Michael Phelps

I suggest Phelps has a high lactic acid threshold, not low. His genetics may also predispose him to distance oriented events - perhaps the opposite of Crocker. We have all seen Crocker beat Phelps to the 50M mark in 100M fly, and see Phelps close the gap on the back half. Crocker swam 19.17 in 50 SCY free while at UT. Phelps just can't go that fast. But Phelps beat Lezak at Short Course Nationals in 100 SCY free - so his speed is still damned impressive. Outside Magazine talks about Phelps lactic acid in the January issue. It is very interesting. I have a high tolerance for lactic acid and produce a very large amount that I must tolerate. He apparently produces a very small amout and is able to get rid of it very quickly.

Outside Magazine talks about Phelps lactic acid in the January issue. It is very interesting. I have a high tolerance for lactic acid and produce a very large amount that I must tolerate. He apparently produces a very small amout and is able to get rid of it very quickly. Michael Phelps has an exceptional high tolerence level for latic acid. I remember reading an article about Michael Phelps before the 2004 Olympics and a test was performed on him and the results of those tests provided one of the reasons for his success. After a swimming race, Physiologists from USA Swimming put a needle to his ear to take a sample of blood to measure and analyze his blood lactate level. Latic acid forms when muscles burn during a race because of a lack of oxgen to them. When this oxgen defict gets high the muscles shut down and the swimmer has to fight this defict and avoid fatigue. His lactate level was taken immediately after his race and they found that it was exceeding low. It measured 5.0 (5 millimoles) per litter of blood. Other swimmers typically produce levels of 10 to 15 and sometimes higher after races. From this analysis, it was determined that his recovery was exceptional when compared to his swimming competitiors. Because he doesn't produce a lot of lactate acid, he can recover to pre race levels in 20 to 25 minutes sometimes less. This is a big advantage not only in meets he competes in but in training practice sessions because he could perform lacate tolerance sets and recover faster than others and his body can build up training adaptations to improve this. Because he creates very little lactate, he will be in less oxgen debt and will be able to bring his races home better than other swimmers because they will be fighting higher lactate acid rates and going into oxgen debt bankruptcy faster. One of the things that impressed me about Michael Phelps was his ability to get at least to 10 meters on every turn in his free. I have to watch the fly more carefully but he had an exceptional advantage in every race except the 100 fly because Crocker is very good also. In that race he had a slight advantage. In the last turn at the World Championships this past spring from *** to free in the 200 IM, he got an advantage over Ryan Lochte and Ryan is a very good underwater swimmer. Because he got that advantage, I believe it helped him win the 200 Free and 200 IM races. The less lactate production has got to contribute to this in some way along with other factors such as streamlining, and dolphin kicking strength. Streamlining and dolphin kicking swimmers can work on, but I am afraid that improving your lacate level to 5.0 is not going to happen.

He porduces so little lactic acid, it almost doesn't effect him. What I dont understand is that lactic acid is one of the natural outcomes of muscle constraint. It is produced, period. How can he flex and relax muscle without producing as he doeswithout producing lactic acid. We need some docoters or biologist, please. Disclaimer: I got a degree in kinesiology back in the 70's and spent some time as a grad student in physiology. My biochemistry chops are thus a little bit dated. Oxidative metabolism takes glucose and converts it to ATP, water and carbon dioxide. There are two stages, the early stage (non-oxidative - I forget the name) and the later oxidative part (the Krebs cycle). For the Krebs cycle to function you need oxygen, otherwise the its reactions quickly reach equilibrium and it all grinds to a halt. That's where lactic acid comes in. The output product of the first phase of the metabolic cycle feeds into the Krebs cycle when oxygen is available, but if it's not, it gets converted to lactic acid. More details here: en.wikipedia.org/.../Krebs_cycle en.wikipedia.org/.../Lactic_acid My suspicion is that Phelps produces less lactic acid because he is better than almost everyone else in his sport at delivering oxygen to his working tissue, not because he has some other metabolic process which avoids creation of lactic acid. If you measured his VO2 Max you'd maybe not see it off the charts, but it would be up there. I believe elite cyclists and cross country skiers tend to have the highest values. Here's one link people might find interesting: en.wikipedia.org/.../VO2_max Skip Montanaro

From Outside magazine: (...after Athens, he) may have collected eight medals, but his performance in the "walls," or transitions, was positively ordinary. Phelps couldn't push off and take more than four or five of the critical but grueling "dolphin kicks" in an entire race. So the pair decided to improve them, not unlike Tiger Woods's deciding to retool his swing despite being the best golfer on the planet. They started in the gym. Bowman added a 3-times-a-week, one-to-two-hour regimen of strength training to Phelps's routine. The swimmer has put on 14 pounds of muscle and zero fat. For dry-land training, they worked on plyometrics and the stationary bike. (Bowman long ago banned running - too much of a hazard for the klutz.) And they worked nonstop on his dolphin kicks. Three years later, Phelps had become one of the best transition swimmers in the world, able to surge underwater to the 15-meter limit on nearly every turn.

Michael Phelps has an exceptional high tolerence level for latic acid. I remember reading an article about Michael Phelps before the 2004 Olympics and a test was performed on him and the results of those tests provided one of the reasons for his success. After a swimming race, Physiologists from USA Swimming put a needle to his ear to take a sample of blood to measure and analyze his blood lactate level. Latic acid forms when muscles burn during a race because of a lack of oxgen to them. When this oxgen defict gets high the muscles shut down and the swimmer has to fight this defict and avoid fatigue. His lactate level was taken immediately after his race and they found that it was exceeding low. It measured 5.0 (5 millimoles) per litter of blood. Other swimmers typically produce levels of 10 to 15 and sometimes higher after races. From this analysis, it was determined that his recovery was exceptional when compared to his swimming competitiors. Because he doesn't produce a lot of lactate acid, he can recover to pre race levels in 20 to 25 minutes sometimes less. This is a big advantage not only in meets he competes in but in training practice sessions because he could perform lacate tolerance sets and recover faster than others and his body can build up training adaptations to improve this. Because he creates very little lactate, he will be in less oxgen debt and will be able to bring his races home better than other swimmers because they will be fighting higher lactate acid rates and going into oxgen debt bankruptcy faster. One of the things that impressed me about Michael Phelps was his ability to get at least to 10 meters on every turn in his free. I have to watch the fly more carefully but he had an exceptional advantage in every race except the 100 fly because Crocker is very good also. In that race he had a slight advantage. In the last turn at the World Championships this past spring from *** to free in the 200 IM, he got an advantage over Ryan Lochte and Ryan is a very good underwater swimmer. Because he got that advantage, I believe it helped him win the 200 Free and 200 IM races. The less lactate production has got to contribute to this in some way along with other factors such as streamlining, and dolphin kicking strength. Streamlining and dolphin kicking swimmers can work on, but I am afraid that improving your lacate level to 5.0 is not going to happen. I was under the idea that a high tolerance means that you produce lots of lactic acid but you can deal with it and process it out of your bdy. That is exactly the opposite of what Phelps does. He porduces so little lactic acid, it almost doesn't effect him. What I dont understand is that lactic acid is one of the natural outcomes of muscle constraint. It is produced, period. How can he flex and relax muscle without producing as he doeswithout producing lactic acid. We need some docoters or biologist, please.