TRIATHLON AND THRESHOLD TRAINING

As it was said on the previous post:

In Medicine, if one does not know the consequences of knowing just a part of the equation related to the problem we are facing it could be pretty dangerous.  People actually die.  Regarding triathlon training is something different, but our training could not have the expected results.  VO2 max is a marker that tells us many things about training but we should know the whole equation in order to possess useful information.  VO2 max could have prognostic value if we know the whole equation.  8 sept. 2012 VO2 MAX AND TRIATHLON

I will start with a short history regarding our experimentation with lactate.  We started measuring lactate to our triathletes and never found a lactate below 2mmols/liter before starting training.  We checked the system more than twice looking for mistakes and accepted for a while that the value was two as a baseline.  Over the course of years, we found out that the adolescents measured never had a full sleep and sometimes were out at night.  Oops! Sometimes measuring baseline lactate helps to know that our athletes are not sleeping well or not resting, whatever you want to believe.  Lactate was in closer relation to going out at night than the previous day training. In our experience, recovery sleeping is more important than a hard training day in itself.  Good for lactate at baseline!

It is pertinent that what it was mentioned on previous post regarding VO2 max is accurate for lactate also. Lactate was announced in a previous post: 1 avr. 2012 TRIATHLON PHYSIOLOGY FOR DUMMIES AND THE TENDENCY TOWARD THE MEAN  

When speaking about lactate, I have to show you a different way of looking at it.  Another language so we can see something else helpful…  In Medicine there are many monuments left for our heroes and at the end it is difficult to see “the real.” Lactate is the most effective transport of energy for our body in the “fight or flight” situation; when the body has an emergency, lactate is produced.  OUR BRAIN NEURONS USE LACTATE AS THE ONLY FUEL to do our daily task. I assume that neurons use it in general as the main fuel. So, lactate is “good.”  We have to produce lactate to get the neuro-fibers firing.  Around 4millimols per liter of blood allows us to finish an Olympic Distance Triathlon at our best pace.  The more tolerance we acquired to lactate the better we are.  Here, it is important to point out that sometimes the cybernetic equilibrium is lost and lactate continues to increase without being used by neurons or other cells (not in the case of Lance Armstrong as you will see below).  Anecdotal, we can say that even if we finish a marathon in “the sweet spot,” our lactate goes up above 10. It means, we have a tolerance to lactate above 4.

Keeping with the promise of speaking another language regarding lactate; the use of lactate by neurons will give us the NEURON THRESHOLD to use lactate.  “Lactate threshold” should be “neuronal threshold” as it has to do with the neurological training mentioned before in a post.  The neurons force the muscles to produce lactate in order to continue their work and stimulate brain neurons for the same matter. 

 29 mars 2012

TRIATHLON PHYSIOLOGY FOR DUMMIES AND THE TENDENCY TOWARD THE MEAN

Rate coding of muscle force

The force produced by a single motor unit is determined in part by the number of muscle fibers in the unit. Another important determinant of force is the frequency with which the muscle fibers are stimulated by their innervating axon. The rate at which the nerve impulses arrive is known as the motor unit firing rate and may vary from frequencies low enough to produce a series of single twitch contractions to frequencies high enough to produce a fused tetanic contraction. Generally, this allows a 2 to 4-fold change in force. In general, the motor unit firing rate of each individual motor unit increases with increasing muscular effort until a maximum rate is reached. This smooths out the incremental force changes which would otherwise occur as each additional unit was recruited.[9]…

Practicing cadence improves our “basic neurons” without searching to recruit more muscle fibers.  Improving our “basic neurons” to be stronger is done by increasing “work load (weight).”  The long distance work outs help with the neurological practice.  As long as one spins as one trains, the neurological apparatus is subject to training without involving much of the muscles.  The fastest the cadence, the better it is.  So far, we are away from the muscles.  We are talking about neurons which innervate muscles-using-fatty acids as fuel (“basic neurons”).  We train our neurons to fire “fast.”  The weight load makes the difference; as long as the weight is light we train basically our neurons to fire fast.  Once we increase the weight load we start training the muscle as well as the neurons.

To train at the threshold means to keep the “lactate balance,” between production and utilization around 4 for the majority of the mortals, by increasing work load or cadence.  There is a limit to the utilization of lactate by neurons but the muscles continue to release it and can go up to 14.  The neurons stop and you bonk.  The neurons stop because they fatigue, not because of the lactate.  I read in www.pezcyclignews.com an article by Dr. Cheung, where he mentioned that the single most important predictor for winners was increased tolerance to lactate (paraphrasing).  I will write on how to improve it next time.