests with addituional information to let the LBP idea drop. With it we unfortunately , or fortunately got many new answers, but in the same time as well"destroyed"our hopes to be able to use Respiratory information's to add to the LBP ideas. Both lactate and respiratory information had the exactly same disadvantage. They have a lag. So the next step was to find a combination between lag and immediate information. Only thanks to the advancement of great technological improvement do we have now this options. Many of the above statements are absolutely great. One of the most intriguing help to our new approaches are the 4 points I mentioned above : "1) Decreased lactate removal 2) Increased fast-twitch motor unit recruitment 3) Imbalance between glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration 4) Ischemia (low blood flow) or hypoxia (low oxygen content in blood)" By being able to actually have now methods to answer this "speculation" we now are back to the option in doing noninvasive assessments for intensity protocols. What is hard ? The hardest part of all is to actually accept the fact, that lactate is a great biomarker,but has lost the importance in initial assessment and move into a positions , where it is much more useful. During workouts and at rest. Problem: It will need a lot of reviews in the near future to accept this idea and move the lactate testing into the hands of the athletes themselves, as it is easy and like millions of diabetic do this multiple times a day athletes and clients can learn this by using lactate as a bio marker in certain workouts, where it is critical to know, whether you push the LIMITER and or whether you recover the LIMITER. This leads to a very different approach in the training philosophy. But: It proofs one of the greatest minds in that stress field right and we can learn and understand more. With this in mind I like to close this part here with some much more in depth thoughts on training and its reactions. Short inside peak into the new handbook from IP (Innovative Performance )   | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3370 Registered: 04-2006 |
Thanks Paul. Here it is a nice summary I got mailed to show you readers here. : " Keith Eric Grant, Ph.D. General Concepts of Lactic Acid Physiology Lactic acid is a continual product of carbohydrate metabolism. It holds a position as a temporary product at the end of glycolysis and at the head of the aerobic Krebs cycle. The very persistent �lactic acid myth� is the incorrect concept that: 1.Lactic acid persists in the cellular environment long after exercise, 2.That this byproduct of anaerobic glycolysis causes prolonged muscle soreness, and that 3.Massage relieves such soreness by flushing out the lactic acid. In truth, lactic acid is only present substantially during and immediately following high intensity anaerobic exercise, being metabolized within 30-60 minutes after such exercise ceases. The lactate is converted back to pyruvate and aerobically processed in the Krebs cycle to produce further energy. The H+ is quickly buffered to return the bloodstream pH to homeostasis. Glycolysis produces energy plus pyruvic acid. Pyruvic acid then funnels into the Krebs cycle, which produces over 90 percent of the energy needed for distance running. There's a problem, however. If the pyruvic acid is not being removed as fast as it is being produced, it will build up bringing glycolysis to a halt. To prevent this,, lactic dehydrogenase converts the pyruvic acid to lactic acid. This step both removes the pyruvate and removes half of the free H+ produced in the formation of pyruvate. The lactate can easily diffuse quickly into surrounding tissues and the blood. Since lactate can later be reconverted into pyruvate, it can act as a fuel source to tissues not working as hard. At some point of exercise intensity between 55 and 90 percent VO2 max, the lactate threshold is passed. Up to this point, lactate is being used aerobically at the same rate it is being produced. Now, due to shortage of oxygen, enzymes, or cell-mitochondria, the use of lactate no longer keeps up with production and blood lactate levels climb rapidly. This build up acidifies the blood (lowers pH), overwhelming the natural pH buffers in the blood and eventually blocking the rate of glycolysis. The good news for athletes is that this lactate threshold can be dramatically increased with the right kinds of training. Basically, training increases the body's ability to use the lactate quickly as an energy source by developing more capillaries and mitochondria and storing more enzymes. Training is the main reason that lactate thresholds range up to 90 percent of VO2 max. Following exercise, blood lactate decreases over the next 30-60 minutes. Faster recovery occurs with continued moderate aerobic exercise of about 35 percent VO2 max than with passive rest (Powers and Howley, 1990; p. 63). The time framework is basically a measure of the body's ability to start using the extra lactate for energy or for glycogen production with exercise helping it's distribution. Following about 60 minutes, there is just not a significant amount of extra lactate around. The body has returned to its homeostatic balance of production and use. Because the lactate and H+ (i.e. lactic acid) don't persist, they can't cause prolonged muscle soreness and can't be flushed out by massage. Soreness occurring 24-72 hours after exercise is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). The exact mechanisms involved in DOMS are still uncertain, but are thought by researchers to involve micro-trauma to individual muscle fibers resulting in Ca++ (calcium ion) leakage and a subsequent cycle of inflammation response." Short questions to this : " Now, due to shortage of oxygen, enzymes, or cell-mitochondria, the use of lactate no longer keeps up with production and blood lactate levels climb rapidly. This build up acidifies the blood (lowers pH), overwhelming the natural pH buffers in the blood and eventually blocking the rate of glycolysis. The good news for athletes is that this lactate threshold can be dramatically increased with the right kinds of training." Great question in this article and one of the major reason why we try to find different ideas in that regard. What causes the drop in O2 levels in the working muscles. :? - is it not enough mitochondrial density ( muscular limitations - is it a metaboreflex due to respiratory limitation ? - is it a cardio reflex due to cardiac limitation, is it a pH problem and shift of O2 diss curve due to wrong respiratory technique ? - is it a nutritional limitation and lack of optimal enzyme reactions ? If one of the above could be a reason , than he is absolutely right , that a proper training will make a clear difference in performance improvement. By knowing the critical level (LT, ANT or what ever word we may use)we only have the point, where we may interrupt homeostasis. We do not know where and what system we "overload" and suddenly a great idea may backfire as we not only overload the initial Limiter but if we do this workout too often without proper rest for the limiter and for the compensator we may in fact shift the problem from the Limiter to the compensator. Simple example. Chronic respiratory problem is a clear Limiter for respiration. But it is a steady stressor for the compensator , which could be the heart. Long Term result. Cardiac problem not because the heart had a problem to begin with but due to chronic overload as a compensator for a clear limiter . Give this interesting idea some thoughts. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3371 Registered: 04-2006 |
First thanks for the flood of e mails commenting all on the summary of the lactate history here on this thread still in progress. All the feedbacks are very well taken and I will try to summarize some of them on here later. First off all I will mail each of the responded back privately with the according comment and some additional info from the IP handbook. I mentioned once n a while on here. I will sent you a specific mail address , so you can start reading and discussing some of the interesting issues and I will limit this to the first 10 mails I got otherwise there is simply a too big discussion going on. The discussion can be done in English , german or french as all the once I invited actually speak this language. So we will have a great discussion group and I will once in a while make some comments on here what is going on. Have a great start in the new week. Cheers from a snowy north . | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3372 Registered: 04-2006 |
Now we are in teh year 1985 . There was for a while some " rest " in ideas on how to find the IANT.. The majority of centers and coaches settled in the use of 2 and 4 mmol as it was easy and clear on how to approach it. The other groups used mainly the idea of the 45 degree angle. Many questions where still open and in 1985 the apporach moved from some physiological ideas to a very mathematical approach .1985 Bunc et all introduced his concept of the IANT. Here a short review.  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3373 Registered: 04-2006 |
2011 . Here a short step forward before we move back in the history of lactate. This is one nice example from the top Canadian center, where all the top athletes get tested. a) this is not as a critic, but as a nice example on where the history of lactate is or got stuck or creates confusion. They had a great idea behind this research but it is 35 years behind, as G. Mader did exactly this to have a critical look himself on the lactate dynamic and the problem with it and the step length. Here a nice example of the influence of the step length on the test results.  This are three test with the same athlete. Now the job would be here to make a conclusion on the LT 1 and LT 2 as they think of this differently. Now here the results from the last 2 test a 2 min step test and a 5 min step test.  Now go back in the history of lactate , Take any of the current accepted concepts and make the "Zoning " on this athlete based on what we know. Now to " defend " the lactate users. Make Zoning based on maximal wattage info or on maximal Heart rate info. Now as you may struggle to come up with a decent idea , make your next step and decide, what may be the limitation in this athlete. . No wonder the best way is simply to go out, find a good coach with lots of experience and ideas and you may forget all this testing in labs and centers. Possibly the FTP idea may be the best way to go for this person. It will give him some better ideas on what his whole body can do. He still does not know what limits further progress but he at least can do it on his own. Now are we alone or are there some questions in this institutions as well. Here the answer this athlete got.  Yes best guess ???? Here the easier solution. Take a lactate pro. Go out ride with feeling , where you think you may have to switch metabolically . Hold your power info and heart rate info steady. Go for 15 - 20 min and check lactate. Remember the number. Ride again 9 - 10 min same wattage and heart rate and check again your lactate. Depending on the numbers and the trend of the numbers you have now immediately the info what you look for ) o2 dependent or independent intensity. You still do no know why and what system may limit you but you know where it all happens as a bio marker reaction of lactate. This is pretty much all you have to do. Is it expensive. ? Well a lactate test like the above including a VO2 assessment to find two delayed infos will cost you somewhere between 150 - 250 $. To have a decent idea on what happens you may have to do this 3 - 4 x / year depending on the level you are training and the info you like to get from your progress in your training plan. A lactate Pro will be 1/2 the price you spend in one year for the much better info on finding the O2 dependent and O2 independent intensity . But you can use it even a few times during your workouts to have the perfect metabolic feedback. Would an LBP test as we suggest give you better info. 2 years ago I would have argued yes. Today I would take our own LBP assessment apart as I do with the common lactate concepts. LBP testing as we know it and combined with the VO2 as we know it is a nice step towards improvement of our knowledge but it has the same flaws in it as we have in the classical accepted lactate testing concepts. What happened. We made over many years the same mistake. Adjusting the facts to the theory instead of adjusting the theory to the facts. By integrating new tools like SEMG and NIRS and cardiac hemodynamic we have now tools with instant info and with VO2 and lactate we had infos withe time lags. Now we can see how this time lags actually can influences results and with the results our conclusion. Summary : Lactate is still one of the fastest and best way to easy find your intensity , where you switch from O2 dependent to O2 independent. Do you need a lab or coach ? You need a lactate analyzer, small simple and easy to use. You need some strips and you have a program , where a few times during the week this info is crucial to stay on the proper side of the intensity.And you are ready to go. Nothing changes for you as we still have the question ,what created this situation to shift to a better and faster energy supply. The question comes to : Limiter and compensator. That's what our work is looking now the IPAHD (Individual physiological assessment of homeostasis disruption). With this short 2011 inside look we will go back in time and see, what happened after 1985 and the mathematical ideas of BUNZ. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3374 Registered: 04-2006 |
We are in 1990. There is an interesting new ideas floating around. There is some " fear" of abolishing the traditional ideas on LT on the one side, but on the other side there is the trend on starting to use lactate more often in the field. New ideas of point of care equipment are on the market like the one from Boehringer Manheim and it is now possible to test lactate fast and easy. As so often there is a big reluctance to accept this new nice small analyzers. The opinions starting to shift as there are as well some ideas out there, that lactate may in fact be not that bad. The word is out there to look at actual lactate trends. The trends was, what we started in 1985 in St.Moritz with using lactate mainly on the track and the filed , so athletes would run around, stop and get tested and would go out again and change intensities. It was all about finding intensities, where we where sure it is "aerob" or "anaerob". So now with this study Heck moved this field idea back into the hands of lab testing. Here in short the concept :  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3375 Registered: 04-2006 |
Thansk for the many feedbacks. Here a nice one I got from 4 different readers. There is a site out there explaining very nicely many of the lactate ideas and why we take lactate. One of the points the readers made is: Lactate will be used together with HR. So the text is reading like this : " Heart rates must be calibrated with a lactate measure in order to have meaning." Lactate and heart rate have to be calibrated ? let's go short back to the test center sample above with the 2 and 5 min step tests HR 144 lac 1.2 versus HR 146 lactate 2.1 or HR 171 lac 4.7 and HR 171 Lac 6.6 ? Think about the calibration ? The only " calibration " you can do is : O2 dependent intensities may go to a certain HR and we have no lactate accumulation and therefore no actual reading in the blood stream. Versus we have lactate in the blood stream if we are in the O2 independent intensity . But no actual values here but simply trends of increased numbers. So using a system where you would look at heart rate versus lactate is somewhat questionable. The main reason is the lag of lactate versus a system ( Cardiac ) where you may see a lag but not always. So there are some ideas, where you may be able to take HR but you may have some problem to "calibrate" a lactate reading to it as explained above. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3376 Registered: 04-2006 |
The idea of MAXLASS by Heck et al. got developped out of a very clear and understandable step. All the different LT concepts developped in the 10 - 15 years previuos to his MAxLASS suggestion created more discussdion and confusion, than actually deveklpped a way , where everybody couyld agree, that lactate isa great idea for training intensity control. Everybody agreed, that lactate seems to have a bio-marker ability to point into the direction of metabolic shifts , but to find the "right" or optimal "POINT" was tge big challange. Now keep in mind " Lactate is still the bad metabolic waste product in most of the minds of that time. NOW HERE IS ONE OF THE BIG CHALLANGES WE FACE DAILY. MOST OR NEARLY ANY OF TODAYS TERMINOLOGY IN TRAINING ARE STILL FROM THE "OLDEN" TIME OF LACTATE THE UGLY AND THE BAD. WE TRY TO TRAIN FOR A LACTATE TOLERANCE. WE TRAIN OR "COOL DOWN" TO GET RID OF LACTATE. WE OFTEN BASE INTENSITIES OR ZONES ON LT, ANT,AT AND SO ON. wE TAKE A SINGLE VALUE TO ANSWER MOST OF THE INTENSITY QUESTIONS. Lactate is great as a biomarker of one specific shift. The metabolic shift from O2 dependent ( aerob ) to O2 independent anaerob. QUESTION : Something seems to "force" this shift. The need for energy but the unability to deliver it optimally with O2. This leads us back to one of the "inventor" of lactate as a possible Marker : (Hill ) This leads us pretty much 100 years back to Hill and his carefully worded "proposal" " heart is able to regulate its output, to some extent, in accordance with the degree of saturation of the arterial blood … we suggest that, in the body (either in the heart muscle itself or in the nervous system), there is some mechanism which causes a slowing of the circulation as soon as a serious degree of unsaturation occurs, and vice versa. This mechanism would tend, to some degree, to act as a ‘governor’, maintaining a reasonably high degree of saturation of the blood: the breathing of a gas mixture rich in oxygen would produce a greater degree of saturation of the blood and so allow the output to increase until the ‘governor’ stopped it again. We realise the danger of a hypothesis partly suggested by teleological reasoning: in this case, however, we can see no other explanation of our experimental results pp. 161-163[1] This hypothesis was disregarded and further research upon exercise fatigue was modelled in terms of it being due to a mechanical failure of the exercising muscles ("peripheral fatigue"). This failure was caused either by an inadequate oxygen supply to the exercising muscles, lactic acid build up, or total energy depletion in the exhausted muscles.[2] This motivates us to go back and look at the idea we developped for us many many years back. ECGM.  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3377 Registered: 04-2006 |
1991 Tegtbur et all. Developed an interesting idea by using the trend idea of lactate dynamic. Here their take on LT or ANT in short.  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3380 Registered: 04-2006 |
I got this mail sent to me by a regular reader. Here one part of it and than the actual article. " Getting off the bike I was stuck at one pace with my heart rate and breathing through the roof. My muscles neither had the oxygen nor maybe the muscle memory to do what I was asking of them … Here the full short info to read. http://gavinnoble.com/itu-guatape-world-cup/ This article shows you how far of our ideas are compared to the top in the world Pro athletes. It as well shows you , why we are far apart , with our ideas to be able to integrate into this closed world of "Professionals" Here some critical thoughts. - Altitude : - lower pO2 - change in SpO2 - change in the ability to create ATP for activity. His answer : Low O2 in the muscle or "lost " muscle memory ? Our more careful thoughts. ECGM idea. a) weak respiratory system to maintain a proper TV. The initial increase in CO2 due to the initial lower pO2 and therefor the need to take O2 from Hb and the myoglobin creates a homeostasis disruption. This will create an increased respiratory drive. See his breathing feeling. If the breathing is the LIMITER the cardiac system will try to compensate. The increase but lower TV respiration will create a hypocapnia , which shifts the O2 diss curve to the left , which will a bit stabilize the SpO2 but will further decrease the TSI %. So we will see an increase in lactate as a biomarker for the respiratory system in combination with RF and possibly with combination of a capno meter for pCO2 and best would be a TSI % info. Money seems to be no problem there, but possibly there is a lack of an openness, that tired legs are not always the explanation for a bad performance as the actual reason. b ) . If he has a cardiac limitation , as well easy to test this days he will create a respiratory compensation. The increase respiration as a compensation will again create a hypo or hypercapnia , depending how he likes to use the respiration as a compensator. If he is able to keep it controlled hypercapnic he could shift the O2 curve to the right and try to improve O2 extraction from the tissue and even train the release of O2 from the myoglobin. The shift to the left as well will increase his blood flow ( vasodilatation due to higher pCO2 ) If this is the cased the field lactate testing will give him a very different lactate trend. In any case.. What we see more and more now is, that this Pro athletes very rarely have a muscular limitation as their hours of training create an incredible vascularization and mitochondria density . What most of them have is an actual limitation of one of their vital systems, like respiration and or cardiac systems. The big challenge is, that non of their training ideas and plans ever take in consideration , that we may be able to train this vital systems smarter. Their training plan is always focused on training their muscular system. Just some thoughts form a very different world of exercise physiological interpretations. That's why we change and that's why we keep learning. that's' what makes so much fun. Here a short "brain flash " of a page out of the chapter "ECGM a novel idea for a new look at health and activities". IP handbook 2011 edition  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3382 Registered: 04-2006 |
Now after this short step to this days ideas ( not a lot has changed besides the money involved in some sports ) we are back in the 1990. Lactate as the "big " progress in sport intensity control starts to loose its shine. Many discussions due to the above explained flood of ideas and theories. Endless discussions on the accuracy of equipment and where to take the samples . Ear or finger ? Extreme split at that time between the exercise physiology in the lab for reasons of collecting datas and writing papers and the coaching community who sees in the real world different athletes with different reactions. Result. Many many lab tests but no use in the actual training ideas in the real coaching world. National team athletes have to go for tests but coaches have no use of the test results in the field. This leads to many great and very practical new ideas, where coaches using experience and new technology to create their own ideas in how to use lactate. One of the most relevant ideas at that time 1988 and up was the use of lactate trends. There are many camps and athletes using lactate trends and with the accusport as the first small portable analyzer the way for field testing was open for individual coaches and athletes. Different ideas where used in sports like skiing , running in the field and cycling in the field. There was some major discussion, whether this " trend points " some may recall the name lactate balance point " are the same as LT or AT or ANT. There was never a publication done specifically on this subject. There are some great papers out there comparing LBP idea with current lactate testing ideas. A nice work was done at the university of Bern By Wehrlin and Moser 1998. Conclusion was, that it was not the LT or the current ANT where the LBP showed up. Despite the "fully " integration of LT and ANT into basically any coaching field and literature, there was never a consent in the scientifique world on the existence of this LT ANT idea. In fact in 1996 there was some very hard critical ideas comming from different areas of the world. In one sentence. " ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD - A RELATIVELY USELESS CONCEPT FOR COACHING" "Practical Implications When scientists cannot agree upon a concept's definition, let alone the appropriate label to use, as well as the appropriate method/protocol of assessment, then the practical use of the "general implications" of the concept is fundamentally prohibited. Until this situation is clarified and discrepancies removed, field testing for "lactate-threshold" should be avoided. There are more profitable and useful activities for athletes and coaches to be engaged in." Problem. There was and is no alternative and most of us are stuck on this concept. So the next step is to try to move ahead, try to " delete" the current situation and build upon what we learned from it. Using physiological bio markers and looking further, than just the metabolic shift. Keeping lactate as one of the easy simple ways on assessing the intensity we are in to have some metabolic feedback but looking to the next step on the reason , why the body has to shift metabolically from O2 to additional O2 independent help." Here a short view into the handbook from IP ( innovative performance ) as a part of the developpment of a noninvasive method for assessment of IPAHD ( by Andri Feldmann/ Martina Feldmann ) Individual physiological assessment of homeostasis disruption. 2011  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3396 Registered: 04-2006 |
Thank you so much for all the great feedbacks I received over the last few weeks, since we started this review on lactate. Many great ideas as well as many great critical questions to the overall theme on lactate. I still believe it would be nice to have this discussions on the forum, but I can understand many of the writers "concerns" in being involved in an open discussion on a very interesting topic with many still open questions. The most often asked question was : What about the "FaCT- Test " and Lactate balance point ? Why is it not in the review and why is it different than the other lactate test ? All the once asking this questions may have by now a personal email with the explanation why we actually have to agree, that LBP has the same flaws and limitation as any other lactate test, just in a different area of the interpretation. Here some more general answer: LBP and or the FaCT test is and was never an accepted published study or research article. It is and was an ongoing process on the idea to find ways to understand , why people with the same VO2 max or same max watt or same max HR and so on have very different outcomes in different distances in races. So over the last 30 years and counting I tried in partnership with many different people to find or search for a smarter way than maximal performance and or absolute values. From the experience with the LBP we learned a lot and it was one more stepping stone to a more and better understanding of physiological reactions. Did we failed : Yes and NO. The actual idea of LBP test is over for us. We have now a big set of information and tests showing , where we had made some mistakes and wrong conclusions. This lead to the end of using lactate in our assessment protocol and only use lactate in some specific assessments, where the question of a specific metabolic change is searched for. This leads as well to a clear separation between FaCT as the equipment selling company and any group using ideas similar or equal to our original steps to LBP assessments or specific bio marker assessments. What we hope and most likely did is, to inspire many different groups out there, who use some of our thoughts to develop their own ideas and own work to search forward to the next possibilities. So, if you still read advertising where FaCT is used as centers and tests, keep in mind, that this has very little or nothing to do with FaCT- Canada . Who ever offers FaCT test may do some very different ideas ( not wrong or bad ) just simply not ideas or developments we go thorough and use. So many ideas we used 1 year back of more have already changed and we try to take our own ideas apart as critical as we can with the risk ,like now, that we prove our self wrong. Wrong may be a strong word but we could replace it with learning as we go . Changing the theory as the facts come in. This leads us to what is going on. We for the moment do a review of datas and see,whether there is in each single of the test and assessments we did the same reaction on the change in results. We will make a data collection in the coming 6 month where we maintain the "old" idea on lactate and combining with the new idea of noninvasive assessments to see, how the results vary and where the "Old" idea keeps standing and where it clearly goes wrong. I sent to some of the readers some internal results out , where they can see, how and where we made some mistakes based on wrong ideas with LBP and why it does not work as we thought. As well how to use lactate now. One last point. One of the most interesting steps to help us to understand the change was some research I got sent to me a few month back on studies, where lactate was used in cancer research. The results where o clear and logic, that my own ideas simply crumbled after that evidence. So stay tuned for many more interesting years ahead. Overall: Lactate step tests are great but how useful ? That is the interesting question. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3398 Registered: 04-2006 |
No we are not alone. Here a short inside view in a great presenation done a few years back in a european congress.  " To believe or not to believe ... in the anaerobic threshold There are those who have no doubt in the existence of the anaerobic threshold; that somewhere between the intensity of a leisurely jog and the most frantic sprint there is a point beyond which you go from aerobic metabolism to a combination of aerobic and anaerobic metabolisms. This convenient and attractive theory has many devotees at present. Popular magazines frequently cite it, implying that its existence is something that is generally agreed upon. Indeed, during a high intensity run for several minutes, you sometimes feel that it would require great courage to increase your speed by even the smallest amount. However, current scientific knowledge refutes the anaerobic threshold theory. Presenting the details here would be tedious, but we highlight the following points: There is no power threshold below which a muscle does not produce lactate. A muscle constantly produces lactate, even from the lowest work level, and a muscle produces lactate even when the supply of oxygen is adequate. During a ramp test (such as the ones carried out in the laboratory in which the runner must run at a regularly increasing intensity until exhaustion], the blood lactate concentration never appears as a threshold, as some people argue. The curve obtained shows no deflection (Figure 3). To see one, a very fertile imagination is required. It is true that many sports scientists (whose fame is somewhat inferior to the revenues they obtain from the tests they conduct) unscrupulously possess such an imagination but, in reality, the shape of this curve is most likely the result of a delay in the appearance of the lactate in the blood (PERONNET and MORTON, 1994)." " 'There's nothing so useless as a bad theory': Leonid Brezhnev." | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3400 Registered: 04-2006 |
True, not too much positive information here. So here for all coaches using lactate for their training philosophy and theory. Go to www.lactate.com. This is a very great and interesting website and has many example for many different sports and how you can use lactate. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3401 Registered: 04-2006 |
True as well and thanks for the very open e mail. Here my answer to many other readers looking for a clarification on LBP and lactate. First the LBP is in the same category as LT or ANT and the rest we use. so : same critic on us on LBP. Summary . Use lactate but as a marker for metabolic shift. Where : In practical workouts during trainings, when ever you like to challenge MCT1 and MCT4 developments and you may even start to be able to use it in specific ideas of rehabilitation after cancer treatment or for prevention of reoccurring. The involvement of lactate in this field seems to open a very new way of understanding lactate as a shuttle system. " 'There's nothing so useless as a bad theory': Leonid Brezhnev." So here where we stand for now. LBP or lactate balance point was a great step for us in the understanding on lactate trends and the possible connections to the origin of stimulation metabolic shifts . Wrong conclusions moved us to the idea, that we can use LBP for definition of training intensities.The problem here is the same as we have with any lactate based training intensity definition. So LBP is not a very great tool to find training intensities or zones. It changes depending on quite a few factors we where not able to understand at the time but now can see and measure as we have the tools available.. So LBP is out for us and of little value in our assessments. What we still can use is lactate as a bio marker to find metabolic shifts. The metabolic shifts can caused by different reasons and this is the actual reason , why we see LBP does not work in a assessment. So you can use lactate trends in workouts as well we will use for the next few month lactate trends to see, whether the metabolic shifts can easily be found noninvasive by combining many more physiological information's . The problem of lactate as well is the lag of respond and many values are a picture of a previous intensity. The very interesting part now is to overcome our own ideas and replace them with facts , instead of trying to defend our theory. The beauty is for the moment to go through our old scripts and presentations and get a smile on the face , when I read, how we tried to understand and defend our own theory and how it looked great at the time. So it is fun to rewrite the ideas and having a critical backup from two members in the family , Andri working in Switzerland and Martina back from UVIC and UBC with a fresh and critical approach. Than using the different ideas practically on people we tested since years and see, what is different and how we approach the new challanges. The setup of a new system for Data collection will dramatically speed up our search for new ideas and possible nicer information. | ||
| Andrew Senior Member Username: Andrew Post Number: 517 Registered: 04-2006 |
As Juerg has pointed out in numerous different terms, the use of lactate as a single bio marker has many potential problems. Though the information on lactate.com is both interesting to read, and based on some good scientific data, it continues to propagate the same myths regarding anaerobic threshold and the role of anoxia in creating lactate. I can understand Juerg's position in questioning LBP in its simplest form, along with the numerous other iterations of lactate testing. Juerg has always been willing to call into question an idea or theory based upon his most recent research and understanding. And he is now at the point where he can view noninvasively the changes that happen in nearly every major system of the body during exercise itself. This gives him a unique opportunity that few of us have. However, we face our own financial limitations in our small group, and do not have the ability to access portamon and physioflow data on a regualr basis. So we continue to use lactate in our testing on a regular basis, in conjunction with Fitmate, Bioharness and capnometry, wattage and HR. Do we do LBP testing? No, not in the way Juerg first described, nor the way we used to teach it during our original Fact Education courses. But we do teach coaches and athletes how to use lactate as a bio marker and assessment tool that still has its own limitations. Our new educational modules are built around the idea of incorporating the growing access to noninvasive monitoring devices. The first level being...Lactate Biomarker Assessment. Are we keeping up with the new ideas on testing and training concepts and theories? Absolutely. And we are striving to keep up with Juerg and the research he is doing with his great team. Do we have all the answers? Not yet... | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3402 Registered: 04-2006 |
Here a further step in the review on lactate. This is a great study out of B. Saltins group. It demonstrates nicely how lactate as a fuel is used n the body. The interesting part is, that we learn from this study ,that wherever oxygenation is sufficient we may actually shuttle lactate into that area to be used as an energy source and where ever O2 is not sufficient we use O2 independent energy suppliers. The fascinating part in this, that some of the newer cancer research moves exactly into that direction. Using abilities to inhibit MCT1 as well as reducing the O2 independent energy stores seem to have a direct impact on the " death " of some cancer cells. Here the great work out of B. Saltins group : " Submitted 20 June 2002. accepted in final form 5 September 2002. Next SectionAbstract To study the role of muscle mass and muscle activity on lactate and energy kinetics during exercise, whole body and limb lactate, glucose, and fatty acid fluxes were determined in six elite cross-country skiers during roller-skiing for 40 min with the diagonal stride (Continuous Arm + Leg) followed by 10 min of double poling and diagonal stride at 72–76% maximal O2 uptake. A high lactate appearance rate (Ra, 184 ± 17 μmol · kg−1 · min−1) but a low arterial lactate concentration (∼2.5 mmol/l) were observed during Continuous Arm + Leg despite a substantial net lactate release by the arm of ∼2.1 mmol/min, which was balanced by a similar net lactate uptake by the leg. Whole body and limb lactate oxidation during Continuous Arm + Leg was ∼45% at rest and ∼95% of disappearance rate and limb lactate uptake, respectively. Limb lactate kinetics changed multiple times when exercise mode was changed. Whole body glucose and glycerol turnover was unchanged during the different skiing modes; however, limb net glucose uptake changed severalfold. In conclusion, the arterial lactate concentration can be maintained at a relatively low level despite high lactate Ra during exercise with a large muscle mass because of the large capacity of active skeletal muscle to take up lactate, which is tightly correlated with lactate delivery. The limb lactate uptake during exercise is oxidized at rates far above resting oxygen consumption, implying that lactate uptake and subsequent oxidation are also dependent on an elevated metabolic rate. The relative contribution of whole body and limb lactate oxidation is between 20 and 30% of total carbohydrate oxidation at rest and during exercise under the various conditions. Skeletal muscle can change its limb net glucose uptake severalfold within minutes, causing a redistribution of the available glucose because whole body glucose turnover was unchanged" So if this is the case we will now see, whether by using O2 NIRS sensores on different body parts we can actually track down the O2 delivery situation non invasive . . | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3403 Registered: 04-2006 |
Here another step in questioning our self on the value in using lactate to find changes in traiing status and or changes in technique. This is a great interesting study which opens , but as well answers for us many questions. "TECHNIQUE Van Hall, G. (2009). Lactate in whole body exercise: An anaerobic end product and an aerobic substrate. A paper presented at the 14th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science, Oslo, Norway, June 24-27. "Lactate has been considered a dead end waste product of glycolysis due to hypoxia and a major cause of fatigue. The produced lactate thought to be cleared by the liver for gluconeogenesis. However, it has become clear that skeletal muscle continuously produces lactate, and during exercise without an apparent lack of oxygen. The increase of lactate production with exercise is dependant on the acceleration of glycolysis causing an increase in pyruvate and NADH concentration that will shift the equilibrium enzyme lactate dehydrogenase to lactate formation. Moreover, during exercise the active muscles are by far the most important tissue for lactate uptake and subsequent oxidation. Thus, the muscle net lactate release, and to a large extent the systemic lactate concentration, depends on the balance between the active muscle lactate production and simultaneous utilization. This concept becomes very clear during diagonal stride roller skiing at about 75% VO2max. A relative small increase in arterial lactate (~2.5 mmol/L) occurs despite a very high whole body lactate production (~14.1 mmol/min) caused by the large release of lactate by the arms and legs. However, the legs take up and oxidize substantially more lactate than they produce. Thus, due to the large leg muscle mass and energy requirements for contraction, the legs are able to clear and oxidize most of the lactate that is produced during diagonal stride roller skiing keeping systemic lactate concentrations low. In addition, the arms are equally efficient in lactate utilization per kg of muscle than the legs, however, the arms produce far more lactate than they consume, that is, they are more glycolytic than the legs. These findings imply that systemic lactate levels are no measure for aerobic/anaerobic capacity of athletes in different sport disciplines. Moreover, in sports that use both the arms and the legs, such as rowing, swimming, and cross-country skiing, lactate levels will depend on the relative utilization of arms versus legs. This implies that blood lactate levels cannot be used to evaluate training status or technique." This is a motivator to actually find alternative information's on limitations and changes in metabolic demands. | ||
| Andrew Senior Member Username: Andrew Post Number: 518 Registered: 04-2006 |
Another view on the lactate dynamic picture, or at least some open questions worth discussing... 1) if we KNOW that the arms and legs both produce and clear lactate, can we view the ability to produce higher speed with lower lactate accumulation (or faster clearance) as either: A) an improvement in the athlete's ability to use it as a fuel, or B) a drop in ability to produce it, which presumably would be unlikely unless the training was done over an extended period of time allowing for a shift in muscle fibre type distribution. 2) is it possible that the reason "the arms produce far more lactate than they consume" is due to the difference in how they are trained when compared to the legs? That is, most endurance athletes do far more running, hiking, cycling, skiing than they are ever able to do hand cycling, double poling, or swimming. 3) Has there been a study to view whether the same pattern of lactate production and clearance by different muscles done in endurance swimmers, who will have trained a higher proportion of their lives with an arm dominant exercise pattern. Though even these athletes will have spent a greater total time on their feet than they ever would in the water, so the results may be similar. | ||
| Hourerg Senior Member Username: Hourerg Post Number: 57 Registered: 08-2009 |
I feel like we should be moving away from using the word "clearance" and substituting it with "utilization". Am I wrong? | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3404 Registered: 04-2006 |
Andrew made as usual some great inputs. Here what we are looking for the moment to see. Client 1: 16 year old local boy ( paraplegic after a MTB accident). 1 year in wheelchair. Client 2 :. Local male 10 years in a wheelchair after a bike accident. Client 3: A good friend of mine now 20 years in a wheelchair after a bike accident. Client 4: a study freind of mine now close to 35 years in a wheelchair after a trampoline accident in preparation for his exam. What we like to see, is , how this change in live and the way they move now may in fact change some of the common ideas on the discussion of energy use . We do some specific testing , where we like to see how different physiological systems work.Interesting will be the 16 year old local kid, where I just talked to the mother today to see , whwther we can do a long term assessment idea in a very regular pattern to see, if there is a structural change in what time and what amount. Our working partner Kelly Dreisinger from Ontario together with Martina Feldmann started a great rehab program now with all the different ideas and assessment we cxan offer for the time being. All are on a very specific respiratory program but use very individual ideas based on some initial RRA ( resting rerspiratory assesment). We use some statistical information from Buteyko as a start idea but may over the next few years change the numbers to our own collection of data to design the respiration ideas. We started lactate testing in the late 1980 in Alcudia ( Mallorca) on some of the top marathon wheelchair athletes like Franz Nietlisbach ( see New York marathon winners in wheelchair.) We at that time tested on two areas. Foot and ear.Many open questions at that time and now going through this old datas in our review on lactate we suddently have more answers than before. The partial review you can see here on the forum really helped us to be much more critical towards our own sometimes stuck ideas on using different assessment protocols. The beauty of reviews is the fact, that we suddently see clear pictures on some thing we defend or thought it was great. So to all , who sent me many of the articles I show here, a great thank you for the ongoing supply of questions and many great feedbacks. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3406 Registered: 04-2006 |
You make up your own mind, after all we discussed here. This is a test explanation from a leading assessment center , who combined VO2 and lactate. This is the short info on the test results and the data collection. You can see how exactly they can give AT and LT and you may find out how this is done, despite the fact , that AT and LT never was tested at that level. Look at the HR at the first easy start think about the delay of lactate and all the discussions we had on step length. This where 3 min step lenght including taking lactate in a run test. Here to enjoy and see, why we have many questions concerning what we all do in the field of testing. Interesting as well is, that we can run with zero fat metabolism in the body ?  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3407 Registered: 04-2006 |
I got a very long mail and followed up with a great phonecall. I can't show you the origin of the source but I am allowed to give you the summary of a presentation made this year at a great european sport conference. Here to enjoy and see the trend in the future of assessments and that we may have some small advantages with our steps ahead. " " Implications. Several implications can be derived from this meta-analysis. Lactate or ventilatory threshold tests, as measures of training adaptation, are best suited for assessing the progress of individuals from untrained to trained states (e.g., those states achieved through 8-12 weeks of endurance training). Once a moderate level of fitness is achieved, either test is not likely to be sensitive to further training adaptations (if any occur). The lactate threshold is a more sensitive measure of training adaptation than ventilatory threshold. Either threshold should not be expected to change during a year of concerted training, although there may be minor variations [possibly through measurement error]. Minor observed differences are not likely to be due to training. The value of using lactate and/or ventilatory thresholds for prescribing training programs for seriously training full-time athletes is negligible" | ||
| Andrew Senior Member Username: Andrew Post Number: 519 Registered: 04-2006 |
Juerg, the work you are doing with the four paraplegic athletes will be fascinating to follow. I am wondering if you can comment on both the lactate trends, vo2 data and portamon data between the athlete with the most recent injury and the one who has spent the majority of his life mobilizing with only the use of his upper body. I would expect were we to do muscle biopsies, that we would find that over time these athletes would demonstrate an increase in STF fibers in their upper body. What would be interesting would also be to see if the higher production of lactate in the arms of the xc skiers would change over time to better utilization with the increased STF fiber development. On a different note, the conclusions made by Juerg's contact in Europe regarding "lactate threshold" is quite understandable. That is, if one believes in a threshold, whether it be as an absolute number or as a change in slope of a curve, then one might also see no change in time after an initial training period of 12 weeks. However, we have demonstrated on numerous occasions, sometimes even within the same training session, with specific interventions the ability to change the intrinsic dynamics of lactate. Some of these observations were posted here as many as five years ago when we first saw in our small group that by using what we called the "juergalyzer", and playing with inspiratory and expiratory resistance, we could alter LBP by as much as 10 beats per minute, and as many as 25 watts. But, only in athletes who had received specific respiratory training in the previous six months. So, my question would be, did the "threshold" not change because there is no such thing as a threshold, or because there was no intervention in training of those athletes that was started that was specifically designed to allow to alter how they produced, circulated and consumed lactate? These interventions specifically would have been directed at the limitations they had demonstrated in the initial testing. Whether that had been cardiac, respiratory, peripheral, hemodynamically, or through changes in oxygen unloading reloading. This type of conclusion, often made by very well respected authorities, but based on old terms like lactate threshold, often opens up more questions for me than they answer. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3408 Registered: 04-2006 |
Thanks for that feedback Andrew. To point 1 : We will follow this athletes now over a longer time and hope to even have in one or the other some biopsy done. The question here really is, whether the unfortunate shift from using arms in a upright life to no using arms to be able to move in fact will create over time a very clear structural change and therefor as well a clear change in the way energy is produced and used. As Andrew pointed out. Even a world class cross country skier or rower or swimmer alwasy will use the legs much more thna the arms. In our cases there is no choice anymore. What we like to see, is , how long in our youngest client it may take to see similar oxygenation patterns as we see in the longer standing clients. Than see, whether this can be proven over some hopefully available biopsies in europe. 2. Same here, as I think Andrew makes a good point. The lack of seeing after 12 weeks a shift in whatever should we believe in is more likely to the fact, that training ideas are not specified for the weakest link but generalized to an overall workout. Once we establish a clear weak link after a certain amount of time ( like here in this discussion 12 weeks ) we simply will get stuck there, when we never really address this weak link. Respiration is a great example. That was pretty much our discussion over the phone and the interesting part is or was, that at the end of the discussion there was a big question mark on the statement I published above. I was pretty close and will be even closer in a few weeks to try to convince this person or group, that there always has to be a critical review done first on our own ideas before we go out and present it to the public. This is one reason , why I can't name the group here, as they are already close to say , that there may be different options to their statement. We will see what is next. | ||
| Andrew Senior Member Username: Andrew Post Number: 520 Registered: 04-2006 |
I am so thankful that Juerg is able to communicate well with such a widely diverse group of professionals who are willing to open up their own questions for discussion. It is this respect for Juerg's opinions that separates this forum from many others, and I am glad Juerg continues to post his observations here. I think it is important for all readers to remember, that Juerg often posts statements, quotes and conclusions here that are far different from his own personal opinion. He does this to allow others to keep their minds open, and to continue to question the standard beliefs and conclusions made in other areas. So, keep your minds open. Juerg, back to my question about the four athletes above. Have you noted any trends regarding lactate that correspond to your current views with Portamon? | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3409 Registered: 04-2006 |
Thanks again for the feedback. 4 is a small number so no conclusions. The reason why this may be ( hopefully ) interesting is a very unique situation. Here in very short the ideas: a) We like to assess over the next year " healthy " people by testing upper and lower body independently. Than comparing this info with the 16 year old, who just starts to move his live mainly onto his arms. Than we will retest every 9 - 12 weeks as he goes along and see, whether his pattern moves towards the different pattern we see on clients "living" on their upper body. Question is the time frame where we may see the switch and with it possibly changes in metabolic abilities to use energy. 2. We would like to see how the cardiac situation may or may not change in cases like that. Losing suddenly 30 - 60 % of an active muscle mass may change the need for the cardiac output. So what we see is a real difference in CO and SV and we would like to see how fast that may go. 3. If we may really see a clear atrophy in cardiac muscle than the question is , whether we can slow it down ( but loose anyway ) or whether there are options , where we can still maintain the cardiac strenght. . So as a short answer to Andrews question. The lactate tells us some unclear stories, Once we look at both together we may see a trend in some directions, where we hope , that the portamon data will actually tell us the better information, than the lactate can tell us, due to the different dynamics. At the end it looks like we can use different portamon informations and pictures and may be we will be able to "predict" the trend in lactate due to the different portamon information. This basically would support our idea we have for the moment on healthy people and why we in an initial basic assessment not use lactate anymore. The idea, that we can use the lactate balance point as an idea to find our clients basic fitness is out , as there are some clear mistakes we did in that directions. I have some great datas here from Jon Wehrlin , the now director in Switzerland in the sport school in Magglingen. And the paper is as well backed up from some earlier studies done by Heck et all showing the exact same problematic. The initial assessment will be noninvasive and lactate can be used later in some specific ideas for the moment to assess metabolic trends . The actual information on shifts in performance are much nicer to see directly as they occur. So we develop for the moment a specific template so we can repeat the whole picture over and over again and see how often we hit or miss the information and what may or may not influence this changes. | ||
| Andrew Senior Member Username: Andrew Post Number: 521 Registered: 04-2006 |
Playing devil's advocate again... And asking the question for those not having access or not being able to afford just yet a $12,000 Portamon unit, but still interested in using their brains. I would suggest that if you did the identical lactate test on each of these four athletes, there would be some "expected trends" that I am willing to stretch myself out on a limb to suggest we wuod see. It would not matter in this case whether you choose to do it as an old version LBP, or a modified version as we often do now, with longer step lengths and repeated testing at LBP intensity with different respiratory interventions, or with the addition of extra tools like physioflow and Portamon. What I would expect is a higher lactate value, and sharper rise from the "newly injured athlete", and likely slower clearance or utilization. This is based on my suggestion of a higher FTF composition in his upper arms at this point in his life, being primarily leg dependent for mobility until his accident. The only caveat, is that if he has not lost his leg muscle mass yet, he may in fact be able to still clear some lactate through his legs, though this would be greatly diminished if he has NO neuro function below his injury level. My next prediction, would be that the athlete who has been injured the longest would have an opposite lactate trend. That is, slower accumulation and higher rate or more rapid utilization. I realize Juerg is moving away from using lactate in his initial assessments, due to his access to some great equipment. But this is a great case series that could benefit everyone, whether they are just beginning to use the simplest bio markers, or are able to invest in the full spectrum of assessment tools. I look forward to seeing the results of the live tests posted for us all to see. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3410 Registered: 04-2006 |
We hope to be able to do a full IPAHD in the next week to see how the theory will support the facts or vice versa. In all the current tests we did on "healthy " people looking at upper body ACE cycle or UBC cycle use we always with no exception yet had the opposite reaction from the theory we where setting up prior to the test. Very low lactate levels and very low trends. This is supported from many other studies on upper body , where the "average individual anaerobic threshold was found to be around 2.8 mmol/L So very low lactate levels and very little increase at the end of a test. The PortaMon datas now show us, that the lactate trends , when testing "untrained" endurance body parts, like upper body in runners or even legs in not active people show a much different information , than we ever expected and an very , initially confusing trend. It shows us even more why we abandon lactate in an initial assessment with newcomers or beginners or first time athletes. It gives for us a very wrong picture we did over many years. There are different reasons we see and one of the main reason is the lag in lactate dynamic and the height problem in the fact, that we really have no clue where and how lactate is actually moving. Example we did was a testing, where we where biking a wattage on the exchange area of drop in blood volume but still top TSI % . Now we kept this intensity at the same wattage and the only thing we changed was the leg coordination. Same RPM but more pushing down from 12.00 to 5.o clock for a certain time ( Heck et all ) and than we only pulled and compared the dynamic of Portamon with the dynamic of lactate and added SEMG. The results very pretty much individual and not predictable at all. We still go through the ideas and will repeat this game again. The only immediately information, where we where able to tell what will happen in lactate trend was, when we combined the SEMG activity level and the portamon trends.. If we would use the lactate as a way of an indication we would have made a very different conclusion.. I am just putting together this weekend the end part of the handout script Lactate review and its history of interesting conclusion over time" I hope we will be able to use many of this ideas in 2012 in February , when we start a data collection together with the University of Berne, as they accepted now IP ( innovative performance ) as the mentor for some masters and hopefully Ph.D works and data collections. Most likely the study will be published in english so we will be able to show it on here, as soon in went through the peer group review at the end of 2012 beginning 2013. So here a great study done in Switzerland ( Notwil) . The lactate is higher in hand cycling by the same VO2 max % compared to real leg biking. . The maximal lactate is much lower in hand cycling and the increase does not show q sudden peak. Now this is done in top handle athletes and not on beginners. " Concentration of lactate In hand bike cyclists (P=0.027) and cyclists (P<0.001), concentration of lactate was significantly higher at 75% VO2 peak compared to 65% VO2 peak and 55% VO2 peak (Figure 3). Handbike cyclists had a significantly higher concentration of lactate than cyclists at 55% VO2 peak (P=0.001), at 65% VO2 peak (P=0.001) and at 75% VO2 peak (P<0.001)."  Here the summary of the stduy : " Optimal exercise intensities for fat metabolism in handbike cycling and cycling B Knechtle1, G Müller1 and H Knecht2 1Institute of Sports Medicine, Swiss Paraplegic Centre, Nottwil, Switzerland 2Institute for Clinical Research, Swiss Paraplegic Centre, Nottwil, Switzerland Correspondence: B Knechtle, Institute of Sports Medicine, Swiss Paraplegic Centre, 6207 Nottwil, Switzerland Top of pageAbstract Study design: Energy expenditure (EE) and fat oxidation in handbike cycling compared to cycling in order to determine the intensity that elicits maximal fat oxidation in handbike cycling. Objective: To establish the exercise intensity with the highest fat oxidation rate in handbike cycling compared with cycling (control group) in order to give training recommendations for spinal cord-injured (SCI) athletes performing handbike cycling. Setting: Institute of Sports Medicine, Swiss Paraplegic Centre, Nottwil, Switzerland. Methods: Eight endurance-trained handbike cyclists (VO2 peakhandbike cycling 37.57.8 ml/kg/min) and eight endurance trained cyclists (VO2 peakcycling 62.54.5 ml/kg/min) performed three 20-min exercise blocks at 55, 65 and 75% VO2 peak in handbike cycling on a treadmill or in cycling on a cycling ergometer, respectively, in order to find the intensity with the absolutely highest fat oxidation. Results: The contribution of fat to total EE was highest (39.116.3% EE) at 55% VO2 peak in handbike cycling compared to cycling, where highest contribution of fat to EE (50.813.8%) was found at 75% VO2 peak. In handbike cycling, the highest absolute fat oxidation (0.280.10 g/min) was found at 55% VO2 peak compared to cycling, where highest fat oxidation (0.670.20 g/min) was found at 75% VO2 peak. Conclusion: Well-trained handbike cyclists have their highest fat oxidation at 55% VO2 peakhandbike cycling compared to well-trained cyclists at 75% VO2 peakcycling. Handbike cyclists should perform endurance exercise training at 55% VO2 peakhandbike cycling, whereas well-trained cyclists should be able to exercise at 75% VO2 peakcycling. For training recommendations, the heart rate at 55% VO2 peakhandbike cycling lies at 1356 bpm in handbike cycling in SCI compared to 14714 bpm at 75% VO2 peakcycling in well-trained cyclists. We presume that the reduced muscle mass involved in exercise during handbike cycling is the most important factor for impaired fat oxidation compared to cycling. But also other factors as fitness level and haemodynamic differences should be considered. Our results are only applicable to well-trained handbike cyclists with SCI and not for the general SCI population." The same group as welll used an idea of the old LBP here one off their publications I showed a while back on this forum ( Laktate minimal test). Another really great information is done by Peter Schuerch in Germany ( Cologne ) I had the priviledge to be for amny years in training camps together with peter schuerch in Gala Livberoto ( Sardina) He mad many great studies on kajakers and upper body sport athletes. In all of the tests the lactate was always clearly lower in maximal values but as well as in the IANT.. His studies got confuirmed from many other researchers. Here a shodt summary of some. " Elite male kayakers appear homogeneous in shape and physical size, being differentiated from the general population by their greater upper body girth and narrow, hips (Ackland et al., 2003) and demonstrate superior aerobic and anaerobic qualities (Hahn et al., 1988; Tesch et al., 1976; Tesch, 1983; Pendergast et al., 1989; Zamparo et al., 1999). Kayakers have reported VO2peak values of around 58 ml·kg-1·min-1 (4.7 L·min-1) and lactate values of around 12 mM during laboratory and on water testing. For kayaking, a sport that relies on high maximal aerobic power, the anaerobic energy system also seems to be important for successful performance. van Someren and Oliver (2001) reported that the mean lactate threshold occurred at a blood lactate concentration of 2.7 mmol·L-1, at a HR of 170 beats·min-1 and a VO2 of 44.2 ml·kg-1·min- 1. The lactate threshold presented corresponded to a percentage of 89.6% of the maximum heart rate and 82.4% of the VO2 peak. Although the absolute values of peak VO2for kayaking have been described to be quite high (Tesch, 1983), they are not quite as high as other sporting events such as road cycling, rowing or running. Billat et al. (1996) showed on the kayak ergometer, the power output of kayak paddlers at VO2peak was only 57% of the power output produced by cyclists on their respective ergometer." Maximal tested Lactate values in world class kajakers reach somewhere between 10 - 13 mmol in very extreme great athletes. Compared to runners or cyclist that is very low. Summary. Lactate per see does for us not give the answers or the ability we thought it would give and any basic initial assessment the information we get from lactate, the conclusion we made in the past to what we know now shows us , that we made many wrong conclusion, which sounded great in theory but the facts we see and can test now unfortunately for us shows , that we where very often wrong rather than right. We did many test now changeing many parameters like rest time , end intebnsity, step length and respiratory manipulation , because we desperatly tried to defend our lactate balance point idea.( Who would thow an idea over teh last 25 years just like that over board ) Result: we see now, how and why all this different changes change the result on LBP as well as they change the result on the LT or ANT. We simply thought m that the way we did it with a trend and physiological set ups looked great in theroy but does not hold up in the real world of finding facts now. | ||
| Andrew Senior Member Username: Andrew Post Number: 522 Registered: 04-2006 |
It is interesting now the quoting here of studies that use % of vo2 max as an indication of intensities to try to prove a point, when there is so much evidence against using this as a measurement tool. But I conceded the fact that your observations so problems with using LBP or any other lactate trend idea as the only means of making conclusions or decisions. My questions were more about what the trends were with respect to the four athletes at different stages in their upper body development. Still a question which has not been answered here. The first study showing the very high lactate values in well trained handle athletes, follows the trend that I suggested may occur if the denervated lower limbs are unable to aid in clearance of lactate or consumption of that fuel due to lack of muscle activity in these, the largest muscles in the body. It would seem to indicate that even in well trained athletes, the movement of lactate to DIFFERENT muscle groups than the primary movers is the area of greatest clearance. And this was shown in some good studies quoted earlier here, by Gladden, when looking into the lactate shuttle theory. The conclusions made by these great researchers are difficult to discuss in detail, as they often continue to put their results in terms of threshold and % vo2 max. And this continues to be one of the biggest problems facing physiology research okay. Hopefully Jerg's new students from Bern will be given the freedom to state their results and conclusions without being weighed down by poor vocabulary and historically inaccurate terminology. As Juerg has so nicely demonstrated, there is clear problems with using lactate thresholds and absolute numbers. And using this to measure performance and make conclusions is fraught with problems. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3411 Registered: 04-2006 |
struggling with the changes. Here is a great example from a great website, who shows you how we all struggle with the changes occuring in the testing and assessment world at the time. If we use certain ideas and theories over a cetrain time and than new developpments and equipment will allow us to proof many ideas not wrong but simply not optimal and or inadequate, we often think, what ever we did was wrong over all this years. We rather start to understand , that in the future we may have to deal with much bigger basic natural rules , which may get overturned and may change many of our current basic believes. Think back to incredible steps of Galileo and the world is round to many other big scientifique changes. One of the latest may be the fact, that something can be faster than light speed ( see the Cern Center in geneva Switzerland) This always took place and always will take place. So problems and questions we discuss here are of minor relevance and or consequences. Here a short part of this struggle from a website from a very accepted and great test center group. "During the work period of the interval you will be producing lactic acid, which your body will have to deal with during the rest period. Active slow twitch muscle fibers are capable of using lactic acid as an energy source. Repeatedly exposing your body to moderate levels of lactate and then allowing it to recover gradually trains your body to become more efficient at lactate removal as you r body develops the enzymes necessary to convert lactate back to glycogen or glucose. This will translate into lower lactate and faster times during a race since you will be able to deal with the lactate as it is produced. Of course this training effect will only happen if you have done adequate base training." So many question here from the lactic acid to the enzyme , to the need to be removed to the question , whether it has to be converted back to glucose, or only to pyruvate or not at all. To the biggest question on how to use the lactate information in an interval workout at all with the lag time we know and the open question on production site and removal site. The many interval workouts we have done comparing lactate and NIRS directly shows us the uselessness of lactate in many classical intervall workouts. We have datas, where lactate barely changed during a workout with exception on the start , where it moved up and than had minor fluctuation during the rest of the workout so it looked pretty close to a steady state hard workout. Once we printed the fluctuation out with the Portamon we had some very different ideas on what we actually did. Now put in the space for lactate the energy source glucose . Would we still discuss this idea. In fact you can take a blood sugar meter and test and you will have a similar ability to create a "lactate curve" or a GBP ( glucose balance point). In fact you could take as well beta-endorphine and you would be able to make basically an identical curve shape as with lactate. See Schwarz and Kindermann "Beta-endorphine, adrenocorticotropic hormone, cortisol and catecholamines during aerobic and anaerobic exercises. European Journal of applied Physiology 1990 (165-171). Summary: Changes happened and it is lot's of fun to challenge once own ideas to understand more ( or sometimes less). This is a basic |message| to a specific set of e mails I am getting since about 4 weeks , when we started this thread. I will give a specific answer on another thread. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3413 Registered: 04-2006 |
Great feedbacks. 1. no answer on the question , how in the athletes living on their arms since a longer time ,the lactate would have reacted immediatly after the accident. This is the unfortunate "luck" we have by being able to test a client unfortunately now short after an accident and than we can compare his results with the once we did not tested immediatly after. We have nice tests and lactate trends from the "older " athletes and soon a test from the youngest athlet combined with some different equipments as well. We are in a short break here, as the companies calibrate all the equipments now on the same standard so all the different centers using the same equipment have identical set ups now so we can transfer datas easy. To Gladdens and Brooks lactae removal including the opinion by the Salin & Katz group. They suggest a removal ratio of 70 - 80 % from Vital organs like heart , brain and liver and a re-use of lactate by about 20 +- % in muscles resting or not heavily involved in the high intensity : So the question in an upper body athlete is, whether the much smaller active muscle mass actually creates so much metabolic H + production, that we really will see high lactate levels. The heart and the brain as well kidney's may maintain closley the same removal capacity as prior to the accident. So still a big part will be removed there and will be preferred to be removed there. So the ratio of 70 +- % may stay the same. When reaching max levels of 3 - 4 than the 20 % removal rate is relative a small value.. When we take the limitation of the lactate equipment( 0.8 minimal reading) and the lower end of lactate production of 3 ( which is not uncommon) we are left with a possible change of 0.4 - 0.8 mmol removal in the muscles and this in case of complet removal and even less if we look at the lactate half value time of 50 % ( 0.2 - 0.6 mmol lactate. If you test on this athletes the lactate on the ear and on the finger you may have already a change of the above values at the same time. The maximal lactate values we tested on one of the clients here was 2.7 mmol. The best athlet of this 4 ( Winner in that year of the new york marathon) was 3.3mmol So for us the question is clear. How much value does this lactate testing really gives us compared to real immediate information on oxygenation and SEMG. The answer is open and we fail to make any theory on this ideas but rather test and see. The other question is , whether the |"High " lactate 3.8 in the first study is considered a high lactate number for a highly trained athalet. For Handy cycle it may be a very high reading In kajakers (as shown usng upper body plus trunk and legs )the lactate is around 10 + ( Schuerch et all ) and in middle distance runners i may go above 20 mmol. "Lactate Removal Although once viewed as a negative metabolic event (see Side Bar I), increased lactate production occurring exclusively during high-intensity exercise is natural (Roberts & Robergs 1997). Even at rest a small degree of lactate production takes place, which indicates there must also exist lactate removal or else there would be lactate accumulation occurring at rest. The primary means of lactate removal include its uptake by the heart, liver, and kidneys as a metabolic fuel (Brooks 1985). Within the liver, lactate functions as a chemical building block for glucose production (known as gluconeogenesis), which is then released back into the blood stream to be used as fuel (or substrate) elsewhere. Additionally, non-exercising or less active muscles are capable of lactate uptake and consumption. At exercise intensities above the lactate threshold, there is a mismatch between production and uptake, with the rate of lactate removal apparently lagging behind the rate of lactate production (Katz & Sahlin 1988)". I will show one of the latest test with a "long standing "local ( B.C. ) athelete with his permission. The LBP test actually looks nearly ridiculous and to give him that printout was kind of funny. True, we could change the scale and it would look much more impressive , but the changes in lactate in and around balance point are easy in the range of mesurement mistake rather than actual believable values. This was one of many tests where we really failed and did a very very poor job. Taking lactate impressed , giving an LBP convinced understanding the outcome POOR. One more reason here to find a better solution for a better answer in his quest to circumference the northern part of the USA. And not make the same mistake with our young client. We had prior to the Bejing Olympics the priviledge to have basically all test sent in from the paraolympic group with VO2 and RF and VE information as well as lactate values. The reason at that time was to consult on the use of Spiro Tiger for this group. The lactate values where pretty much for "decoration" only and to sound scientifique but of no value for training intensity ideas. The VO2 numbers where interesting and the information from the VO2 test to have a closer look at the respiratory dynamic was of much more value. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3414 Registered: 04-2006 |
I had a great call with my old country and people there working extensively with wheel chair athletes. I can show depending on teh direction of interest some of the work. Here just in short to our above discussion. 1. Trained athletes will show higher lactate values over time than untrained. 2. In contrast to the "able" body trend of lactate the lactate will be higher in long steps rather than in classical 3 min steps. My own idea here. This would justify , why we think taking lactate in a 3 or eve 5 min steps has minimal values. In wheelchair athletes it is of even less information over shorter step length like we use in able bodies. 3. Lactate is of little or no values in wheel chair athletes for ideas on traiing intensities. " "A new test to improve the training quality of wheelchair racing athletes G Müller1, P Odermatt2 and C Perret3 1Institute for Sports Medicine, Swiss Paraplegic Centre, Nottwil, Switzerland 2Swiss Paralympic Association, Swiss Paraplegic Centre, Nottwil, Switzerland 3Institute for Clinical Research, Swiss Paraplegic Centre, Nottwil, Switzerland Correspondence: G Müller, Institute for Sports Medicine, Swiss Paraplegic Centre, CH-6207 Nottwil, Switzerland Top of pageAbstract Study design: Validation of a new wheelchair racing test. Objective: To assess the reproducibility of test parameters at different, subjectively chosen, intensity levels in wheelchair racing athletes. Setting: Swiss Paraplegic Centre, Nottwil, Switzerland. Subjects: We tested 11 (eight male, three female) young competitive wheelchair racing athletes. Their age was 20.56.4 years, height 164.716.3 cm and weight 54.19.2 kg. Average weekly training time was 6.82.7 h. All had been engaged in regular training for over 3.92.8 years. Methods: Within a period of 31 days, every athlete completed two identical tests in their own racing chair on a training roller. The tests consisted of five 1500 m bouts at routine training intensities of 1 (warm-up) up to 5 (race speed), with a rest of 2 min between each bout. The athletes were blinded to all the collected data during the whole of the test, except for indications of the 500, 1000 and 1500 m markers. We measured the overall time (for 1500 m), average speed, stroke frequency, heart rate, rate of perceived exertion (RPE) and the concentration of lactic acid for all five intensity bouts. In order to get a measure on how reproducible these intensity levels were, we compared the two tests of each athlete with each other, and calculated the root-mean-squared coefficients of variation (CV) for all measured parameters during every bout. Results: CVs of the measured data show that the most reproducible values were found for bout 5 (2.6–7.9%); except for the lactic acid parameter. The heart rate (CV: 3.1–6.4%) and stroke frequency (CV: 6.5–7.9%) parameters reached rather constant values throughout all five bouts. Lactic acid concentrations showed very high CVs (16.8–29.7%). Conclusion: We conclude that this test is, with the exception of the lactic acid measurements, well reproducible, and particularly suitable for young wheelchair athletes. We find it to be a helpful tool for improving awareness for the individual training intensities, and for pursuing the development of the training process, as particularly the high-intensity bouts are well reproducible. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3415 Registered: 04-2006 |
Okay and here one of many of our failed tests on a client. This the wheelchair LBP test we did.  Terrible job I did here and yes he did not had to pay anything, in fact I had to talk him into taking a specific sport nutritional bar instead ( Smile ) The whole test was done as an IPAHD as well to compare lactate LBP idea and trends with the IPAHD idea.(combination to the lactate testing to see the difference and the values between each other.) The Full IPAHD assessment includes Power ( wattage or ....), Cardiac hemoydnamic with CO and LVET. , oxygenation with tHb , TSI % and most often HHb and oxyHb or only Hb diff. This in combination with SEMG on the same muscle . People interested in what final SEMG we will use go to : http://www.btsbioengineering.com/BTSBioengineering/Surfaceemg/BTSFREEEMG300/BTS_FREEEMG300.html Than Respiratory info : Opitmal in this cases will be K42B from Cosmed. This as you can move the unit great in behind the backrest in a pouch. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3416 Registered: 04-2006 |
Remember the short thought on testing able bodies on upper and lower assessing to see how it works. Here I got sent on an e mail just now. A great abstract and interesting to read the rest. The changes we theoretically hope to see may not show up at all. We may be able to take the info from able body and move it to wheelchair athletes . here to enjoy . Sub maximal exercise responses in tetraplegic, paraplegic and non spinal cord injured elite wheelchair athletes C. A. Leicht, N. C. Bishop, V. L. Goosey-Tolfrey " Keywords:exercise prescription;wheelchair basketball;wheelchair rugby;blood lactate;rating of perceived exertion It remains unclear whether similar exercise prescription, based on physiological markers, can be applied to subgroups of wheelchair athletes with different disabilities. Therefore, 25 wheelchair athletes, divided into three subgroups [eight tetraplegic (TETRA), nine paraplegic (PARA) and eight non spinal cord injured (NON-SCI)], performed an exercise test consisting of incremental submaximal stages, covering a range from 40% to 80% peak oxygen uptake (%V̇O2peak). Oxygen uptake (V̇O2), heart rate (HR), blood lactate concentration (BLa) and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were obtained for each stage. Expressed as a function of BLa, no differences were found between subgroups with respect to %V̇O2peak (group mean ± SD: 1.0 mmol/L: 53.9 ± 9.9%; 2.0 mmol/L: 70.7 ± 7.5%; 3.0 mmol/L: 78.5 ± 7.7%) and RPE [group mean (lower and upper quartile): 1.0 mmol/L: 10.8 (9.9, 12.2); 2.0 mmol/L: 13.6 (12.7, 14.3); 3.0 mmol/L: 14.9 (13.7, 16.5)]. Furthermore, no differences were found in the coefficient of determination (R2) of the HR–V̇O2 relationship in any of the subgroups (TETRA: 0.90 ± 0.12; PARA: 0.97 ± 0.02; NON-SCI: 0.96 ± 0.04). These results suggest that exercise prescription using measurements of V̇O2, BLa or RPE can be based on the same recommendations in all the subgroups studied. This finding has added value for TETRA athletes, as it offers alternatives to HR monitoring." | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3417 Registered: 04-2006 |
And here and sorry it took longer as I needed some help in the searching for something we did not found. Andrew makes a good point : " It is interesting now the quoting here of studies that use % of vo2max as an indication of intensities to try to prove a point, whenthere is so much evidence against using this as a measurement tool. " We have searched and we found no studies yet where VO2 and or classical lactate was not used but rather some different ideas of physiological testing. We will keep searching for studies and will keep them coming on here as well , as soon we can find some. So any reader out there having read studies where the classical values where not used but some different ideas please feel free to post it on here. We try not to make a point here at all, in contrary we try to avoid biased ideas more than ever, since we can daily go back and read how we tried to justify lactate balance point. The easiest way would possibly be to take the old postings out, but as we believe it is the part of developpment over time we for the moment enjoy the "older" stuff we discussed here and try to find answers on still open questions. With the availability of new equipment we will see more and more test and ideas coming in all different versions. FaCT- Canada tries to stay on top of looking for equipment to be integrated into the field of research , testing and use for all different purposes. The current equipment is one of the top of the line equipment available over our Company. Sorry this is very biased and a clear PR here, but there are only a few similar possibilities out there. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3419 Registered: 04-2006 |
Well here is a nice answer to our speculations. Speculation: In wheelchair athletes the muscle fiber may change from initially more FTF fibers to more STF fibers. With this we would see a change in lactate dynamic , where as we would have a higher lactate level initially and over time due to the change to STF fibers we would see a faster clearance and therefor possibly lower lactate levels. ? Well here one of the studies to read . and the nice part here it was done with biopsies. : " Tesch PA, Karlsson J : Muscle fiber type characteristics of M. deltoideus in wheelchair athletes. Comparison with other trained athletes. Am J Phys Med Muscle biopsies were obtained from the midportion of m. deltoideus of seven male wheelchair basketball athletes. High caliber kayak paddlers (n = 8) and wrestlers (n = 8) as well as mountain ranger soldiers (n = 8) served as controls. Histochemical methods were applied to identify fast twitch (FT) and slow twitch (ST) fibers and furthermore assess muscle fiber type distribution and muscle fiber cross-sectional area. The relative percentage of FT fibers averaged (+/-SD) 47 +/- 12% and 52 +/- 9% in wheelchair athletes and soldiers. The value obtained in kayakers was significantly lower (30 +/- 11). Both FT area (p less than 0.01) and mean fiber area (p less than 0.05) were significantly larger in wheelchair athletes as compared with soldiers and kayakers. It is suggested that the involvement in specific physical training was the main cause for hypertrophy of individual muscle fibers observed in m. deltoideus of wheelchair athletes. MEDLINE - PMID: 6226203, UI: 84021265 " | ||
| Andrew Senior Member Username: Andrew Post Number: 523 Registered: 04-2006 |
So, slightly lower % of absolute FT fibers in wheelchair athletes competing in basketball compared to the rangers. And Significantly larger muscle mass as expected in those using their arms for mobility. The FTF percentage is a bit higher than I would have expected, though the sport they are competing in certainly could lead to training regime that would maintain FTF development over time compared to the endurance athletes. Thanks for your continued postings Juerg. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3420 Registered: 04-2006 |
Now we lost the foccus here on the review of lactate history. In the late 1980 a small group in Switzerland introduced some new ideas on lactate trends. The paper written by Andreas Zahnd was pulled apart in its early days and never had a chance to succeed.There where later some popular articles in a running magazin and that was it. The only paper trail left was an out of court settlement with a University and its staff which was not published as a "scientifique" paper but as a lame excuse on a mistake made by some presenters of that university. Nevertheless the group kept working on this interesting and intriguing idea. In the "accepted " world of publication a set of similar ideas with some small changes started to get publicity. In north America there was pretty much silence but the test idea got some people interested in the idea. There where some early re-tests done and some changes on the protocol on how to apply it. One of the universities doing some closer investigation , but never really made a big publication was the university of Calgary . Here one of their abstracts kept pretty quite and the name of the idea or test was change to lactate minimum test . Here to enjoy a part of lactate history. " The lactate minimum test for cycling: estimation of the maximal lactate steady state. MacIntosh BR, Esau S, Svedahl K. SourceHuman Performance Laboratory, Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. Abstract This study evaluated the reliability and validity of the lactate minimum test (LMT), an incremental test given after lactic acidosis was induced by sprint exercise. This test is purported to accurately estimate the intensity of exercise at which the transport of lactate into and out of the blood is in equilibrium (maximal lactate steady state or MLSS) and should be a good predictor of endurance performance. Fourteen athletes (mean age 27.2 +/- 3.7 yrs) completed the following on Kreitler rollers: (a) two 20-km time-trials (35.1 +/- 3.3 and 35.7 +/- 3.5 km.hr-1, p <.05);> 0.6); and (c) four constant intensity rides, at speeds bracketing the LMS. At 33.5 +/- 3.1 km.hr-1 plasma lactate concentration decreased 0.4 +/- 1.6 mM from 10 to 30 min. Plasma lactate increased 1.6 +/- 0.7 mM while riding 0.9 +/- 0.9 km.hr-1 faster. The LMT is a reliable (r2 = 0.904) and valid method to predict MLSS and a good predictor of endurance performance (LMT vs. 20-km time-trial, r2 = 0.86)." There where some additional publication in the time between and some of them are praised as new ideas. Here another example from the UK from 2009 "We had some major discussion on a UK forum in the previous year. Here to enjoy " Investigations of the lactate minimum test. Johnson MA, Sharpe GR, Brown PI. SourceNottingham Trent University, United Kingdom. michael.johnson@ntu.ac.uk Abstract We evaluated: the agreement between lactate minimum and maximal lactate steady state (MLSS) cycling powers (study 1); whether rates of change of blood lactate concentration during the lactate minimum test reflect that of constant power exercise (study 2); whether the lactate minimum power is influenced by the muscle groups used to elevate blood lactate concentration (study 3). Study 1: 32 subjects performed a lactate minimum test comprising a lactate elevation phase, recovery phase, and incremental phase (five 4 min stages); MLSS was subsequently determined. Study 2: 8 subjects performed a lactate minimum test and five 22 min constant power tests at the incremental phase exercise intensities. Study 3: 10 subjects performed two identical lactate minimum tests, except during the second test the lactate elevation phase comprised arm-cranking. Lactate minimum and MLSS powers demonstrated good agreement (mean bias+/-95% limits of agreement: 2+/-22 W). Rates of change of blood lactate concentration during each incremental phase stage and corresponding constant power test did not correlate. Lactate minimum power was lowered when arm-cranking was used during the lactate elevation phase (157+/-29 vs. 168+/-21 W; p<0.05). The lactate elevation phase modifies blood lactate concentration responses during the incremental phase, thus good agreement between lactate minimum and MLSS powers seems fortuitous." This publication was done : " Int J Sports Med. 2009 Jun;30(6):448-54. Epub 2009 Feb 6." Here one from Switzerland. " British Journal of Sports Medicinebjsm.bmj.com Br J Sports Med doi:10.1136/bjsm.2006.032714 Heart rate based lactate minimum test - a reproducible method Matthias Strupler (matthias.strupler@paranet.ch) Swiss Paraplegic Research, Switzerland Gabi Mueller (gabi.mueller@paranet.ch) Swiss Paraplegic Research, Switzerland Claudio Perret (claudio.perret@paranet.ch) + Author Affiliations Swiss Paraplegic Research, Switzerland Published Online First 28 February 2008 Abstract Objective: To find the individual intensity for aerobic endurance training, the lactate minimum test (LMT) seems to be a promising method. LMTs described in the literature consist of speed- or work rate-based protocols, but for training prescription in daily practice mostly heart rate is used. The aim of the present study was to investigate the reproducibility of a new heart rate-based LMT protocol. Design: 20 subjects each underwent 4 LMT’s on a cycle ergometer. The LMT consisted of a first part (Conconi test) to induce lactate accumulation and a second part (incremental protocol) with stages of 5 min starting beyond the aerobic threshold. During these stages work rate was adjusted to reach predetermined heart rates, which were calculated for every single test from heart rate (HR) at rest and maximum HR. Lactate was measured after each stage to define the lactate mini-mum (LM) and the corresponding HR. Setting: Institute of Sports Medicine Participants: 20 healthy and endurance trained individuals (13 males, 7 females). Main Outcome Measures: Reproducibility of heart rate at LM Results: The reproducibility of heart rate at LM was high (coefficient of variation CV = 2.1%). The reproducibility of work rate at LM was good (CV = 6.7%). CV for lactate concentrations at LM was 17.4%. High inter-individual differences at LM were found in heart rate (range 149–178 bpm) and lactate levels (range 1.2–6.8 mmol•L-1). Conclusion: The LMT using a heart rate-based protocol is a reproducible method of assessing HR at an exercise intensity where an equilibrium between blood lactate accumulation and elimination exists." Summary. The lactate minimum test got nicely accepted in the official field with very little fanfare and still a big majority of studies never embrassed this interesting idea. Regular readers of this Forum may see some similarity with an idea we move on here since many years and some people may in fact remember more than 20 years back some similar results in some interesting test done in Switzerland , Spain . Italy and later in Canada in different sports. Now as the "official " world of science seem to accept this long standing idea the question arises, why there is a very small group in Canada, who take this same idea of LBP apart and look at it as a great step forward to the next possible level. What triggered a close review of this great idea and when did it started.? Here the actual trigger on the critical review on the problematic of the lactate minimum idea or LBP. Study from the same swiss group published here in 2011 . The idea is not new here just done on a different population, which in fact created the great next step for us to review our own ideas. We had some clear ideas prior to this publication but this one was the final part of finding the answer in , why the LBP has some major flaws and why we never got the idea and why accepted groups made the same theoretical thinking gap. " Original Article Spinal Cord , (6 September 2011) | doi:10.1038/sc.2011.97 C Perret R Labruyère G Mueller M Strupler Correlation of heart rate at lactate minimum and maximal lactate steady state in wheelchair-racing athletes C Perret, R Labruyère, G Mueller and M Strupler Objective: To investigate whether the heart rate (HR) at lactate minimum (LMHR)determined by means of a HR-guided lactate minimum test (LMT) corresponds to the HR at maximal lactate steady state (MLSS) in wheelchair-racing athletes. Setting: Institute of Sports Medicine. Methods: Eight well-trained wheelchair-racing athletes (mean age: 33±12 years; height: 169±12 cm; body mass: 59±11 kg; O2peak: 2.76±0.73 l min−1) completed a HR-guided LMT on a treadmill in their own racing wheelchair. Subsequently, exercise intensity at MLSS and corresponding HR were determined by means of several endurance tests on different days. Results: All measured parameters (HR, speed, blood lactate, oxygen consumption and rating of perceived exertion) revealed significantly higher values at MLSS compared with values at lactate minimum (LM). However, there were highly significant correlations (r=0.914, P=0.002) between LMHR and HR at MLSS (163±6 versus 172±7 b.p.m.) as well as for speed (r=0.935, P=0.001) and blood lactate (r=0.944, P<0.001) at LM versus MLSS. The correlation for oxygen consumption (r=0.798, P=0.018) at LM versus MLSS was lower yet significant. Conclusions: There exists a close relationship between LMHR and HR at MLSS in wheelchair racing. This allows the prediction of MLSS based on a single exercise test in this special group of athletes. For practical use during daily training, routine HR at MLSS can be assumed to be 8–9 b.p.m. above the LMHRin wheelchair-racing athletes. To read this article in full you may need to log in, make a payment or gain access through a site license (see right)." One of this authors got nearly 20 years back in a small hospital in Switzerland some demos on how to combine a Bruce protocol with the lactate trend and HR as the guide for cardiac patients. The world is small and there are always very interesting connections here and there. Nevertheless this above last great study using the great idea of using HR to look for lactate trends and the lactate minimum point really helped us to understand the specific weakness of an original great idea. So many of the historical lactate ideas are all a small puzzle on the developpment of next futher stpes and it will be fun to watch over the next 5 - 10 years how ideas like BIO markers, Interest points and IPAHD may be used to make some interesting publication or presentations all over the exercise physiological world. As ideas can not be patent and intellectual properties can't be easily protected we will see many ideas coming up with small changes and similar results. So it is great to see, that sometimes crazy ideas can have an impact on some accepted instituitions and people working professionaly or for fun in that field. This is the great part of discussions of ideas in all different medias and places. Stay tuned as you never know, whethe ryou can pick up some ideas on this crazy forum and tunr it arround to your advantages and use. One way to see how ideas can be used is to google : Lactate balance point : and see what you find. Now here one funny part of the LBP history. Imagine two guys skiing far north in the bush and looking for a crazy name for something nobody cares about. And the lactate balance point name was born . Who would have thought ?  Now perhaps a new stimmulation created during the certification course for his.MsGD Here the successfull result of the course.  | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3421 Registered: 04-2006 |
The theory we had more STF in wheelchair people due to teh change in use has no clear support. In fact it shows many studies , where we have in fact teh increase in FTF situation. When we look closer we find teh answer in the ECGM idea of IP ( innovative performance group ) Here just the get some brain activity going some pictures out of the handbook from IP. 2011. Perhaps we may see some publication comming out of that.   | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3422 Registered: 04-2006 |
And here as the end of this review some answers to the puzzle.  | ||
| Andrew Senior Member Username: Andrew Post Number: 524 Registered: 04-2006 |
Juerg's recent posts disparaging the use of lactate in testing, has raised concerns from both new and experienced individuals who have experience with LBP testing. Most have asked the question, "if Juerg feels so strongly about lactate, can we still use it as a bio marker?". For those who have taken the old FaCT Education Level I course, you will remember that we introduced the concept of using a combination of HR and lactate, with different performance measures (wattage, speed etc.) to help gain an understanding of an athlete's physiology. You will also recall that our Level II course focused on the respiratory component of performance, using equipment like the Bioharness and Fitmate, to gain information on respiratory bio markers like TV, Ve, RF, VO2 etc. In my opinion, Juerg has continued to set the standard as a coach and evaluator, by taking the newest equipment available, and collecting bio markers that were previously not measurable in the real world. I stand behind the work we did under the heading of FaCT Education, and the use of lactate as an introductory tool to the use of bio markers in both training and the physiologic assessment of athletes. Juerg has asked us to rebrand these courses that we ran for the past 8 years, and I am lucky enough to be working with a great teacher in Quesnel ( Tod Anderson), to provide our new courses on-line in the coming weeks. As always, we will continue to provide the newest understanding of physiology, and the most recent research, with the addition of our personal experience in these courses. I also will continue to utilize lactate, Fitmate, bioharness, capnometry, pulse oximetry and Spiro-Tiger (all equipment available or through Fact Canada) to assess and train the competitive group we work with at Balance Point Racing. For those who have taken the old Fact Education courses, and are interested in our new direction, please follow us at: Www.balancepointeducation.com Or Www.fact-education.com Or accept our invitation to complete the new on-line curriculum at a discounted rate, allowing you to gain access to professional insurance for testing your own athletes. We look forward to continuing the open discussions and in helping to answer the many great questions being discussed here. | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3456 Registered: 04-2006 |
A short interesting summary and conclusion from a newer school program for physiotherapy: Interesting to see the level of critical review on lactate and its use. : " Myburgh et al (2000) further raised the spectre of doubt and validity of BL laboratory testing for optimal performance at the 4mmol.L mark of OBLA. They found that greater individual response and variation occurred and favoured field tests over laboratory tests as the time trials or distance trial performance test can be more inferred to populations than the constant incremental loading in laboratories. Conclusion Thus many debateable issues contribute to the debate concerning the se of BL as a valid and reproducible physiological test to predict endurance performance. Timing (Myburgh et al,2000) design (Foxdal et al 1994) and intensity (Palmer et al,1999) coupled with sampling, analysis and calculation issues (Foxdal et al 1994) compound the spurious nature for inference. Albrecht (1998) used rating of perceived exertion and performance results to conclude that BL was a more favourable LT test than Heart Rate, as HR fails to provide an accurate physiological profile in response to exercise intensity testing. Nevertheless the results of BL for specific exercising muscle mass is questioned due to the variant designs and the underlying physiological responses of the lactate shuttle within fibres and less active skeletal muscle. Such response may underestimate the circulating levels of BL and therefore inferences on how much lactate is produced peripherhally and locally by muscle. Hence athletes can improve endurance performance by targetting optimal training intensities, with adequate recovery periods, depending on the system to be overloaded." The interesting title is : " Blood lactate testing in training. Is it worthwhile? Proposition for Debate - by Simon Bowman Very interesting is the last statement in the conclusion. " depending on the system to be overloaded." This gives some nice motivation, that the idea of assessing systems rather than overall markers may soon be a part of some specific ideas and assessments. We name it IPAHD (individual assessment of homeostasis disruption | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3475 Registered: 04-2006 |
Despite the fact, that lactate may have been discusses on many forums and in many articles, we had an incredible increase in interest and e mails over the last few weeks. Most of them surprisingly very supportive of the notion, that lactate may have some serious limitation for training zone definition as well as bio markers for intensity control. Some of the mails gave us some great information, where lactate is usefull and where it is rather a myth. There seems to be very little oposition this days. that lactate changed its name from ugly and bad to usefull up to very important. This creates a very interesting dynamic , where as well our website and forum has to see some major correction, when dealing with this topic. Statements like : Systemic blood lactate used in tests like classical lactate step tests and or our own lactate balance point testing is far more precise than the common and inaccurate method of using percentage of maximum heart rate to set training zones. may have to be carefully stated. In fact I got some great papers sent by the University of Graz (AUT) which could proof the opposite, whne looking at their results. Even moe impressive are their indication , that using lactate as a baseline biomarker tool for trainng plan support ,is most likley not optimal , to say the least. They got some independent support by some norwegian studies as well from some older critical papers on lactate ( Busse and Reickert ). I will show you some very short inside view to have your own thoughts. This notions will most likely change the idea, whne havng performance assessment done, which may still use lactate in their baseline assessments .The critical question asked here may really be the price we pay to the info we speculate. At the end of the day the idea by Heck et al. suddently looks very up to date with the small difference, that the basic idea for lactate as the bad to the common actuall idea of lactate as a great shuttle service has changed. Here one for the thinking sunday evening reader. "LACTATE SHOULD NOT BE USED TO EVALUATE TRAINING STATUS OR TECHNIQUE Van Hall, G. (2009). Lactate in whole body exercise: An anaerobic end product and an aerobic substrate. A paper presented at the 14th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science, Oslo, Norway, June 24-27. "Lactate has been considered a dead end waste product of glycolysis due to hypoxia and a major cause of fatigue. The produced lactate thought to be cleared by the liver for gluconeogenesis. However, it has become clear that skeletal muscle continuously produces lactate, and during exercise without an apparent lack of oxygen. The increase of lactate production with exercise is dependant on the acceleration of glycolysis causing an increase in pyruvate and NADH concentration that will shift the equilibrium enzyme lactate dehydrogenase to lactate formation. Moreover, during exercise the active muscles are by far the most important tissue for lactate uptake and subsequent oxidation. Thus, the muscle net lactate release, and to a large extent the systemic lactate concentration, depends on the balance between the active muscle lactate production and simultaneous utilization. This concept becomes very clear during diagonal stride roller skiing at about 75% VO2max. A relative small increase in arterial lactate (~2.5 mmol/L) occurs despite a very high whole body lactate production (~14.1 mmol/min) caused by the large release of lactate by the arms and legs. However, the legs take up and oxidize substantially more lactate than they produce. Thus, due to the large leg muscle mass and energy requirements for contraction, the legs are able to clear and oxidize most of the lactate that is produced during diagonal stride roller skiing keeping systemic lactate concentrations low. In addition, the arms are equally efficient in lactate utilization per kg of muscle than the legs, however, the arms produce far more lactate than they consume, that is, they are more glycolytic than the legs. These findings imply that systemic lactate levels are no measure for aerobic/anaerobic capacity of athletes in different sport disciplines. Moreover, in sports that use both the arms and the legs, such as rowing, swimming, and cross-country skiing, lactate levels will depend on the relative utilization of arms versus legs. This implies that blood lactate levels cannot be used to evaluate training status or technique." This interesting last statement of lactate not be usable for training status is getting some back up from some very reasent not published paperes from europe, showing , that lactate uptake by vital organs and their training and efficency status may come to the same conclusion as the basic work by Saltin et al on lactate release and uptake differences between leg and arm. In this new ideas the question is between lactate release and uptake between legs and vital organs. Here one of the interesting sets of tests where you can see a great stable maximal HR but some very different lactate informations .  And here to just make a short close up. the idea from Busse with the critical comment , Lactate a marker for energy or intensity.  This leaves us with the great opportunity to start using different ideas and options and re-assessing our own ideas before we make conclusions. Many thanks again for all the great and open feedbacks and I hope I answered most or many of the mails in a timely fashion and with the different options to stay in contact as we move along in our small venture to find some practical application for an interesting topic. I like really to thank Steve Neal as one of the rare individul putting the " head" out on the forum and giving some feedback. In this case Merry christmas and have a great holiday time , should we have no contact prior to the holiday days. Juerg | ||
| Juerg Moderator Username: Juerg Post Number: 3479 Registered: 04-2006 |
Vielen Dank fuer die zahlreichen e-mails von der alten Heimat. Hier kurz eine Zusammenfassung , respektiv Schlussfolgerung, da die haeufigste Frage war: Was nun ?  |