How can I reduce the amount of lactate acid I am builiding up?

Any training and/or nutrition tips?

What makes you think you're building up too much lactic acid ... or any at all?

You ride real easy for 15 minutes. That'll get you down.

Raise your lactate threshold. This is a very fun and enjoyable leisure time activity that often involves vomiting, hallucinations, the desire to die, as well as the inability to explain to others why you do such training. (Ride as hard as you can for one minute - and really...AS HARD AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN - then spin easy for a minute. Repeat until the desire to die really may come to fruition, and then repeat once more). If you survive this regimen a couple times a week for a couple/few weeks, you'll have pleasing results.

Everyone produces lactate in the course of physical activity. As noted above, it is the ability of the body to clear the excessive lactate that your body is unable to utilize that you need to work on. These training methods can range from very simple to quite complex and scientific. humboldt's roads gives you a basic place to start (tongue in cheek) and that might be the thing to do. You can always get more scientific if you want to.
Good luck

It's actually good to produce lactate. You do want to do LT work in order to increase your tolerance or what I think is actually improving your turnover rate. The reason for fatigue is thought to be the acidic environment produced by an increase in hydrogen ions.
Lactic acid --> Lactate + hydrogen ions

Production is not a problem as long as clearance is equally as fast, which I think is what is being trained when you do LT workouts. Accumulation is the real issue. Lactate actually allows you to shuttle excess hydrogen out of the cells so it is actually quite important. You can see this by the production of new products like SportLegs which contains lactate in it.

Which muscles are affected by lactic acid build up--your quads? This weekend I had a happy discovery. I had read in the book Bike for Life about using your glutes more for greater power and went on a longer than usual ride. I came back with less tiredness and less lactic acid buildup than ever.

Sitting upright shuts your glutes off, and so does using your toes to push the pedals a lot. Keep your back straight. Lean over the handlebars to get as lower, like riding in the drops even if you are on the hoods. Slide back in the saddle as far as you can. Keep your foot as flat as reasonable around the pedal stroke. Do not push so hard that you can feel it in your quads.

I found I can push a little bigger gear for more speed and my glutes do not even notice. I also do not shift down as much going up hills. When the going gets tougher, I stand.

Train more. There are no shortcuts ...... okay no SAFE shortcuts.

... Brad

You get better at riding at dealing with LA by riding around your lactic acid.

First, you need to know what your LT is. You do a field test to do this. Then you do workouts around that lactate threshold. Things like tempo rides, over/under work, etc.

Just wondering...Does "Sport Legs" do what it claims? The suppliment info says that it tricks the muscles into thinking that they are making lactate acid and you can ride "all day without pain". Sounds too good to be true. Anyone who has used it? I'd love to hear your comments.

I've not used this stuff, but I'd willing to bet a substantial amount of money that it's a heavy, stinking load of bs.

.... Brad

That's exactly right. "Heels down and pedal round." And all the rest, just like you say. Your legs should feel relaxed. Of course sometimes you have to power up your legs, but relax when you don't have to.

Riding in the hills helps your body to learn to clear lactate. 60+ miles in steep rollers every couple weeks will make quite a difference. You know you're getting results when you feel like you are recovering between climbs.

Make your oxidative system more efficient=more aerobic activity.

I just started taking b-alanine, seems to work..

Hello.

First, lactic acid buildup isn't a bad thing. If you have a good amount of lactic acid (lactate) in the blood, and you can increase your oxygen intake, then you've got a LOT of potential to make a lot more ATP for your workouts, so keep that in mind when reading the rest of what I have to say.

Going down to the molecular level, we all know that oxygen is necessary to make muscles contract so we can do work, perform our exercise, etc. Why is that? Because ATP, the energy that the body uses to make those muscles contract (produced in small organelles in the muscle called "mitochondria", which is located in muscle cells), is produced in great quantities when oxygen is present (36 ATP through the Krebs Cycle). When we take our training to anaerobic levels during exercise, our body goes into oxygen debt- which causes the body to bypass Krebs Cycle and utilize the anaerobic energy system- anaerobic glycolysis. During this process, only two ATP are produced. The bypass happens in the pyruvate step of the Krebs Cycle- when oxygen is present, carbohydrates and fats are metabolized and broken down to enter the Krebs Cycle. The subsequent molecule produced, pyruvate, allows the Krebs Cycle to occur by binding to the hydrogen ions released from other chemical reactions in the mitochondria, producing the full 36 ATP. In oxygen debt, pyruvate is converted to lactate because when insufficient amounts of oxygen are available, the body uses carbohydrates (quick energy source) to break down into pyruvate and hydrogen ions. The excess hydrogen ions bind to pyruvate, creating lactic acid, which leaks into the bloodstream, giving that burning feeling in the muscle. The burning feeling isn't the lactate, really- it's the lactate binding to nerves in the muscles that create the sensation of burning. This is the onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA).

How to control this? For the most immediate answer, if you are out on your ride, you will have to slow down and take in more oxygen. Once you do that, the oxygen will drive that Krebs Cycle, lacate will convert back to pyruvate, and you're back in business, because you'll be producing more ATP- the energy used to move those muscles so you can ride that bike! That really is the primary way you stop the burn from happening. But there are a few things you should do in the future so you can ride harder and longer:

1) The most important thing you can do is base building. This really is done in the off season. Lots of mileage on the bike, spinning it out, and building your base is essential.

2) Coming out of your base, start working on changing up your rides- you need to increase your VO2 max through high intensity efforts. You need to do some tempo training rides to build your fitness level and get your body to tolerate these lactate threshold efforts. You need to do interval rides so you can learn how to recover quickly (among other things). And finally, you need to do some at/around lactate threshold rides- riding either at lactate threshold, slightly over it (about 5 beats over), and slightly under lacate threshold (about 5 beats under). Rides like this will increase your fitness levels and help you from building high levels of lactate in your muscles. Rides like this will also stimulate your mitochondria to grow in size, and believe me- you WANT your mitochondria to be huge. The bigger your mitochondria, the more efficient they are.

3) While in the off season, LIFT. You don't have to lift heavy, but you do need to work on increasing muscle mass. Why? Because you want MORE mitochondria. More mitochondria gives your body more chances to produce more ATP. You don't have to look like Conan the Barbarian, but a good conditioning program that gives you some additional muscle mass is beneficial. Given that we tend to lose a small percentage of muscle once we enter our 30s, you really will be ok to engage in a muscle building program.

4) Hydrate. Learn to hydrate well, and keep that good habit going forever- the oxygen in water is another oxygen source the body can use, so take advantage of that!

5) Get tested. I mean REALLY tested. If you live near a Lifetime Fitness, you can ask them to do a New Leaf test on you. The New Leaf will test (among other things) VO2 max and correlate it to heart rate. From there, you can start training properly around your heart rate ranges that give you the greatest improvements. If you don't live near a Lifetime Fitness, then just find a performance testing lab in your area (they are dotted all over the place). Also, try universities with physical education/kinesiology departments that may have the equipment to train. If you get lucky, you may even find a university that is looking for test subjects to run these performance tests, so you could maybe get tested for free.

I know this is a lot, but I really think it's important to know _why_ you have lactate buildup. If you know a little behind the science of it all, then it makes it a whole lot easier to figure out how to work with it and overcome the problem.

As a final note, I highly recommend some articles by Dr. Len Kravitz, who is a friend of mine and is sooooooo wonderful at explaining stuff like this. He can break things down so well. I sometimes ask him to "break it down to stupid for me", and he will explain things in such a way that things tons of sense. Here are some articles that are really great reads:

How to assess lactate threshold:
https://drlenkravitz.com/Articles/LTassessment.html

Talking about the lactic acid "burn":
https://drlenkravitz.com/Articles/lactatearticle.html

Different types of training you can do to train lactate threshold:
https://drlenkravitz.com/Articles/lactatethreshold.html

I trust Kravitz implicitly, I've read nearly every article he's written, and I've attended lectures he's given on nearly every article he's written since I first ran across him in the fitness arena in 1999. He's fantastic.

Good luck with your training.

Koffee

Excellent post!
Can you comment also on some nutritions that are beneficial for the LT training?

Thanks!

Jan

Uh-huh.

Carbs. Proteins. Fats.

I'd recommend about 55% carbs, 25- 30% proteins, and 10- 15% fats (the good fats, as in unsaturated). Eat clean.

There is a more complicated means of calculating caloric intake based on the intensity of your training, but dang is it convoluted (Kravitz explains some of it in one of his articles), and I wouldn't do it unless I were personally training you.

Honestly, there aren't a lot of tricks or supplements that are going to work to increase your performance. Supplements, at best, are hit or miss solutions, and they seem to be more expensive than they're worth. The only supplement I can confidently recommend is a multivitamin.

Koffee

Multivitamin huh? I did not expect that one :-)
Well, I dont usually eat anything if my ride is less than 90min. (just water or getorade)
Sometimes it is more about the recovery but I guess every body needs a different "treatment".
Thanks for the response!

Jan

You should eat something. I wouldn't train anyone on an empty stomach.

First and foremost, without a good amount of carbohydrate stored, your body will only be able to exercise so much. Carbs fuel the body, and during exercise stints, when your body runs short on carbs, you won't be able to access the Krebs Cycle efficiently, and you won't be able to even use anaerobic respiration efficiently. You'll bonk sooner than if you had eaten a little extra carbs, so I wouldn't recommend ever exercising on an empty stomach.

Second, in order to burn fat, you need carbs. The body breaks down carbs to glycogen to glucose. Glucose is used during Krebs to drive aerobic respiration and produce ATP. A lack of glucose means you won't burn much fat either. To be efficient in fat burning as well as with proonging your ride, I'd recommend at least eating something like a half to a full bagal and perhaps a cup of milk (for protein). After your training ride, you definitely want to replenish your carbohydrate stores and get in some protein. You want to keep that metabolism burning faster- so be sure you fuel smart before, during and after your ride.

Well, on that note, I'm off to bed. Buffy reruns await, and I like to be ready to rock and roll when they come on in the morning! Cheers! :-)

Koffee

Koffee

I guess I wasnt clear enough. I do eat before and after the ride. I just dont eat DURING my ride IF my ride is less then 90 minutes. Or should I be eating during the short rides too?

Jan

Generally, no. You shouldn't have to eat on shorter rides. Pushing those 90 minute rides, if you're bonking, you'll need those quickie carbs, like the gatorade you drink. You should be good to go.

Koffee

Welcome back,
we've missed you.

+1

... Brad

yeah, welcome back, koffee!
great posts - thanks.

where's the Lena Horne pic?

What about glucose in a supplement form?