Lactate accumulation & recovery

Accumulation of lactate is associated with fatigue and time to exhaustion during hard exercise. 

The time an athlete needs to recover from such an accumulation and the intensity he or she can handle during this are crucial for success in some sports like cycling and football.

Furthermore knowledge about accumulation and combustion of lactate allows a coach to create tailor made interval training programs to increase lactate shuttling, combustion and tolerance capacities of an athlete. In this whitepaper we will show you how.

 

Create highly individual interval training

There are many ways to use lactate accumulation and recovery to create highly individual interval training. Here’s an example.

TRAINING TIP: how to spent a large amount of time at high lactate levels, without blowing up.

Some pro’s call this their “new secret training strategy”.

Step 1: increase lactate with initial effort

Before you start your interval training, do a longer, less intense bout of exercise above anaerobic threshold. By doing so, you raise lactate levels inside the muscle.

As a result, you start the interval training with higher lactate levels (e.g. 10 mmol/l).

Step 2: intervals without lactate buildup

Then, perform an interval training that has a perfect balance between lactate accumulation and lactate recovery. In other words: an interval training that does not increase nor decrease lactate concentration over time.

Use the INSCYD Lactate & Recovery graph to do so. In the example image below you could for instance run:

  • 1 minute at 6 m/s followed by 3 minutes at 3.6 m/s [3:1], or..
  • 1 minute at 5.8 m/s and 2 minutes at 3.6 m/s [2:1], or…
  • 1 minute at 5.2 m/s and 1 minute at 3.6 m/s [1:1].
Lactate accumulation and recovery - interval ratios
Do you want to have a net lactate accumulation of zero? Use ratios in which you accumulate as much lactate as you recover.

By doing so, athletes can train at a high lactate concentration, without blowing up. This does require knowledge about your lactate accumulation and recovery rate, to prevent underperforming or going too fast.

Learn more about the details, how-to steps and practical examples via our free whitepaper!

Download whitepaper

Time trial pacing

You can imagine that using the lactate accumulation & recovery data will not only help you in creating interval training, but can also be your guide in creating pacing strategies for time trials.

Download the whitepaper to fully understand the graph and create your TT pacing. Or schedule a demo and ask for our Time Trial pacing webinar.