Recently, I have become interested in the topic of lactate threshold, addressed in my Exercise Physiology class. I consider exercise to be a significant aspect of my life, and am always curious about new information to help me increase my physical ability and fitness. Lactate threshold occurs during the stress of exercise. Lactic acid is accumulated as the intensity of exercise increases; this is the burning feeling in the muscles during activity. The result of too much lactic acid is fatigue. In athletics, this is valuable information because if fatigue can be delayed than exercise can be more effective and last for a longer period of time. This immediately got my attention. After class I approached my teacher for more information concerning this issue. He advised me to research the topic from a scientific perspective. Having no scientist at hand, I turned to USM’s library database. I ran across an article edited by David Schipper. It appeared in the April 2006 Men’s Health magazine. Men’s Health is targeted toward men and was designed to cover multiple aspects of the stereotypical male’s persona, including articles on health, women, fitness, food, and the rest of the world.
I wanted to know how to train my lactate threshold so to delay fatigue during the stress of exercise. In athletic competition, any amount of training that will put the athlete at a level above his competitors is valuable. If an athlete can delay fatigue he can last longer than his opponent which as a result could place him in the winning position. This is especially important in the Olympics, the NFL, and other professional sports. This is also true for the average individual who wants to get the most out of exercise. According to this article, exercising at lactate threshold can improve fitness and cause your body to use lactate more efficiently.
This article is specific to lactate threshold, but also opens up a huge discussion regarding information about fitness. Much of the information about fitness provided by the haphazard informational kiosk, commonly known as the world wide web, has misinformed the interested population about the realistic terms of good exercise. Americans today are more out of shape than they have ever been, and magazines promoting the best diets and fat burning workouts have caused many motivated people to become uninterested in ever obtaining the body they desire. Popular culture magazines are generally more focused about what the reader wants to hear, instead of what the reader needs to hear, which is good in some respects but unhelpful in this respect. The information you normally see in these magazines is more times than not not going to give readers the results they want. This article is helpful because it has some valuable information for a population that needs to hear truth about real results. Exercising at lactate threshold can improve overall fitness, simple as that. I feel that the writer did a good job explaining the concepts of this biological phenomenon in an accessible way for the average individual. Although the writer did not necessarily address any common misconceptions, he did provide credible information that is biologically correct.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is really interesting stuff. My wife has become an exercise junkie recently (which means I have to become one as well, if I know what's good for me), and definitely I'm always reading all kinds of articles on the web about fad diets and workout regimens, many of which seem to contradict each other. It's definitely hard to figure out which claims are true and which aren't. In fact, I think that's the most interesting aspect of your blog post, the fact that you put the article you're analyzing into conversation with the overall debate taking place. This is exactly what Josh was referring to in this week's lecture video when he talked about "context": the conversation taking place within an academic field of study.
ReplyDeleteSo how do you know when you've achieved lactate threshold, and how can you improve that threshold?
Thanks for all the compliments.
ReplyDeleteYou can hook yourself up to a machine to find it out or you can just listen to your body. If you've noticed when jogging, biking, or weight lifting your muscles begin to kind of have a swelling feeling and you experience "the burn". This is lactic acid building up in your muscle due to the increase need for energy(ATP) to cause that muscle to continue work.
You can actually train this threshold in lots of ways. One way in particular that I've read is training at threshold level. So when the burn comes keep pushing. Your muscles can actually use lactate and convert it to energy. The excess is the burn you are feeling.
There are more details about training in particular but I would say being dynamic with any exercise is going to give you results; in other words, figure out how to push and motivate yourself. A mixture endurance exercise, with high intensity explosive exercise is what I am going to try. So basically, running for at least 10 to 20 (or more) minutes at a good rhythm so something steady and comfortable, and then sometime during the week do intervals of 4 minutes easy and 4 minutes hard and repeat as long as desired (at least try 2 bouts). It will be tough at first but you will notice a significant difference in your ability.
And if you are trying to shed some pounds (this is major) You HAVE to burn more calories than you consume. So if you take in about 3000 calories a day try knocking it down to 2500 or something. Anyways. I've been going for a while on this I don't know how much you want to know, but I'll share with you any of the knowledge I have on this stuff. Feel free to ask.
Thanks! Very useful.
ReplyDelete