LA's High Cadence Style and Avoidance of Leg Fatigue

gntlmn

I agree that it's the power that you can sustain that's important. I also understand that you can produce more horsepower at higher lactate levels when your glycogen is fully restored versus lower horsepower when your glycogen is depleted but your lactate levels are lower.

But this seems to sidestep the issue. It's not a question of whether an individual produces more power when he reduces his lactate by riding slower. This wouldn't make any sense. If you ride slower, you are producing less power and less lactate (unless, as you say, you are bonked).

You still haven't answered the question about anaerobic threshold versus lactate level. The reason I asked this is because it is a commonly held belief (I haven't heard anyone doubt it yet) that Lance Armstrong produces less lactate than other riders at every level of power. How do you know this is not an advantage? If another rider's lactate level could be reduced (like maybe with a souped up renal dialysis machine when he's on a trainer), would not you see an increase in power? If it wicks away immediately, it wouldn't matter, but it doesn't. It keeps going up as power output increases. I realize that Lance's goes up too, but the lactate level is lower for each level of power output.

Even if both riders recovered in 90 minutes after a supramaximal effort, how can you be convinced that the higher lactate individual will not be as recovered the next day? Might there be more soreness or deadness in the legs?

gntlmn

Whether or not you choose to include Hinault in the 5 time group, the Badger did have knee problems. I wonder if he might not have if he had a high cadence pedalling style. Ullrich has had knee problems as well, and he doesn't have a high cadence.

antoineg

I'm not an expert, but I thought that the idea of lactic acid causing soreness was pretty much disproven by this point?

Also, what I recall reading is that the lactate threshold was quite possibly a "dummy marker" -- easy to study, easy to calculate, but possibly not a great indicator of performance, capabilities, or recovery potential. The best threshold to consider is AeT, but there's at best an imperfect relationship between AeT and LT.

Here's a very brief article outlining some of the issues:

http://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/tips/at.html

gntlmn

Thanks. That was an interesting article. It still doesn't answer whether or not low lactic acid production is an advantage for an athlete. It talks about the disconnect between AT and LT, VT. They used to be considered synonymous, but now they're not.

Quote from the article referenced above:
Lactate levels rise simply because production and release of lactate occurs at a rate faster than removal mechanisms can accommodate. For these reasons, lactate threshold can be accurately determined only by sampling blood during a graded exercise test.
End of Quote

According to the LA camp, Lance's production of lactate is lower than other athletes. The question is whether or not this is an advantage.

antoineg

Hmm...you're right. How about this one:

http://www.time-to-run.com/theabc/lactic.htm

or this one:

http://www.runningplanet.com/articl...?article_id=739

Interesting snippet from the second one:

ric_stern/RST

I don't think you've understood what i've previously written. You can't compare one person's lactate with another it's immaterial. the rider or athlete can produce a sustainable power and that is what's important. for e.g., i can ride maximally for an hour at ~ 300 W at an average of e.g., ~ 4 mmol/L. Conversely, i know people that can ride maximally at > 300 W at more than 4 mmol/L and others at less than 4 mmol/L.

On the other hand, and this maybe where your confusion lies, and this maybe due to poor journalism or reporting by his coaches, as i've previously stated as you ride at high powers you produce more lactate than at low power, however, as you get fitter you produce less lactate at a given workload. however, as can be seen above you can't compare that lactate with other people (the same as you can't compare HRs).


ric

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gubaguba

As far as the knee problems go I can say from my personal experience higher cadence will help. I have little cartlage left in one knee. I destroyed it training as a shot putter in high school. I can ride everyday if I use a high cadence. I can ride with force but if I do I'll be destroyed within a few days. It takes dicipline but it works for me.

musette

Leaving aside the lactic acid question, isn't it still compelling that when the heart/lungs are being relied upon more heavily, those muscles "tire" (in whatever way is relevant) less readily and therefore cause stronger performance at the end of stages and/or quicker recovery?

antoineg

This is complicated. There is the "local recovery" of the legs muscle fibers, and the "systemic recovery" to consider as well, which involves the functioning of the whole body.

It's not possible to totally isolate the two, and there is not enough data to prove your hypothesis. (at least not that I know of).

gntlmn

I'd say it's about time to fire off an email to Chris Carmichael and ask him what he is talking about in regard to a genetic advantage with Lance Armstrong and lactic acid production. After all this point and counterpoint, I don't see anything that suggests to me exactly what Carmichael must have meant.

Who wants to do the honors? Maybe what he meant is that Lance can shift his lactate versus power output curve faster to the right on a day by day basis. That's the only thing I can figure. Like for example, when Basso finished ahead of him up La Mongie, but then he came back stronger the next day and won to Plateau de Beille and continued to perform at a very high level the next few days. Actually, that may be what he's talking about. I can improve slowly over time, but I don't bounce back like those tour riders, especially Armstrong.

Do you think that's what he meant? I guess he would be the one to ask.

gntlmn

Thanks for the articles. They were very helpful. Indeed, the theory has refined greatly in the last 30 years as regards training and lactate. I guess I had too much old school hammered into me.

I know one thing, and this just happened yesterday. If I don't hydrate properly, my legs get sore, and I'll miss a day. This happens when I run out of green tea, which is easy for me to drink. I don't like to drink water except when I ride. In the article, it says leg soreness is from muscle damage, not lactic acid buildup. It just doesn't seem to be as believable as lactic acid buildup causing the soreness. I always figured that the hydration helped clear out the harmful acids. Maybe it is more a matter of facilitating glycogen entry into the muscles and the other nutrients as well when damage has been done. It doesn't seem like it would heal so quickly though if it's actually muscle damage. If I hydrate and eat immediately after the ride, I don't get sore at all. If I don't eat right away and don't hydrate properly, I'm sore the next day and feel the need to take a day off. I wonder if it's just mostly muscle glycogen depletion in this case.

gntlmn

Let me again open up this lactate can of worms. I have come across a very interesting coincidence which perhaps might be considered in forming a new paradigm as regards lactate. It appears that Michael Phelps produces about the same lactate level as Lance Armstrong at peak power output. Are you really sure that low level lactate procuction for the best athletes is not an advantage? It seems a rather striking coincidence.

This is a quote from today's New York Times article on Michael Phelps and his bid to break Mark Spitz 7 gold medal record.

Built to Swim

Published: August 8, 2004


(Page 5 of 11)



In testing conducted by physiologists from USA Swimming, Phelps scored as one of the weakest elite swimmers they had ever measured, but that was on such traditional tests as the bench press and how much weight he can lift with his legs. ''He's fine on land,'' Heinlein says. ''He can walk. He can do all the things you want him to do. But he's not extraordinary in any way. What Michael excels at takes place in water, so what does it tell you to test him on land?''

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At practice one day this spring, I heard Bowman instruct Phelps to ''get his hips higher'' as he lunged for the wall on the finish of his butterfly. The fly is the most difficult and physically taxing of the four competitive strokes, combining a dolphin kick, a constant undulation of the body and a motion in which the arms simultaneously are thrown forward before pulling back through the water. It demands tremendous strength in the abdominal muscles along with exquisite timing. Done well, it is a thing of beauty -- a swimmer seems almost to be skipping over the water like a stone skimmed across the surface. To access the muscles that would bring the hips higher at the finish of this complex set of movements is not easy, but Phelps got it right the very next time. ''What Michael knows how to do, everybody else had to learn,'' says Kevin Clements, a teammate on the North Baltimore team. ''And most of it, he knew the first time he got in the water.''

Swimming is an endurance contest not just within the race, but over a meet. And Phelps has one other gift, a freakish ability to recover quickly, without which he could not even contemplate a schedule in Athens that will require him to swim multiple races on short rests. At a meet in Santa Clara, Calif., in May, I watched as Phelps got out of the pool after a 100-meter butterfly. He was certainly winded, but not like one of those runners you sometimes see staggering around after the finish line. Physiologists from USA Swimming took a pinprick of his ear, routine at such meets for top swimmers, to measure his blood lactate level. Lactic acid is what causes ''muscle burn,'' a sign of the oxygen deficit that causes muscles to shut down. The race had been a long-anticipated rematch against Ian Crocker, the swimmer who beat him a year ago and at the same time took away his world record. On this day, Phelps touched him out at the wall. His lactate level taken immediately afterward was an exceedingly low 5.0 (5 millimoles per liter of blood). Other swimmers after such races typically produce levels of 10 or 15, or sometimes higher. (Crocker's was not measured.)

Like nearly all his gifts, Phelps's aerobic capacity is genetic in some measure but also greatly enhanced by the high-level training that began at an early age -- averaging seven miles a day in practice, 365 days a year. ''His recovery is exceptional when compared to his opponents,'' Jonty Skinner told me. ''He doesn't produce a lot of lactate, and he recovers to pre-race levels in 20 to 25 minutes, sometimes less.''

End of Quote

The last sentence suggests what I suspected and earlier mentioned--that low level lactate production at peak power production may enable the athlete to recover quicker. Instead of the 90 minutes recovery you mentioned for supranormal exertion, Mr. Phelps only takes about 25 minutes.

Does this give you at least a small double take?

ric_stern/RST

no, and again i don't feel that you or the person writing the article really understands what's happening.

As i have repeatedly said, lactate will depend on many factors, for e.g., at a given workload it will be lower the fitter you are, e.g., if prior to training you can ride at 200 W for an hour and your lactate is X mmol/L, after (e.g.) several months of training (assuming you get fitter) riding at 200 W will result in a lactate of X-Y mmol/L. however, it would be lower still if you did the ride in a glycogen depleted state, and will be different if someone else attempts the session. in other words you can't compare from person to person, and you have to make sure that conditions are identical.

these remarks by the various people interviewed are either off the cuff remarks or remarks that are made that are supposed to sound good, but they lack clarity.

i believe i said that your lactate level would return to normal within 90-mins, but that these were from supramaximal efforts -- which are way beyond what LA can produce (i'm talking about world class 1-km TT riders).

ric

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antoineg

ric: you reply in the same manner every time -- "comparisons mean nothing." The question under consideration is:

All other things being equal, does the fact that Athlete A has less lactate in their system at a given workload than Athlete B imply a performance advantage over Athlete B?

I just finished reading Owen Anderson's "Lactate Liftoff" and I would answer the above statement in the affirmative.

Either Athlete A produces less lactate initially, due to a better "glycolitic engine", or they shuttle it out of the bloodstream faster, and use it for energy.