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.
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Former Member
I agree, this is probably not a great lactate tolerance set -- There is too much "recovery time" that allows for the body to remove/clear lactate.
The most common lactate tolerance sets are meant to be closer to race-pace speed and for you to produce AND and TOLERATE the acidosis.
This is usually accomplished through short sprints at near race pace with short rest (e.g. broken 200s, 10x50 on 40, etc.) or medium sprints on medium rest (e.g., 6x100 on 1:10.)
The set mentioned here is more of a lactate production set, and there is a difference. Here the body produces lactate to get used to it and is then allowed to remove it. These types of sets are typically short or long sprints at near race pace with LONG rest (e.g., 8x50 on 2:00, 4x100 on 4:00, etc.
And this is the reason why I don't think that kind of set may be ideal for lactate tolerance. I'm sure you are building up some lactate, but not enough for the jello feel. Mentally you know you've got a lot more set to go, so you don't put it on the line like you would in a one-off swim.
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Former Member
I agree, this is probably not a great lactate tolerance set -- There is too much "recovery time" that allows for the body to remove/clear lactate.
The most common lactate tolerance sets are meant to be closer to race-pace speed and for you to produce AND and TOLERATE the acidosis.
This is usually accomplished through short sprints at near race pace with short rest (e.g. broken 200s, 10x50 on 40, etc.) or medium sprints on medium rest (e.g., 6x100 on 1:10.)
The set mentioned here is more of a lactate production set, and there is a difference. Here the body produces lactate to get used to it and is then allowed to remove it. These types of sets are typically short or long sprints at near race pace with LONG rest (e.g., 8x50 on 2:00, 4x100 on 4:00, etc.
And this is the reason why I don't think that kind of set may be ideal for lactate tolerance. I'm sure you are building up some lactate, but not enough for the jello feel. Mentally you know you've got a lot more set to go, so you don't put it on the line like you would in a one-off swim.
