In this thread Fortress said:
Interesting Race Club thread. There was one post concluding that lactate tolerance was the key for the last 15 meters of a 100, not aerobic capacity.
Which leads to something I've been thinking about lately. I'm sure we've all had races where you try to give it everything you've got at the end and you absolutely turn to jello. I assume this is the lactic acid kicking in. When it hits you slow down very quickly. So how can we train to improve that tolerance?
Here's an article by Genadijus Sokolovas on the USA Swimming website: www.usaswimming.org/.../ViewMiscArticle.aspx
In it he talks about lactate tolerance type sets:
Anaerobic Metabolism (Anaerobic-Glycolitic) is the non-oxidative process of recycling of ATP from glycogen. Glycogen is stored in the muscle cells. Glycogen fairly rapidly recycles ATP, but it is slower than from CP. Anaerobic metabolism produces lactate. It is the main energy system for exercise bouts of 30 sec until 3 min. When distances are longer, aerobic metabolism predominates. Anaerobic metabolism has high power, middle capacity, and low efficiency.
Examples of swimming sets and distances that develop anaerobic metabolism: distances of 50 to 300 M/Y, high intensity swimming sets with a short rest interval (i.e., 6-16 x 25 M/Y, 4-8 x 50 M/Y, 2-4 x 100 M/Y, 2 x 200 M/Y with rest interval 20-30 sec etc.).
Anyway, I'm finally getting to my point here. The standard way to do this is using fixed sets like this, but has anyone tried something like swimming absolutely all-out until you hit that lactate "jello" feel where you feel yourself slowing down? At that point maybe do some very slow "active rest" swimming then repeat, etc. The goal being to build up the time/distance you can keep up that all-out speed. It seems like actually confronting that lactate wall like this would be a great way to help with lactate tolerance in races.
When I talk Lactate tolerence I look here first. It may not be current but I trust the info here. www.brianmac.co.uk/lactic.htm
I have referred this site for a few years.
Nice site, I'm no expert but I didn't see anything that looked to me to be out of date.
There is always a lot of talk in cycling about raising the lactate threshold (LT) -- actually, usually they discuss it in terms of "power produced at LT". That is clearly important in endurance races.
Most pool races are done well above LT, so two questions occur to me:
-- Is raising your LT beneficial to swimmers who raise well above it? I would guess "yes" but it is only a guess. Doing so might mean that less lactic acid is produced at a given speed (even well above LT), meaning there is less acid to buffer and less pain in a race.
-- If it is beneficial, can it be done in cross-training or is it more muscle- or sport-specific? In other words, does running or cycling (or rowing or whatever) -- in addition to any other benefits it might provide in general conditioning or strength-building -- help raise LT in a way that improves swimming performance?
Keep in mind that LT is often measured against heart rate...but heart rate is muscle specific (eg, using many large muscles will demand more oxygen and increase your HR faster). The important parameter is really "speed/power at the LT" -- in other words, what swimming pace you can hold right at your LT. I am not at all sure that raising my "power at LT" on the bike will have much affect on my "swim pace" LT.
I think exercise physiology is a cool subject, I just wish I knew more about it and could take an educated stab at answering these questions. Anyone here have any knowledge about this?
When I talk Lactate tolerence I look here first. It may not be current but I trust the info here. www.brianmac.co.uk/lactic.htm
I have referred this site for a few years.
Nice site, I'm no expert but I didn't see anything that looked to me to be out of date.
There is always a lot of talk in cycling about raising the lactate threshold (LT) -- actually, usually they discuss it in terms of "power produced at LT". That is clearly important in endurance races.
Most pool races are done well above LT, so two questions occur to me:
-- Is raising your LT beneficial to swimmers who raise well above it? I would guess "yes" but it is only a guess. Doing so might mean that less lactic acid is produced at a given speed (even well above LT), meaning there is less acid to buffer and less pain in a race.
-- If it is beneficial, can it be done in cross-training or is it more muscle- or sport-specific? In other words, does running or cycling (or rowing or whatever) -- in addition to any other benefits it might provide in general conditioning or strength-building -- help raise LT in a way that improves swimming performance?
Keep in mind that LT is often measured against heart rate...but heart rate is muscle specific (eg, using many large muscles will demand more oxygen and increase your HR faster). The important parameter is really "speed/power at the LT" -- in other words, what swimming pace you can hold right at your LT. I am not at all sure that raising my "power at LT" on the bike will have much affect on my "swim pace" LT.
I think exercise physiology is a cool subject, I just wish I knew more about it and could take an educated stab at answering these questions. Anyone here have any knowledge about this?
