Lactic acid not the cause of muscle fatigue?

Am curious if anyone else saw this article. Lactic acid buildup doesn't cause muscle fatigue anymore? When did this happen?

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http://fleshbroiler-fitness.blogspot.com/

A few million years ago. However, it's probably been known by man for quite sometime, perhaps decades.

And now women know it too.

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Yep, lactic acid(really blood lactate) isn't the bad guy. It's not really news but people are so entrenched in the lactic acid soreness myth they don't want to hear it. Try googling "lactic acid soreness" and see how many hits you get debunking that firmly held belief.

Looks like anti-doping agencies will have another class of drug to put on their list.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac

When did THAT happen??

So what causes the pain?

Ischaemia? Tissue oedema and stretch of pain fibres? Local pH alteration and pain fibre stimulation? Others?

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac

What difference does it make? It's not like there's anything you can do about it.

Once upon a time there was nothing one could do about those chest pains of heart attacks, and people just died. Then science changed everything.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac

My bad, I didn't realize you were personally a scientist working on some of that "science" stuff to eliminate muscle pain

Yeah, I saw that article in the times earlier this week. My issue is that it doesn't really say anything of revelant importance. It tells us that muscle damage is caused by calcium leaks with the muscular tissue, but it doesn't reveal any sort of information that would change the way people train.

What am i supposed to start bringing Tums along on rides to aid recovery?

Not sure about muscle damage, but my reading of it was that those leaky Ca channels was partly the explanation for muscle fatigue. Muscle fatigue could be reduced by reducing the "leakiness" of those ion channels, by 10-20%.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac

I've read about lactic acid not being the cause of muscular fatigue a few years back, but that didn't change my training a bit. If I understand it correctly, we're not even supposed to change how we train based on that knowledge.

Ken

Yes, but there probably is a reason why the body sends you pain signals when it does. If you tamper with it for the sake of 10-20% improvement, there is no saying what side-effects will happen - is it worth the risk of causing quasi-permanent damage somewhere in your body?

That depends on what was the source of stimulation of those pain fibres. You see, that argument only partly make sense as we all know that we train to push beyond our lactic/pain threshold in order to perform better. If we always use pain as the limit of our training and activities, then we are not likely to get stronger and better.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac