Lactic Acid Update

luv2run,

I believe I mentioned this to you last year in one of our discussions over at the RW's forums - lactate levels are like a tachometer. It provides info on how hard the engine is working but it does not limit performance.

"From a pragmatic standpoint, measuring blood lactate levels could be useful in assessing training regardless of where the acidosis comes from."

Agreed. And there are other tools that can be used to assess training too, such as HR, RPE, time trials, etc. The challenge with continuing to use the term lactate threshold is that it refers to a phenomenon that is false and misleading. A different term, acidic threshold for example, at least focuses attention on the currently presumed cause of fatigue and lets runners know that something in the physiological theory has changed.

Let's say a subject has a blood lactate level of 7 mmol/L, up from 3 mmol/L five minutes earlier. Are you really saying that this is merely a measurement and not a foolproof indicator that the subject will not be able to sustain his pace much longer?

I like how you lump the Borg scale (long used by top coaches across the land) in with time trials as a means of assessing training. Cute.

"Anaerobic threshold window" (a term almost but not quite synonymous with "lactate threshold window") has been around a while and does the job fine. Most runners don't give a shit whether it's H+ ions or lactate that's causing them to bog down at a given pace/HR/effort level; they just want to know what they can do in training to push this window back.

Dustin Hoffman,

I don't believe that there was a particular theme to the double whammy thread other than a low anaerobic capacity increases your chances of overtraining by overstressing your aerobic capacity and hence spending too much time training aerobic power.

It was suggested that doing short close to all out sprints increase glycolytic capacity. Therefore increasing your anaerobic capacity if it were. I did not suggest that the sprints were all out, only that they were close to all out. I don't recommend totally going to the tank too often. I did not suggest sprints of 6 seconds or less either. I stated that you needed sprints longer than 6 seconds, because the for the first 6 seconds most of the energy is provided by creatine phosphate. You don't need to run much longer though. Probably close to all out sprints in the 10-20 second range. A runner with a good aerobic capacity and a good anaerobic capacity can probably do longer sprints than someone with a week aerobic capacity ect.

Hope that helps clarify things.

balance wrote:

Lactate can not be used as a fuel.

Not by skeletal muscle, but myocardial tissue can use it.

so what?

uh huh wrote:

so what?

"So what"? Comes in pretty handy when your heart's cranking away at 190 beats a minute. Do you need further clarification?

I don't know anything about myocardial tissue, so maybe you can enlighten me. Are you saying that the heart can not beet 190 times per minute without lactate?

balance wrote:

Are you saying that the heart can not beet 190 times per minute without lactate?

No, but I suspect offering an in-depth explanation would be like beeting my head against of wall, so I'll offer a few relevant links.

"during high intensity exercise, substrates other than glucose, such as lactate, might contribute significantly to cardiac energy production."

"During acute exercise, lactate levels rise. These elevated lactate levels inhibit the uptake of free fatty acids. Carbohydrates (mostly lactate) then can account for up to 70 percent of the cardiac fuel use."

This is esoterica, but the point is that lactate can in fact be utilized directly as fuel by a muscle of some importance. It needn't be converted to pyruvate in skeletal muscle or bunted into the TCA cycle. Some of it is converted back to glucose in liver as well, but I'm sure that's old news to you.

Richard_ wrote:

luv2run,

I believe I mentioned this to you last year in one of our discussions over at the RW's forums - lactate levels are like a tachometer. It provides info on how hard the engine is working but it does not limit performance.

"From a pragmatic standpoint, measuring blood lactate levels could be useful in assessing training regardless of where the acidosis comes from."

Agreed. And there are other tools that can be used to assess training too, such as HR, RPE, time trials, etc. The challenge with continuing to use the term lactate threshold is that it refers to a phenomenon that is false and misleading. A different term, acidic threshold for example, at least focuses attention on the currently presumed cause of fatigue and lets runners know that something in the physiological theory has changed.

Lactate threshold is a concept, not a line. There are many models for selecting a some value that corresponds to a "threshold". I see nothing wrong with the term other than people thinking there is some single magical point.

To me the term "anaerobic threshold" is more egregious. As a bumper sticker on a car at UCLA said (I saw a picture of it): "The anaerobic threshold is neither." Still one of the best bumper stickers I have ever seen.

It has been widely known for a while now that lactate is a useful fuel source. Some people erroneously still refer to it as a waste product, but these are usually older people who learned it that way and have never changed or been taught otherwise. In one case of a (in)famous coach who still refers to lactate in that manner, it is probably just a lack of desire to learn anything new.

The only thing misleading about lactate threshold is how lay people use the term. Scientists and well-educated coaches understand the conceptual nature of lactate threshold. In some ways acidic threshold would be appropriate if one were actually looking at pH.

The suddenly interest for the anaerobic threshold or lactate threshold in the community have to do with running industry also indeed. When they did imagine a lactic acid machine/meter, and that can be a new product, a profit one – as the HRM – and that can be sold for a price less expensive than lab tests and also portable, that´s when an aggressive marketing operation come along. They did buy some well know physiologists – to advertise the meter with scientific arguments, they tried advertising and propaganda in some top class runners also – offering the product and give them some money to use their names for a strategy over the public to give credibility to that little machine as a very useful one and indispensable if you want to improve your shape condition accurately. They did a very well succeed marking operation – most of the opinion makers as well as second line science physiologists and coaches were touched by this new concept the “anaerobic threshold”. But threshold there are in most of the material phenomena, and in any type of activity. Of course that there may have benefits in the use of the lactate meter, but the concept of anaerobic threshold is overemphasised.

Christian Barnaard,

Thanks for referring that second article. It was very informative.

I now see your point about mentioning how lactate is converted to glucose for fuel.

Antonio,

Of course you know from our discussions in the "double whammy" thread that I agree that training at the so called anaerobic threshold, if it even exists, has had to much emphasis placed on it. If you remember I stated that we want to both lower anaerobic capacity and increase aerobic power by performing workouts at the speeds we hope to race. This way we develop aerobic power at race pace, and we also decrease lactate production at every speed. We could just run close to the anaerobic threshold or half marathon race pace and decrease anaerobic capacity quite effectively, but we would not develop the aerobic power that we want at race pace.

Just thought I would mention that I understand what you are saying and that hopefully people will understand that training at race pace is more important that doing so called tempo runs at the anaerobic threshold pace. Of course we both know that hard tempo runs are important for endurance, but they are not some magical workout that will make you race fit all on there own.

Since we don't care about knowing at what speed some anaerobic threshold speed is, we don't need to test for it. As you know the lactate tests Olbrecht recommends do not test for anaerobic threshold, they only monitor fitness improvements or declines in fitness, based on certain parameters. Results from the tests can then be used to adjust the training so that we can obtain the desired training effect.

For example if your tests show that you have not gained any fitness from your workouts, you would then not want to continue to do the same training, since it was basically a waste of time. Could be that the either the training stimulus was too great, or not enough. Perhaps the runner needs to increase volume, or even decrease it. I believe lactate testing can lead us in the correct direction faster than through other means, and is less evasive than putting the athlete on the track and racing them. This may not be an effective measurement since the athlete may not be in a race preparation period of their training, so a bad race performance would not tell you whether or not the athletes aerobic capacity had increased. This would have been the goal during the base phase of training.

Balance,

Thanks for your reply. Generally I find it is quite hard for distance runners to actually sprint all out for anything longer than about 5 or 6 seconds. Maybe because of a poor anaerobic capacity as the thread discussed ?

What would you think of the approach of starting off with the 5/6 second sprints to get used to moving fast for a few weeks and then moving to or combing with the longer 10/20 second sprints/or uphill sprints once an athlete is more "co-ordinated" to doing the faster work ?

Personaly I have started off with the longer efforts (15 to 30 seconds sprints or uphill efforts) to improve speed/anerobic capacity once or twice per week but I have always come unstuck and gone backwards quite dramatically in terms of distance running performance when I have tried this. I would say that quite a lot of other distance runners are similar to me from what I have seen.

I can see this as something important to be able to do but I guess that it is a question trying to implement it in the right way.

Rivas and Balance

As few times people thinks my posts to hard to understand, i gonna try to be more simple and direct in my aproach to what some calls LT workouts, other´s AnT workouts other tempo runs, other Max Lass runs.

In my conception i don´t pay special attention to that anaerobicx theshold "strictus sensus" means exclisively. I name that continous intense runs or LTM workouts - lactate management workout. That are sinmply to run extensively, intense runs with a sub-maximal pace intensity relate to race pace event distance.

In my opinion that intense long runs - in his total duration/mileage or in his pace intensity that may be relate to the runner event distance.

But to put that more clear - americans they love a lot to know the pace.

20-30min warmup.

If you are a 800m-1500m runner may be you need to run it in colose to your 5000m pace intensity (Ex:3X2000m in 5000m RP). If you are a 5000m-10000m runner may be you mat run close to your 10000m to 15kilos (20 to 40min runs) estimate performance. But if you are a HM or a marathon runner may be you may run that in your HM to marathon pace. Of course this is specific LTM runs (30 to 60min runs). But if you are out of shape, ok, you may follow dr. Vigil advise - HM pace, no matter what´s your event distance. You have also another good method to estimate that - HRM. I did read recently some Hadd ideas about Thershold run and i agree with him that 87%-90% of your Max.HR that´s good, or simply max.HR less 18 to 20 beats. Very good. But more important than any pace advise is that you run by your feeling no matter what´s the pace intensity, what´s the lactic acid concentration or HRbeats.

Ther´s no way to push your pace to force to HM pace if you feel that´s too much, and also ther´s no need to slow down your pace just because you are going faster than the pace.

I also like the Abere Adere use for that intense runs. he starts very slow (let´s say 20min, then he changes fopr LT pace, and then he ends with another more 20min for cooldown.

Dustin Hoffman,

Although I mentioned the importance of increasing your anaerobic capacity, this was only mentioned specifically in relation to the training done in the base period of training. Except for the marathon or half marathon, your highest weekly mileage will probably be run during your base phase of training. Because of this, you run the potential risk of overtraining. Since you are mainly concerned with improving the aerobic capacity during your base phase you don't want to be working on aerobic power, since aerobic power workouts can actually decrease aerobic capacity, at least if done in high volumes (anything over about 3k). You don't want to just jog around slow during your base phase, this is not the best way to increase aerobic capacity. You want to increase volume yes, but only as much as you can handle, once you reach your peek mileage you will want to start running a lot of your runs at a faster pace. If you don't you will cease to improve. Remember that you need to stress the organism in order to get it to adapt to a higher training load. In order to be able to handle these increases in both intensity and volume it is advisable that you have a higher anaerobic capacity. If you remember, this will supply more of the energy required by the activity anaerobicaly. Now, you were mentioning that adding fast sprints always seems to hurt your performances in the longer events. This makes total sense and is to be expected. The fact is, if you are planning on racing longer events like the 5k and up, you would not want to be increasing your anaerobic capacity. Remember this would increase the amount of lactate produced at every speed. This is great for middle distance runners and sprinters who need energy quickly, but this is very detrimental to the distance runner's performance.

I only recommended doing the sprints during the base phase so that you could spend more time improving aerobic capacity and decrease the chances of over training. The precompetion phase of training is a period when you would actually be concentrating on decreasing some of the anaerobic capacity that you have developed during your base phase. The distance runner would do this by doing aerobic power workouts at the desired race pace and race distance, but you break up the entire distance into shorter distances with short recoveries. The aerobic power workouts will develop your ability to run at race pace longer, as well as decrease anaerobic capacity, and therefore decrease the amount of lactate produced at every pace. Hence, an improved lactate threshold pace.

To sum it up, if you are planning on racing well in a distance event, you would not want to be working on your aerobic capacity except during the base phase of training. Although these are intense runs, their is a very small risk of overstressing yourself since the distances run are very short, and the recoveries are complete.

Because anaerobic capacity sprints are so intense, I definitely recommend not doing them until you are physically ready to. My advice, start running them only moderately fast at about mile race pace effort or so, and then increase the pace over time. Hope this helps.

Balance

I agree with you that close to the competive phase or pre-competitive phase you may decrease the use of too much anaerobic training, or give that out completly.

But i have two questions that i thanks your answer.

1/Can´t you justify a little better (or once again) why you say that when you do train the aerobic power (short/medium/long bouts reps with short recover) the aerobic condition decreases? And if so what you suggest to minimiza that loose. Can´t we combine aerobic power workouts with some form of aerobic condition training or LT that ables us to be fit in both conditions in the same training period and close to the peak run events? What you think?

2/Do you considers in the classification of anaerobic training - what i call check tests, a workpout that consists of 3 to 4 long reps (according the distance event of course) in a pace intensity that goes from race pace to all-out/max.pace for that rep BUT all with very long quite complete recover (8min to 10 min)?

Before your answer i make you know that i use that once or twice before a peak run, but normally distant 10-20 days before the run

Ex (just one example for each case):

for 800m events- 3-4X400m/RP to all-out or 600m+400m+200m/RP to all-out rec=8-10min

for 1500m events- 1000m+600m+400m/RP to all out rec=8-10min

for 5000m events- 2000m+15000m+1000m /RP to all-out rec=8-10min

for 10000m events- 3X3000m/RP to all-out rec=8-10min

for HM event- 3X4000m/RP to all-out rec=5min

for marathon event- 3-8000m/RP to all-out rec=5min

What do you think?

Antonio,

Sorry I am replying to your post so late. I have been very busy.

As for Question 1.

Aerobic power workouts are very stressful workouts, and it can take a long period of time to recover from these workouts. I believe they can increase aerobic capacity by themselves but I do not believe that this is the best way. It can take a very long time to recover from these workouts, and because of this volume of training performed may have to decrease. Intensity has been shown to be a better stimulus than volume in the short run, but you can only do some much intensity before you begin to break down. It can take many easy regeneration days of long slow running to recover enough to be able to do another hard workout. Athletes definitely need to switch to a more intense and less volumous type of program before a peak race. This is very specific training, and is focused on performance more than the overall fitness of any energy system. Less intense and more volumous training, done around or below the AT allows athletes to perform more work over time. This may allow an athlete to maximize the development of their aerobic capacity more effectively than by incorporating much more race specific aerobic power workouts. Hence the need for a base phase. Of course I am guessing that the athlete has time for a base phase, since more time is required to train this way. A periodized program requires patience. We can definitely mix the two a little bit though and achieve good results. Recovery and regeneration are key here though. Athletes require a lot of easy regeneration running in between each hard workout. As long as the athlete is absorbing the workouts and improving, I see no reason not to train along this path. The important thing is to make sure that the athlete is not overdoing the aerobic power running. If they overdo it they may lower their anaerobic capacity to very low levels, and will then be in danger of over training, because more and more of their running will be training their aerobic power than is desired.

As for question 2.

I am not sure what you mean by anaerobic training. I use Olbrecht’s term of anaerobic capacity training only because that is how he describes it. Although it is anaerobic in nature, I do not believe creating oxygen debts is the focus of the training. Anaerobic capacity training is mainly designed to increase the athlete’s ability to utilize sugar as fuel (glycolysis). This provides the athlete with another fuel source other than fat, and provides energy very quickly when needed.

Anaerobic power training on the other hand is designed to purposefully put an athlete in oxygen debt. This training is therefor very anaerobic.

If your test runs are at speeds and distances that test an athletes aerobic capacity to its limits and beyond, then yes I believe it is anaerobic training. I believe the type of workout you describe is what some call speed endurance. I have seen two ways of doing this type of workout. In the first the athlete runs a very fast pace over a relatively short distance (about 200-400m) but utilizes very short recovery periods of about 30-60 seconds. Lactic acid never gets cleared very much because of the short recoveries and the athlete gets more and more into oxygen debt as the workout progresses.

The other way to do this type of workout, and I believe this may be what you are referring to (correct me if I am wrong), is to do much longer repeats with a necessarily much longer recovery period. Athletes find these much harder to do and I don't see many even try them because they require great concentration and they can hurt a lot, especially at 800m race pace. Because of the distance of the repeats the athlete can get deep into oxygen dept, and the recovery period is not very important since the training adaptation is achieved by utilizing longer repeats. The goal is to try and run longer and longer at the desired pace. I believe Seb Coe used to work up to doing repeat 1200m at 1500m race pace with long full recoveries in between. This is one tough workout, and I doubt there are many in the world who can or would want to do this.

Hope this helps clarify my take on these things.

On a side note, the longer the recovery periods are between aerobic power workouts the more anaerobic the workout will be. The aerobic capacity does not initially start to work to its capacity as the athlete starts to increase pace. Oxygen debts can be created early on in a repetition, but can be reduced as the aerobic capacity catches up the energy demands of the chosen activity. So if the athlete is training at a speed within the athletes aerobic capacity but wants to make the workout more anaerobic they could increase the recovery period to allow the aerobic capacity to shut down a bit, before starting the next fast run. Standing still before the next run would aid in this. Short recoveries on the other hand will ensure that the athlete’s aerobic capacity is still being utilized and ready for the activity. This will reduce the likelihood that any oxygen debts are being produced at the beginning of the next fast repetition. Active recovery is recommended for this method of course.

Antonio,

To clarify further, I believe you need anaerobic workouts to maximize performance, but I also do not believe you should do any of this type of work within 10 days of an important competition. Lydiard always said you can not train hard and race well at the same time, and he also recommended 10 days of easy running before a peak performance. Experienced coaches have found his observation to be correct.

Since distance runners (3k-10k) want to lower their aerobic capacity in order to maximize performance at the chosen race distance, they would not be performing anaerobic capacity work (short close to all out sprints) during the precompetition phase of training. They would however be doing aerobic power workouts, while middle distance runners (800m-1500m) would be doing anaerobic power workouts during the precompetition phase of training. Middle distance runners would also do some aerobic power workouts for strength endurance, but they would mainly focus on anaerobic power.

balance

How would you answer the questions posed in this article?

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/coachsci/csa/vol46/billat.htm

If there can be demonstrated to be a limited link between test results and competitive performance then is there any point in performing the tests?

The author seems to be of a similar opinion to Antonio - sport scientists are now looking for ways to justify lactate testing rather than actually producing worthwhile information.