Burn baby burn

When you are exercising in the Anaerobic Lactate System, see the Energy System blog for further details, and you feel the burn, it is lactic acid formulation that is the culprit.  Lactic acid is the end product of the glucose metabolism in the absence of oxygen - hence 'anaerobic'.

You may be interested to know that dietary carbs break down and form glycogen which is stored in the muscles.  Lactic acid can cause temporary muscle fatigue and can take minutes to 2 hours to be re-synthesised.  There is a store of glycogen in the liver too and this will be just enough to see you sprint for a bus.

 

 What can you do to help the lactic acid dissipate?

• keep moving until you cool down appropriately

• adopt static stretches once cooled down sufficiently

• allow the body time to recover from intense activity

• adopt recovery work in to your training programme ie. sprint followed by recovery jog

                                                 

                                                   ATP 

                                                      ^

                                                      ^

Muscle glycogen ---> Anaerobic glycolysis ---> Pyruvic acid --->Lactic acid

                                                                                       v

                                                                                       v

                                                                         used in aerobic system

 

The diagram above shows the process of muscle glycogen being transformed in to lactic acid.

 

So, next time you're training and you feel like your legs, or your arms, or both are going to drop off, you know that your muscles are teaming with lactic acid and you are subsequently feeling the burn!

 

Like what you read? Sign up to the LSM website for monthly updates and special offers.