WHAT ON EARTH IS LACTATE & WHY SHOULD I CARE?
“Norwegian Method” is all the rage right now due to the success of the nordic athletes especially at the IRONMAN distance. In truth, the top coaches in all endurance sports from Triathlon to Cycling, Running to Rowing and Cross Country Skiing to Swimming have all embraced and used LACTATE TESTING for decades. So what’s all the fuss about?
Step 1: Why
When was the last time you took your car to the mechanic for a service but wouldn’t let them run diagnostics on it? Never is the answer! It would be ludicrous to think they could finely tune the engine and get everything functioning properly without some insight as to what the car actually required. The same can be said with your body and your endurance training. In order to get your engine operating at its peak potential we need to look under the hood and run some tests to know for certain what it needs to be at its best.
Your VO2 is the size of your engine. Some people are born with a Ferrari and others a Ford. You can’t change the size of the engine as this determined by genetics but you can tune whatever engine you have perfection. All human engines are “hybrids”, in that they burn a mixture of fat and carbohydrate depending on the exercise intensity. Fat is the body’s #1 fuel source as it delivers more than twice the energy than carbs, however making Fat available to burn as fuel takes longer. Therefore it’s used for primarily lower intensity fuelling whereas fast burning Carbs fuel shorter more powerful efforts. A well-tuned engine will burn lots of fat for longer and spare it’s carbohydrates until the highest intensities.
What you eat also matters and will affect how you burn your fuels. If you put diesel in a Ferrari it won’t run that well! It’s the same with your body but that’s a bigger topic.
Lactate is constantly produced by the body. At rest and in light exercise, the level of lactate produced is small enough that it is used as fuel/ buffered. As intensity increases, lactate production increases and reaches levels that are reflective of a loss of aerobic efficiency. At its simplest, energy in the form of ATP (Adenosine Tri Phosphate) is essential for muscle contraction can be produced via aerobic or anaerobic pathways. One of the anaerobic pathways provides energy quickly but produces excess lactate as a by-product. The scientists are not quite sure exactly the depth of lactate’s role but it is a great marker for efficiency. Therefore, in general, low levels of lactate are the sign of an efficient aerobic system. Over time, with correct training, lactate levels at a given workload will decrease showing an improvement in aerobic conditioning. High Lactate levels at easy workloads are a sign of an underdeveloped aerobic system. High Lactate levels at Maximal workloads are a sign of a well-developed anaerobic system.
For each athlete and sport there is an optimal “Balance” of aerobic and anaerobic qualities. Shaping the correct balance through lactate-guided training is key to reaching your true potential in your chosen sport. We look for 2 specific markers from the lactate test:
· Aerobic or Lactate Threshold #1 (Aet/ LT1) : this is the first shift away from a baseline of lactate production. It’s a “moderate” effort for most athletes. Usually somewhere between 1.2-2.5 mmol lactate.
· Steady State Threshold or OBLA or Lactate Threshold #2 (SST/ OBLA/ LT2) : This is the last intensity where lactate concentrations stay the same as time progresses, hence “steady-state”. For many athletes it’s around 3.5-4.5 mmol lactate though that can vary widely. Often there is a spike in lactate production soon after this intensity which helps us to identify it.
So to recap, the Lactate test is where we measure …..
• Aerobic efficiency and stability – the ability to have sustained endurance
• Anaerobic Capacity – the ability to produce power quickly
• The Balance of these qualities in an athlete
Step 2 : APPLICATION
From here we can set-up optimal training zones based on heart-rate, power & pace AND determine the types of training that the athlete needs to do in order to improve. Once we have your data, we can easily see what training stimulus you require in order to hit your goals. So as part of the lab test results we will tell you the various types of training sessions that you should focus on and why. Now, with your heart-rate monitor in hand you can now take this training prescription to the road guaranteeing that your training sessions are optimally performed.
Now, in some quarters, heartrate monitoring has been given a bad rap but it’s mostly inflammatory journalist nonsense rather than being based on sound science. Here’s how it is. Heart-rate tells us how “stressful” a workout is. It also guides us to the intensity of the workout. Power and pace tells us the exact intensity but the heartrate response to that intensity is the most important factor. For example, the goal of endurance training is to teach the body to burn fat. Fat burning requires a low-stress environment. When your heartrate is high is your body more or less stressed? More stressed obviously, so we use the heartrate monitor as a stress-level guide and react accordingly to keep us burning fat.
A good training program will be built to suit your physiology, goals, available time to train, travel and ability to recover. It should be a “work in motion” meaning that it changes as you change. If you miss workouts, if sleep is bad or you get sick then the program should be adjusted accordingly. Every workout though should be done using your heartrate monitor and tracked in your training journal and/or online the Training Peaks. Every 4-8 weeks I will give you field tests to check progress and make sure that the training stimulus is correct going forwards. Training with old data can be as bad as training with no data, so be prepared to commit to regular assessments and watch your fitness grow year upon year.
Step 3 : HOW
Every athlete that I coach is required to do lactate testing regardless of where they live. If they are local to me then this is easy as yo can come in to my lab for your assessments. Failing that I will help you to try to find somewhere near you that can do lactate testing for you and to supply me with that data so I can update your zones and program. If you can’t access that then you can always buy your own testing kit for just a few hundred $ and I can teach yo how to use it.