Lactate Tolerance v. Lactate Buffering

once again i have to reply because once again you are talking about things you aren't aware of.

1. Is it embarrassing that science has taken this long to work out how to explain this situation, even though as you put it, they've known for 85 years. Has it been kept secret? What's the story there. Imagine how fast people would have run 70 years ago if the secret was out.

2. You said: "Please don't hide behind the "what has this changed about the way we coach" argument, because you should know that where coaching is concerned, you can never have too much knowledge. In fact the aquisition of knowledge surely plays a huge part in the progression of athletes over the last 100+ years."

Instead of hiding behind that ridiculous statement can you please answer the question? Also, i do not know coaches can never have too much knowledge. In fact too much knowledge is the actual problem. You suffer from this you realise. The symptoms are an inability to argue normally. Other symptoms include using that knowledge as a shield and a weapon. Selectively fill your brain up mate. Now quality is quite important as well you realise wellnow.

Are we done? So now we are told that it is the hydrogen ions casusing the acidity which cause the loss of function and that lactate (and who knows where this magical substance comes from) is actually a fuel. So quick tell all the coaches so they can take that into account next time they plan a program or turn up to the track and coach a session.

So please tell me wellnow, PLEASE, what are the changes coaches will have to make based on this reveolutionary information. Should i drink a lot of milk before a 400m. Oh that's lactose......................................

The Light: if you say that you believe that it is H+ we are actually buffering, then why do we need to "deal with lactate?" Since it's not even the lactate that is acidic, its not even something we need to buffer... I mean basic chemistry guys, this isn't even making sense. I mean we can get a hundred posts that say "i believe this and this and this." It's all based on each person's personal experience, almost like faith. There is no basis for these opinions. I mean seriously, lets be honest, this may as well be a religious discussion.

You can have an opinion based on scientific experiments, but we are arguing over what is already in the literature. I mean open a friggin book. These terms have definitions. We can have an educated argument over what we think is right and/or wrong, but at least know what you are talking about..

lactate is a byproduct of glycolysis petew.

maybe you're right, lets just all be f***ing idiots, sure would save me the headache..

The Light wrote:

In science, we make simplified models all the time, which don't actually reflect reality.

The models need to be simple so they become useful practically.

I think all models eventually become very simple.

The pyramid from Soviet periodisation is a simple one. Someone suggested make it a cone. Still simple yet very reflective of the development of fitness within the athlete.

What are all of the physiological variables associated with this lactic thing we are talking about.

When the demand for energy is higher than that which can be supplied by the aerobic system, lactate begins to be produced in higher concentrations than can be removed. This increased concentration can be removed by two ways both of which are rejuvenating - conversion to glucose through the process called the Cori cycle which occurs in the liver or oxidation back into pyruvate which can be used as a fuel in the citric acid cycle.

Lactate is not the factor causing the acidocis although it is integrally related. A separate process is now thought to be the cause of this acidocis.

(I'm assuming the acidocis is accpeted as the ciuase of the loss of peroformance?)

As ATP is hydrolysed (waterfied) a hydrogen ion is released and the increase in concentration of these causes this acidocis which is concurrent with the decrease in performance.

Still i will program 4x400/5 mins and 5x300/4 mins after we are done with the 200s and 400s off shorter or jog recovery.

Yeah it's kind of a bummer that your athletes probably don't have access to a human performance lab. the best thing science could offer you as far as lactate analysis goes is a lactate threshold test on a treadmill, which would help dictate paces in SOME of your workouts. regarding the intervals you described: scientific literature would suggest doing these at a certain percent of VO2max. again you would need a lab and physiologists to run a VO2max test on your athletes.

I can understand a coach's frustration here, but I don't necessarily think that's reason to completely abandon what we know from an exercise physiology standpoint. Good coaches make good use of what tools they have, and that's about all they can do..

cheers. There are a few options available for this testing but i won't be pursuing them. That period of training is only a small part of each year anyway. What i would like is to know how to field test the blood concentration like Lydiard did. More for the experiment than the information although you never know!

As for paces i think they are known. The pace you can average for an hour to exhaustion. The pace you can maintain maximal heart rate (180ish) or 20-30 mins to exhauastion. The race pace for the 800m (say 38 for 300m or 51 for 400m) or the 1500m (say 28 for 200m or 56 for 400m).

Can we keep working on a laymans definition of the chemical processes involved in what we are talking about?

All right I'm going to throw a more straight-forward training question out there related to the original poster's question, and see if it gets answered or is simply drowned out in the discussion of the use of exercise physiology in training/coaching.

The question is what are the different/best ways of training the body to deal with increased acidity in one's muscles?

My understanding is that lactate threshold or maximum lactate steady state or ventilary(sp?) threshold or whatever you want to call it is one method, but it seems like there are a lot more types of training that help deal with what is often associated with 'going anaerobic' or 'going lactic.' Rarely do I see a call for middle distance runners to do much threshold training in the coaching literature, but I feel like I don't have a very good physiological understanding of what workouts are optimal for training 800/1500 runners. What does a workout of very fast longer reps with lots of rest do for a runner's ability to deal with acidity? What does a workout of quick, shorter intervals with minimal rest do for that ability? What other workouts help with that and what is a good way of implementing them?

Thanks for anyone that can help

I'm a bit confused, because, looking back, I thought what I wrote largely agreed with you. Maybe I mis-stated myself in my ignorance.OK let's back up then, and get away from any perceived religion -- what do the books say? Don't the books say that lactate and a proton is produced? If we talk about "lactate buffering", what is being buffered, if it's not the proton? I'll accept any clarification here, to replace my unfounded belief. But when I said "lactate actually acts as a buffer to reduce or delay pH-lowering", that idea came from you!My idea about the term "deal with lactate" was also to agree with you: that this was probably a better term than "lactate tolerance", a term you refused to define, but rather wanted to throw out. To me, "dealing" doesn't mean only buffering, but includes other things the books say, like consuming as a fuel, or converting it back to glycogen. Or is "dealing" also a defined term in basic chemistry?Help me out here -- what exactly are you criticizing? If I want to have an educated argument, I need to know what you are talking about too.

The Light:

Didn't mean to come across as a jerk, I apologize. I'll just keep this short and simple because the goal for this post is to just relay some basic stuff so we can all be on the same page. Exercise biochemistry text in front of me as I type.

Okay, so lactic acid, lactate, lactate production, lactate accumulation:

- Lactic acid can exist, just not in physiological situations. The acidity of a molecule depends on its ability to lose a proton (H+). Without listing any values, suffice it to say that lactic acid is relatively acidic. This means that in the human body, at a pH of 7, lactic acid does not exist because the proton has been lost. If you remember the equation in chemistry: HA --> H+ + A-, this is exactly what it is demonstrating. It is your typical conjugate acid/conjugate base situation, where Lactate is an anion (negatively charged), and the hydrogen proton is positively charged. Just think: lactic acid (HA) dissociates into Lactate (A-) and hydrogen (H+). So if you read anything that says "lactic acid" causes this, or that, you should be saying "no, that's not possible."

- Lactate. Lactate is constantly being produced by anaerobic glycolysis. don't let the term scare you. glycolysis is just a way of generating ATP (energy). As petew just posted, pyruvate is a product of glycolysis, and this can be used as a fuel for oxidative phosphorylation (the Cori cycle, citric acid cycle, etc. it has multiple names). oxidative phosphorylation, just think as another way of getting ATP (energy). but pyruvate is converted to Lactate at a very fast rate.

- Lactate production. We are constantly producing lactate. as you sit in your chair reading this post, you are producing lactate. Here's the thing. As Lord Kinbote posted, there are lactate shuttles (these are the MCT isoforms). To just plain keep this simple, the transporters shuttle the lactate to slow twitch fibers which convert the lactate back to pyruvate and use it as fuel, inside the mitochondria, where oxidative phosphorylation takes place(simply making ATP for energy).

- Lactate accumulation. So far we know that lacate is constantly being produced and consumed for fuel. Well lets assume you are exercising at a fairly high intensity. Lactate accumulation is the amount of lactate that is produced, but not consumed. think of it as an EXCESS amount of lactate.

Everyone should be saying: Wait a second. Lactate is not acidic, and it is used as a fuel, so why is lactate a bad thing? Well, the MCT isoforms are transporters not only for lactate, but also hydrogen protons (H+). As lactate is transported out of the cell, it is accompanied by a proton (they are just not together as one molecule as mentioned earlier. this would be termed as lactic acid, and we know that this does not exist within the physiological range). So even though it is not the lactate that causes the fatigue, we know that at high levels of lactate accumulation there is also a high level of hydrogen protons (H+) being transported out of the cell and into the extracellular fluid as well. This is why lactate measurements are a way of measuring "fatigue."

At this point scientists associate this high level of protons(or high acidity) in extracellular fluid as the cause of fatigue. But this is only a connection. It makes sense that acidic protons "cause fatigue," meaning less force generation, but honestly who knows?

okay. the terms 'lactic' and 'lactate tolerance' i have NEVER seen in the literature. y'all can make your own definitions, and maybe you have the concepts correct, but the actual words, as far as I know, mean nothing.

Keep in mind that just because the literature says this stuff, NOTHING is 100%. Never take anything as the final word. But do realize that this knowledge isn't just people "making stuff up." It is the result of tons of hours of experimentation, and some pretty darn smart people are involved with this..

thanks for that Schmo, quite nicely put but still it is a long explanantion that has to use scientific temrinology that requires a completely different concept to be understood. Even those conepts contain sub-concepts.

I think the same page can occur if we accept what you said at the end - that nobody can say with any certainty what it is that is stopping us from continuing to keep going intensely beyond 40 odd seconds.

However, even though there is scientific uncertainty, there isn't coaching uncertainty. Outside of coaching plenty of people can directly develop the lactate system. It is when it needs to be fitted proportionately with other factors that confusion sets in. The 400m is a lot easier to coach and train for than the 800m for sure because of this yet even the 400m requires the development of multiple factors of which the lactate system is only one.

So i appreciate the scientific analytical side of things but it doesn't alter training methodology. Training methodology may be transmitted more by word of mouth than the written word. I received it through direct experience from my coach who used physiology and biomechanics to help exaplin his own thinking, rarely though did he use these fields of knowledge. Mostly he used everyday words that created great conceptual images for his athletes.

To go back and redress the first post is to lay out a coaching structure so i may as well throw one out there

But when I think back ~10 years ago to my high school coach saying: "the lactic acid is what is making your legs burn after that 20 X 400m workout," I cringe. Because honestly you have to say "no, that is incorrect." And as much as certain coaches like to deny science, it seems they sure do like to refer to scientific terminology when explaining training theory..

That's not to say I don't disagree with you man. The thing about science is it takes FOREVER to find things out using the scientific method... And if someone were somehow "all-knowing" (like God or something) and told me that without science distance runners would perform just as well as they do now..well..I would almost believe that..

ha sorry..correction: meant to say "that's not to say I disagree with you..." meaning i don't disagree with you..... you know what don't listen to me I can't even speak my own language..

I'm from the Southern hemisphere, this is for an 21 year old 800/1500m runner for the next year.

April 7th - begin general preparation phase (21 weeks)

May - gen prep

June - gen prep

July - gen prep

August - gen prep

September 1st - begin specific preparation phase (9 weeks)

October - spec prep

November 3rd - begin pre-competition phase (9 weeks)

December - pre competition phase

January 5th begin competition phase (9 weeks)

February - comp

March - final competitions + recovery phase

general preparation involves - aerobic base building, avoidance of lactate except incidentally, techincal modifications, postural strength training, general athleticism development. Build the miles, change the techinque, do lots of circuit style training, keep the natural feeling of fast running going.

specific preparation involves continuing the aerobic development, intitiating strength/resistance training with sand hills, normal hills, stairs, bounding and some weight training. Keep the miles going, but add in sand hills for 4 weeks twice a week at the end, keep the circuit training going but start in the gym once a week towards the end.

Pre-competition involves - maintenance of the aerobic development and add in all of the standard interval sessions to develop aerobic power and lactate abilities. Strength training takes on more of a power focus, technical adjustments are now in the fine tuning stage. Races and time trials are initiated.

Competition let everything sharpen to its peak.

General preparation week

mon - AM 20 easy --- PM 20 easy + faster strides + extras(circuits/drills/exercises)

tues - Am 30 easy --- PM 60 solid + strides

wed - AM 40 easy --- PM 20 easy + extras

thurs - AM 30 easy --- PM 60 solid + strides

fri - AM 20 easy + faster strides + extras

sat - rest/recovery

sun - long run at easy pace building to 90min+

the 1 hour solid runs will increase to 3 a week if possible

Specific preparation week

mon - AM 30 easy --- PM 1 hour solid + strides

tues - Am 45 easy --- PM longer aerobic interval session + faster strides + extras(circuits/drills/exercises)

wed - AM 30 easy --- PM 1 hour solid + strides

thurs - AM 45 easy --- PM 20 easy + faster strides + extras

fri - AM 30 easy --- PM sand hills or 1 hour solid plus strides

sat - rest/recovery

sun - long run at easy pace 90 min to 2 hours

Pre-competition week (this has two parts to it - the hills are done for the first 4-6 weeks before anaerobic intervals are intitated for 4 to 6 weeks)

mon - AM solid 45 PM easy 30 plus circuits

tues - AM easy 30 PM hills becoming interval session plus drills/exercises

wed - AM solid 60 PM easy 30 plus circuits

thurs - AM easy 30 PM hills becoming interval session + drills/exercises

friday - AM easy 45

Saturday - competition or 3rd hills/interval session

Sunday - long run at easy pace for 90-120 mins

Competition phase

mon - AM easy 30 PM rest

tues - AM easy 30 PM intervals becoming sharpening work

wed - AM easy 30 PM easy 30 plus strides

thurs - AM easy 30 PM intervals/sharpening

friday - AM easy 30 or rest

Saturday - competition or rest

Sunday - long run at easy pace for up to 90 hours if already developed over preparation or rest

This yearly plan involves a rolling 3 weekly cycle. A mocrocycle of 1 week, a macrocycle of 3 weeks and meso cycle or phase of 21 or 9 weeks.

The three weekly cycle allows for having different training in each week. Usually the first two weeks are heavier with week one being slightly more intense than week two and week two having slightly higher volume. Week 3 is the recovery/testing week. The volume drops off significantly and intensity can increase. Having this third week allows for the first two to be pushed harder than otherwise. It also sets up your body clock to be coming up every three weeks throughout the year. So if the final competition is on at the end of the final 3 week cycle you are already used to your form rising during week 3. Just the practise for a year of getting heavier for 2 weeks and then lighter for one allows this to become your personal rhythm.

week 1 might have 4x400/5 on tues

week 2 might have 400,300,200,100/6,5,4

week 3 might have 2x300/full

That's a plan. Disect if you please

hey schmo

I found this quote from Antonio Cabral in that huge lactate thread on page 1, and i like it (pg 6)

"I always said that - all auxiliar sciences - as physiology are one of them - that are/take the BACKGROUND of running knowledge not the front line . I do care about physiology or science, simply I have the right to have the opinion that training tecknique that´s more intersting and gives to me (and must give to you all americans as well) the KEY that lack too you to understand distance training startegy. Do you know what´s the meaning of "the background" ? That´s not "no place" that´s the background - second line of interest."

Reanto Canovo said this in the same thread (pg9)

'Under a practical point of view, I think that you take too much care about theoretical principles, that don't have very much to do with the real technical management of an athlete. Many scientists tried to become coaches, and nobody was able, because it is not the athletes that have to follow the official physiology, but the physiology that has to follow the athletes (and normally this is not possible). If you can train many athletes in your career, with different backgrounds, you can see that the physiological variability are too many, and you must use the best way for reaching the top performance possible.'

not sure what this Cabral guy is rambling about, but I like what Canovo says because he definitely hits the nail on the head when he mentions "physiological variability." He is implying that everyone is different, and not just one strict training method works for everyone. That is the truth.

As a result a coach's number 1 tool is trial and error. Tradition is important, because you gotta start somewhere. But like I said in an earlier post, the athletes take the hit because coaches seriously have no way of truly knowing what works for their athletes without trying things out first and saying "hmm, that didn't work, lets try this...well no that didn't work, lets try this...." and hopefully, at best, you have things figured out before a year or two is up..But even this kind of sucks because two years is half of this athletes highschool or college career!

Lets use your training schedule as an example. It looks great! But until I see how your athletes respond to the stimulus it's like, who knows?? Honestly, I can name multiple big name coaches who have spelled everything out in detail, but nothing is absolute.. I mean I could even look at your athlete's results and say "you know what, so-and-so broke a four minute mile on your program, so therefore your program is effective." but who is to say another training schedule isn't even more effective? I mean technically you could set up a scientific experiment using GROUP A, and GROUP B, each on a seperate program. Then you could look at the results and say "GROUP B's program worked the best." Of course that is in a perfect world where all variables are controlled for. The problem is there are too many variables, which brings us right back to what Renato Canovo said in his post. And he is right!

I wish I could say science has provided a solution, but that is FAR from the truth..

Maybe we should start another thread on this topic. Although it seems we don't get anywhere with this stuff, I think it's great discussion. It's very relevant and very important.

I have answered the question. Lactate is NOT buffered, it the H+ that is buffered and tolerated.

The first change that you have to make as a coach is to stop talking about lactic. There is no lactic. Your athletes will lose some respect for you if they know that you are talking pseudo-science. Don't you realize that many coaches do this (talk pseudo-science) and that the athletes can often tell that the coach doesn't really know what he or she is talking about, but they are too polite to say anything, because they don't want to upset the coach?

As the information about lactate becomes more widely know, (and as a coach you haven't really been paying attention to this issue which has been discussed in many articles over the past few years)more and more people will realize just how bady physiology has been taught, and they will lose confidence in those coaches who don't want to learn anything new.

How does the new info change coaching ideas? Well they way Renato Canvova (that's his real name, not Canovo as you keep calling him) explains his methodology, the training is not about Aerobic/Anaerobic as Jan Olbrecht and many other coahces wrongly describe it, it's about nervous stimulation which produces different levels of intensity and lactate production. His methodology is not based so much on H+ buffering but on extension of pace, and glycogen storage and glycogen/lactate usage. Renato talked about the lactate shuttle when he first started posting here in September 2003, but posters here didn't understand what he was saying, because of the general level of the "lactic acid is bad" brainwashing that is prevalent.

Random Shmo, you are a bit confused here, what's with the "lactate is bad" that's the worst thing you can say, the brainwashing is still there in your consciousness.

It IS a lactate molecule with a proton, but that does not contribute to acidosis, because lactate cannot release a proton into solution.

The acidosis comes from other sources. The protons that cause acidosis come from non-mitochondrial ATP turnover, whilst Lactate production accepts some of these protons into its molecular structure, thereby reducing the build up of acidosis. Lactate cannot cause fatigue, that is the big myth. It's like saying glycogen causes fatigue, it's just not possible.

pete, you mentioned something about avoidance of lactate in a previous post about training.

You can't avoid lactate. becasue in running, most of the carbs that are utilized in running are converted into lactate.

thanks about the program but i found it increasingly difficult to be certain once i had done the general preparation phase, probably because that happens in 3 weeks. I realised that i need to work off the athlete in order to precisely determine what is needed next. Still i think it is relatively sound according to the principles, but i had hoped someone would find some flaws.

Cabral is a little harder to understand in English than Canovo,however, this is one of my favourite things he has said. I think he was defending himself from being accused of being anti-science. I'll change a few words

'I always said that all the auxillary sciences - and physiology is one of them - are the BACKGROUND of running knowledge and NOT the front line. I do care about physiology and science, yet I have the right to have the opinion that training technique is more intersting and gives to me (and mcan give to you all americans as well) the KEY that most lack in order to understand distance training strategy. Do you know what is the meaning of "the background"? That is not nothing to me, that´s the background - the second line of interest.'

So now i wonder this - if we can't talk about the philosophy behind training nor can we talk about coaching plans, are we to be stuck with physiology talk? Is that all people are really interested in. Or do people just need a good fight every now and again. I really want someone to critique me :)