| Author | Message | ||
     Wstchstrtriathlete New member Username: Wstchstrtriathlete Post Number: 1 Registered: 08-2010 |
I am an endurance athlete; If I measured my resting lactate levels first thing every morning, would the levels be the same if either my legs were totally shelled from days of hard workouts, or if they were totally recovered? I am curious to see if measuring lactate levels can clue me in on how recovered I am. Is this possible with lactate testing in this manner? | ||
| Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 2647 Registered: 04-2006 |
Great question and not a too easy answer but some ideas: 1. Remember that lactate is an energy source. To refuel certain energy storage your body may prefer to this this with teh help of lactate as an energy transporter. If after a workout your legs or what ever body part is very fatigued , than the question first is : What is the cause of fatigue? You may remember the discussion we had on fatigue: This take into effect as well here. There is a difference between lack of energy refuelling and actual structural overload of certain tissues. Example. You may have done 1 set of 100 m frog jumps all and full out. This is a severe eccentric load if you are not used to this and your legs will be not very nice over the next few days ( up to 7 days , as you have to rebuild tissue. The lactate may not react at all in the morning . There was little problem with refuelling energy storage. Even if the stroage would be low the resting lactate will not tell a lot as you may first have to trigger the metabolic pathways so that lactate is produced. In fact if the storage's are low you may actually see a lower lactate after hard metabolic workout at rest but it will increase after nutritional intervention.. The question is what was you Limiter in the workout and what was your compensator. If for example the respiration was the limiter, than your muscles may just simple be empty to a certain degrees in glycogen, which will be immediately restored first and after that the liver storage. Depending on how far you did empty the energy storage you may see a lactate change after nutritional intervention or not. Remember , that the key for this to find out is : EPOD ( extended period of oxygen demand. ( RMR can be one way to see how good you restore energy storage and how long it may take. Summary : Lactate at rest and after nutritional intervention is a great tool to assess, whether your glucagon storage's are refuelled and ready to go. I don't think it will tell you anything about overload for any other systems. If you assess in a simple way cardiac information check the HRV ( Polar ) or what we would do is simply make a resting assessment of teh cardiac info like SV/ EF % / LVET and HR. If you reassess respiratory information make a VC and a Tiffenau test for some basic info and or simple check the respiration rate and VE and therefor the TV with a ( Bioharness ( optically ) a basic respiratory workout with the Spiro Tiger and best is a short step test with a Fit Mate and you have the information immediately. If you think it is muscular take a resting EMG to see activity or take a TSI % sampling with the PortaMon and you see this immediately as well. Now you have the information. For me any of teh so called Pro athletes should actually be able to test their "Tools" which is their body before they go back to work. Every plumber every carpenter and every butcher or electrician who has his own PRO business will check his tools before he goes out to work in teh morning and this is a truck load of tools to be able to be a real PRO and to be able to make a great job for the money he charges. His tool box will be around 50 - 100,000 dollars and he not even blinks as it is a part of being a real PRO. Smile. Have a great day. Juerg | ||
| Jsasseville Intermediate Member Username: Jsasseville Post Number: 17 Registered: 11-2008 |
We did this testing with the National Ski Team in training camps during the 1980's and early 1990's. we tested over 20 skiers for more than three weeks on a number of occasions. We found that there was no definite answer to recovery from measuring lactates in the am. We had skiers as low as 1.0 mmols and over 5 mmols, but these numbers did not correspond to their fatigue or their ability to train that day. We also had great variation in individual athletes that also did not correspond to training or performance or recovery or the ability to train that day. At the time our ex physiologist felt that there were too many outside influences on lactate to make it a valuable bio-marker for recovery of fatigue if taken in the morning. Diet played a huge role. Amount and quality of sleep affected it but not always the same way. Sometimes they were higher when the sleep was better, sometimes lower. It was thought that because glycogen and lactate are used as fuels in conjunction with HgH production that there was too much going on for this to be accurate so we stopped doing it. Rowing Canada did a huge study at about the same time on recovery and overtraining. They were trying to find out if there were any markers that could actually predict overtraining a few days before it happened. (I am being simplistic here when I use the term overtraining, of course). What they found is that the only reliable marker to predict excessive fatigue was a psychological marker - willingness to train hard. None of the bio-markers that they followed were able to do this as well. | ||
| Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 2648 Registered: 04-2006 |
Jack, thanks so much and your inside is always appreciated. As the readers can see the information from Jack are very interesting. When you think that in the 1980 many exercise physiological guys and coaches used the 2 and 4 mmol ideas for their training zoning and or used something called " lactate threshold " to use for what ever. By now we know , how absolute lactate numbers really don't mean anything and why we use since now close to 25 years lactate as trends with LBP. The difference this days. 25 years ago we where extreme outside , by now we have the back up of many of teh current research. nevertheless we still have generations of coaches who believe in 2 and 4 mmol. . What we still have as well is many commentators telling people on radio and TV how teh athlete now suffers due to the increase in lactic acid. Well I am always wondered how much teh "suffering" is when athletes show lactate values of 5 and above after a great breakfast. Where lactate can help is exactly obn the values we see after food intake. This is a sign , that the strorage of glucogen intramuscyular and perhaps in the liver is not yet full. That will give you a hint, that if you train in teh intensity using this energy storage yoiur workout has to be possibly shorter. If not you will move into teh problme of cortisdol release and than you move into catabolic training intensity which are not negative but need to be controlled with appropriate restinmg. We used for early detection of this path ways. ammonia testing and than confirmed it a few days later with urea testing ( Kindermann et al ) This group added after that addituional testing of cortisol and testosteron ratio and our FaCT Center in California ( Mary Ann Kelly ) is now working with different blood testing and one of them is tegh cortisol levels. It will be interesting to see how sehe uses her nutritional ideas to shorten recovery and reduse cortisol activity in the future. The most interesting part in Jack's nof is, that this expert actually believed , that lactate could be a biomarker for overtraiing. As a energy source lactate is like blood sugar , simply an indication of level of energy storage or shuttling , and why tuihsi would be an information of overtraiing shows you how the great ideas of the early 1920 ( lactate could be the reason of fatigue / Hill and Meyerhofer )was transformed into a myth , that it is a reason of fatigue, when the original researchers actually never stated this idea but simply where loud thinking. Nearly 100 years later we are not much further. Or are we further ? Well when I get mails , where future coaches get in their education session for a quite high coaching level information's like that you can breath lactate out ? (Smile ) You are the judge. |