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     Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 2980 Registered: 04-2006 |
The story starts with : "Once upon a time" a great world wide cycling website found this : " Feature date: December 26, 2010, 22:31Features ArchiveTraining: Is lactic acid bad for you? By: Kate Hodgins, The common enemy questioned Lactic acid causes muscle fatigue and the burning sensation when the going gets tough. Right? Wrong. Although it's seen as the athlete's enemy, lactic acid – or lactate – isn't quite the villain it's been made out to be. The bad press came from Meyerhoff and Hill's 1920 study. "They observed an increase in lactate and also observed fatigue, and presumed one caused the other," says English Institute of Sport senior physiologist Jamie Pringle. Recent research has shown that rather than causing muscle fatigue, lactic acid is actually a key muscle fuel. "Although people are keen to point the finger and blame something for fatigue, in reality the main cause of fatigue is the lack of energy and fuel, or specifically the inability to provide those things at the rate that's needed to keep up with the muscle contraction," says Pringle. In fact, lactate can be oxidised and used to fuel the Krebs Cycle, to release chemical energy, or it can be converted to glycogen in the liver in a process called the Cori Cycle. "When metabolised successfully, the use of lactate as fuel means muscle glycogen stores are actually preserved for longer," says Pringle. "Muscle lactate concentration does not start to increase until the production rate exceeds the rate of removal." This is why working just below this level, known as the lactate turnpoint, can be sustained for so much longer. "This turnpoint, which is around 70-90 percent of V02 max, is where you have the right balance between lactate production and the rate your muscles can consume it," says Pringle. "The reason your muscles quickly fatigue above this point is because excess lactate causes your carbohydrate stores to be used up at a much faster rate." Jargon buster Lactate threshold: The lactate threshold is a lot lower than most people think, occurring at about 50-70 percent of V02 max. It marks the first increment of lactate concentration in the blood from 'moderate' to 'heavy'. Lactate turnpoint: The lactate turnpoint happens at 70-90 percent of V02 max and represents a blood lactate concentration shift from 'heavy' to 'severe'. After this point muscles will fatigue significantly. "To identify your own lactate turnpoint, perform a time trial of about 60 minutes," advises Pringle. "As long as you ride at an evenly-paced effort, the average power or heart rate of that will be on or about your lactate turnpoint." To increase your lactate turnpoint you should aim to work at the point just below it for three 20- to 30-minute sessions each week. "By doing this you're pushing the limit up from below," says Pringle, "and although it's possible to 'pull up' from above by using all-out interval training, this will cause much greater muscle fatigue and will be less effective in the long term." Krebs Cycle: This is part of the process of aerobic cell metabolism which can be fuelled by lactate, in which glycogen is broken down to produce the basic muscle energy source adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Acidosis or 'The Burn': 'The burn' occurs as a result of a build up of acidity in the blood that causes muscles to contract. Severe pain was previously believed to be caused by the build up of lactate. However, the acidity actually comes from hydrogen ions released by the breakdown of ATP. If exercise is too intense, the metabolism can't get rid of these hydrogen ions quickly enough, and this is what causes acidosis. Lactate itself helps buffer and neutralise the acidic hydrogen ions, delaying acidosis." Now there are some, but two major big question mark in here : 1. "The reason your muscles quickly fatigue above this point is because excess lactate causes your carbohydrate stores to be used up at a much faster rate." Well in all our assessments we actually see the opposite. As more lactate we see in the circulatory system, as less blood sugar you use. If anybody likes to dispute this findings we suggest to take lactate and at the same time blood sugar. Look at the trend at the top intensity of the step test and than in the recovery phase. ; What we at least see is a still steady increase of blood glucose in the recovery phase and already a drop in lactate as it is easier and more economically for the body to use lactate as energy source. One of this reasons is Brooks suggestion , that lactate can be used directly as energy source to move from the blood into the mitochondria ( not over pyruvate ) and he even suggests a similar fast use iof lactate intra mitochondrial ( lot's of ongoing discussion still on that one ). I hope we may have some response here for people taking lactate and blood sugar and what they may see. 2."Acidosis or 'The Burn': 'The burn' occurs as a result of a build up of acidity in the blood that causes muscles to contract." hmm I always thought the H+ ionsare produced in the muscle cell but it seems they ate produced in the blood and than move into the muscle cell to help to "contract " and than to be moved out again by lactate ???????. 3." "By doing this you're pushing the limit up from below," says Pringle, "and although it's possible to 'pull up' from above by using all-out interval training, this will cause much greater muscle fatigue and will be less effective in the long term." Well there may be a good point that higher interval may be less effective. I would argue that this may be very individual as the idea, that " fatigue " is only caused in the muscle, may be a very simplistic statement to get ride of many open questions. We would rather argue , that fatigue is in fact nothing other than some where something went out of homeostasis and now the body will react by " fatigueing" ( hmm is that english ??? ) to protect, what every is close to failure. It could be muscle, but in most cases it may be rather some more important vital systems, than the extremity muscles. | ||
| Herb Board Administrator Username: Herb Post Number: 79 Registered: 04-2006 |
Interesting, I just did a Google search for the term "Lactate Balance Point" and got 5150 results. That's 5150 webpages with the phrase "lactate balance point" appearing somewhere on the page. It is really interesting to look through some of those pages. Try it yourself, it is really fun to see. Make sure you put the quotes around the phrase so Google only shows the hits with the full phrase rather than all the pages with just the individual words. Very interesting since that phrase is completely our invention. | ||
| Herb Board Administrator Username: Herb Post Number: 80 Registered: 04-2006 |
It is worthy of note that so many sources still talk about "lactic acid" production during exercise. This even comes from some very highly educated authors. In fact, Lactic Acid is a neutralizing food additive that is produced from sour milk and used in bakery products, cheeses, frozen desserts, jams and jellies to name but a few. You won't find it in your body. It just makes food taste nice. In the body it's Lactate not Lactic Acid. Lactate IS NOT the same as lactic acid. Lactate is lactic acid minus a proton. A great treatise on the subject is by R.A. Robergs. Robergs, R.A., Ghiasvand, F., & Parker, D. (2004). Biochemistry of exercise-induced metabolic acidosis. American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. 287: R502-R516. Robergs publication is quite lengthy and very technical. Here is a link to a good summary of Robergs work: http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20f older/lactate.html | ||
| Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 2981 Registered: 04-2006 |
Happy New year and what a nice mail I opened this morning early after milking the goats without lactic acid in my fore arms. " Morning, Herb. Your posts from last night are both enlightening and funny, the Louis Pasteur ideas are particularly good smile-making fodder. Congrats also to having such wide adoption, usage and adaptation to your Lactate Balance Point language. Its probably moving much quicker than seems for you, 5500+ hits with a 3-word string is a lot of folks talking LBP. In my world of client assessment, coaching and exercise we're now talking Lactate Balance Zone and Lactate Shuttle - no further talk of recovery from or random clearing of lactate. Indeed recovery is discussed in its ideal context, at the end of activity/event and as a significant variable in the exercise planner. In almost 25 years of learning and practical applications, its been easy for me to see that folks mostly want to take in the easy-to-grab-and-go-with ideas... Regardless of how zany! For example: The one best workout 10:1 running. Awful idea, never seen so many people disappointed with their performances as this group, The one best reason for boosting abilities (eating bucketfuls of Creatine Phosphate), The most common reason for fatiguing (too much Lactic Acid). With limited knowledge folks are ready to accept the lowest common denominators, crazy or not... ? For me, the individualization of fatigue (weakest link) is the best possible direction and it is why I started doing business with FaCT Canada. The practical ideas and tools available from your business has allowed me to easily step away from 'normative-type' analysis and reporting, to quickly share good ideas about why a client only jogs well at 6 km/h and how they may improve that performance. This is the key reason I will continue to do business with faCT Canada in 2011 and beyond. Good luck to you both and Happy New Year. F. | ||
| Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 2982 Registered: 04-2006 |
Here a nice test from the google search on LBP. I would name it : " The conflict of getting rid of LT." You see nice how little value LT in teh first part of this test has. Make the same test with 2 min interval or 4 and you have a different LT. No so in teh second part , where you will have the same LBP but just different lactate values but the same trend.  | ||
| Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 2983 Registered: 04-2006 |
Here a small inside view on activities with LBP from FaCT in the Swiss triathlon and sport scene. http://www.urskofmel.ch/newsarchiv-menu. html | ||
| Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 2985 Registered: 04-2006 |
Here a fun articel from the google search on LBP : Kamloops This Week - Sports BC Thompson Nicola By Shawn Wenger - Kamloops This Week Published: December 28, 2010 3:00 PM Updated: December 28, 2010 3:41 PM Heart-rate based training is harder than I thought. I’ve tried it before, mostly for speed intervals when running. I first read about the concept a few years ago: You should train either in the low end, below 70 per cent of your maximum heart rate, during the easy days, or above 85 per cent on the hard days, avoiding the grey zone between 70 and 85. I remember disliking trying to run fast enough to get my heart rate up past 152 beats per minute (bpm) which, at the time, was my projected 85 per cent. Running uphill was a much easier way to accomplish the same thing since gravity assisted where my speed lacked. The recovery runs, where my heart rate had to stay below 124 bpm were insanely slow. Any little uphill rise reduced me to a walk. In the end, when my heart rate monitor stopped working, I didn’t replace it. When I got my most recent heart rate monitor, it was more for the GPS feature that showed where, and how far, I’d gone. I looked at the heart rate with interest, but didn’t worry too much about what it said and whether it was high or low. I was blissfully unaware and training by feel. Then, I had a lactate balance point test to determine at what heart rate my body efficiently utilizes lactate at the same rate it’s produced. Now, my heart rate zones and specific training have been reborn. I’m not sure if I’m terribly impressed. I am amazed how difficult it is to ride for two to three hours at lactate balance point (LBP - 20). For me, having a sloth-like heart, that’s 118 bpm. It seemed pretty easy on paper and even in the first hour or so, but by the end of the second hour, I was quickly losing my sense of humour about it and the third hour was downright uncomfortable. It doesn’t help that riding inside with the bike attached to a wind trainer is a completely different animal than riding on the open roads in the glorious summer breezes. I like the feeling of going somewhere. I’ve tried riding with the Tour de France DVDs and pretending I’m drafting behind Armstrong and Contadore, but eventually my brain refuses to be fooled. I’m pretty sure my cycling coach is secretly trying to get rid of me. My week consists of three, three-hour rides on back-to-back days with two, one-hour rides or runs or hikes or skis and two rest days spread over the other four days. As I said, if this was out on the road, I’d be all over it, but inside on my wind-trainer, staring at the TV and trying to ignore my aching seat bones — not impressed. I said I would give this a first class effort this winter though, in the name of getting faster on my bike. So my next column will have to be about fixing my poor attitude. Grumble, grumble.... Shawn Wenger is a BCRPA registered personal trainer and weight training and group fitness instructor. She runs her own business called Fitness For Mortals. E-mail wenger@telus.net for information. | ||
| Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 2986 Registered: 04-2006 |
Here the "latest" in recovery reasons from the top cycling website and as you can see from an "expert " "Tips for recovery from British Cycling expert To get faster and fitter, you need to take your post-ride routine as seriously as your riding. We talk to British Cycling physiologist Jonathan Leeder about the basics of recovery. Warm down Try to leave time for 10 minutes of easy spinning at the end of a tough session or race as a warm down. "Light pedalling will help your body process any lactic acid that has built up in the muscles," says Jonathan Leeder, physiologist for British Cycling. Pedal in the 80 to 90rpm range in a small gear and give your heart rate and breathing a chance to slow down. A more gradual slowdown and a few minutes of light stretching will help avoid delayed onset muscle soreness." | ||
| Herb Board Administrator Username: Herb Post Number: 81 Registered: 04-2006 |
Warm down to process lactic acid built up in the muscles and stretching to avoid delayed onset of muscle soreness... hmmmmm, very interesting. | ||
| Andrew Senior Member Username: Andrew Post Number: 447 Registered: 04-2006 |
Interesting how a recreational racer in Kamloops seems to have a better grasp on lactate physiology than the consultant to British Cycling. Perhaps Shawn should be applying for a higher position... | ||
| Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 3000 Registered: 04-2006 |
No wonder we are all confused. Here from the absolute top and best testing center group in Canada with all the needed certification and part owners with many many certification and collections of titels and all the knowledge there is out there.So we have to go with that as they are for sure not confused . So what do we do in cases like that ? " Lactate Threshold:" In the last 12 weeks your lactate threshold has risen from 14.1 kph to 14.5 kph which is good news because not only is it ‘delaying’ that accumulation of lactate in the blood that can lead to fatigue, but it also means that we still have room to move up your aerobic threshold. You’ve improved from a lactate threshold of 13.4 kph in October – great work!" Than it goes on : " Max Speed: In the last 12 weeks your maximal speed has increased from 17.0 kph to 17.6 kph. This is an especially interesting adaptation because we have done no training at max intensities. This increase in max speed is actually caused by the improvements in your aerobic threshold – your body’s ability to remove lactic acid from your system. Because you have improved your lactate removal system, you’ve delayed the point at which fatigue causes you to slow down or stop" I wonder how he removes lactic acid from the system, as he was measurening with his medical graded equipment lactate before. Now in other research from not as big names like the above source just only from people like Brooks , Gladden and Saltin, ( to name some ),they all seem to argue, that the lactate is not removed,(rather shuttled around ) as it is not a reason of fatigue but rather is used as an energy source for one part and as a buffer of H+ on the other side. It is interesting that this ideas can survive , when we have accredited center with certified MSc clearly have the answer, that there is lactic acid in the system , which has to be removed, otherwise this poor guy can't run anymore., and they even have the exact lactate value and it is from a medical graded equipment, who can test lactate on three decimals accuratly..?." No wonder the Lactate Pro has that bad of a reputation, as we can only test on one decimal and no wonder we have to keep discussing our assessment approaches, as we have a big problem to actually "calibrate" our athletes, so they start the test with the exact same muscle glucogen and liver glucogen level, as well as the same hormonal adrenalin and insulin balance and not even mention with the same Hct and Hb ( blood plasma and and and.) That's where we are really have to work much better. In our assessment we have about 90 % Variables, which is the whole physiology of our client. We have only control of about 5 - 10 % of variables in our testing . This is: Properly controlled watt equipment. Compu trainer, SRM and so on. Properly controlled O2 sensor ( Cosmed ), Porperly tested and calibrated Flow meters ( Cosmed ) Proper ECG Polar for HR. Golden standard for Tissue O2 readings ( NIRS PortaMon ) Non invasive validated Physio Flow for cardiac hemodynamic. Than we use the Lactate Pro , as we trust the thousends of studies done by Universities before they started to implement it into the Emergency rooms to save lifes and published studies with huge samples in magazines like " Chest" and more.( true not everybody accepts that literature ) True we still miss the last 2 decimals and we will work on that. Now as you can see, we really control only a small percent of what we assess. So no wonder other labs are far ahead of us, as they have the means to control the other 90 % physiological reaactions from each individual person. No wonder they do not share their secrets with us, as this is the key for success. Controlling all the physiological reactions over hormonal release to enzymatic reactions so when ever a re- test is done we have the absolute calibrated client ready to assess and therefor can make this incredibel specific statements as we can find above. Woow lot's of work ahead for us to catch up. We beter go and start on that now... Hmm perhaps I go first and milk my goat, it always get's my brain somewhat better organised before I make a rushed decision here. Enjoy the many different levels of brains we as humans have and the many way we try to justify our own believes. We are not far off the creatures I learned to like so much, the goats, who as well like to believe it is much greener on the other side of the fence. So here one at least usable practical tip in this ridicoulus thread. If you ever plan to have goats, key for success is " Your fence has to be "water thight" other wise forget your flower garden , car roof and anything which is moveable." believe me , true it is not tested nor is it certified but it is given down from goat farmer to goat farmer over generations. So based on experience rather than science. Juerg. MS Ph.Dgf Sorry for typos but I was not ready to read once more through all that crap. | ||
| Spin4ever New member Username: Spin4ever Post Number: 1 Registered: 01-2011 |
I have recently taken the FaCT level 1 and 2 training. I would consider myself somewhat of a "lay person" when it comes to my knowledge of the physiology of the body, even more so when I try to follow some of the discussion threads and learn the meanings of many of the acronyms used. Having always been someone that would question things and ask for proof, I think the biggest thing I took away from the training I received was confirmation that I should keep questioning not only what I know, but what other very educated people tell me I know. So I thought I would share a couple of my favourite quotes for my first attempt at a post here. 1. It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it......Aristotle 2. No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking... ....Voltaire. I am looking forward to learning more and applying this knowledge. |