"warren" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:In article <[email hidden]>, Andy Coggan
Quoted message said:"warren" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:In article <[email hidden]>, erik saunders <[email hidden]>
wrote:
> zone 5 is a max effort... but thats the whole point... a warm-up for
a
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:TT
Quoted message said:> (especially a short one like 10k) is all about turning your body's
lactic acid
Quoted message said:> clearing system "on" before you start.. that way it will be ready to
recycle
Quoted message said:> all the the lactate that you will build up in an intense effort
right
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:off the
Quoted message said:> ramp... otherwise, (if you system isnt "on"😉 you will either be in a
lot
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:of
Quoted message said:> pain with bad legs off the bat, or you will have to ease into your
effort on
Quoted message said:> the road (costing you a lot of time)... if an intense warm up screws
you
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:over
Quoted message said:> for the race, then you arent any good anyway and you need to train
more...
Quoted message said:
True stuff. I saw this during my lactate threshold test (increasing workload). Blood lactate
climbs for about 8 minutes, makes a little
dip
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Quoted message said:(when "the system turns on"😉 and then starts to climb again.
Before this becomes the stuff of urban legend (like the notion that
training
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:too hard early in the season will destroy all your newly-formed capillaries), let me chime in
here...
Did Rick Crawford ever say "destroy all"? I wonder because I mentioned this discussion to Max and
he knows Rick and tended to doubt he would say something like "destroy all". Max says it's more
like "inhibits", and aerobic ability will decrease slightly when more anaerobic training is
introduced.
The urban legend about capillaries being destroyed was started by that expert in physiology, Mike
Walden, and thus predates Crawford by a long shot.
Quoted message said:
Quoted message said:A "dip" in blood lactate during an incremental exercise test is an aberration,
I was told it was not uncommon.
It happens only if A) the subject is nervous, leading to a sympathetically-mediated increase in
lactate at rest, which is then metabolized during exercise, and/or B) if the athlete "jumps into"
the first workload with too much enthusiasm, e.g., rapidly accelerating the ergometer up to speed,
and/or spinning at an excessively high rate given the power output (often done by riders who wish to
impress everyone with their Armstrongesque "spin"😉. Both of these known issues can be avoided by
experienced testers by A) allowing plenty of time between placement of the catheter for blood
drawing and the start of the test, and B) discouraging the rider from "attacking" the first few
power outputs, by emphasizing that they will be relatively low loads, that the test will take a
little while, and that they should just relax and go with the flow. (Of course, many people are
either ignorant of these details, or don't sweat them, since it is when lactate eventually starts to
rise that really matters...the early data are therefore practically irrelevant).
Quoted message said:Here's what the graph/chart from my first LT test 3 months ago shows...
Was this the first test you did? How were blood samples obtained? Have you ever been a subject in
biomedical experiments before? Ever been in the hospital?
Quoted message said:Measured every 4 minutes... First lactate measurement: 1.7mMol/L, 124bpm, 100 watts second
measurement: .9mMol/L, 133bpm, 140 watts third measurement: 1.7mMol/L, 143bpm, 180 watts fourth
measurement: 2.6mMol/L, 150bpm, 220 watts fifth measurement: 4.6mMol/L, 163bpm, 260 watts
I'm doing another test next Wednesday.
Quoted message said:...and is not evidence that lactate clearance has suddenly been activated. The latter, in fact,
doesn't get "turned on" by warming up or prior exercise - rather, it is lactate production that
gets "turned
off".
Quoted message said:
How could less lactate be produced (briefly) as the workload increases?
We were talking about the effects of a pre-race warm-up, not what happens during an incremental
exercise test to determine threshold. In any case, however, it is a fact that following the onset of
muscle contractions, glycogen phosphorylase becomes refractory to further extensive activation,
leading to a rapid decline in the rate of glycogen degradation and lactate production even though
exercise continues (or increases in intensity). If not for this, glycogen would become depleted much
more rapidly during sustained exercise than it normally is, as the initial "burst" of glycogenolysis
(mediated via Ca2+ release from the SR) is just that: a very rapid process that is unsustainable.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:The effect/practical implications, however, are the same - as Erik says,
if
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:you aren't adequately warmed up prior to starting a very intense effort
such
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:as a 10 mile TT, you will likely feel like your legs are
heavy/swollen/dead
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:after you sprint away from the line, causing a massive burst of glycogenolysis and associated
lactate accumulation.
I used to have UltraFuel before races but Max mentioned this "glycogenolysis and associated
lactate accumulation" as a reason not to have too many simple carbs right before a race.
While carbohydrate ingestion prior to exercise will result in a slight increase in lactate
accumulation during exercise, the difference is quite small, and lactate itself really isn't a
causitive factor in fatigue. The only reason to avoid pre-exercise carbohydrate ingestion is if A)
it leads to digestive problems, or B) it results in severe hypoglycemia and therefore
neuroglucopenia.
Andy Coggan
