Lactate threshold is one of those mystery terms thrown at sport newbies and it sometimes feels like it’s used to confuse us. Even I have done it in the past, like when I talked about becoming a faster runner. I think it’s about time to discuss what it is and how to use it in training.
What is lactate threshold?
According to Wikipedia, lactate threshold is when during physical activity, your body creates more lactic acid than it can break it down. Your body reaches this point around 85% of maximum heart rate or 75% of maximum oxygen intake. Obviously, there is a more accurate, scientific way out there. I am going to assume though that majority of people in here are amateurs without access to the fancy stuff.
Lactic acid (or lactate) is produced by your muscle in anaerobic exercise. And why would lactic acid accumulation be bad? Well, that’s what gives you that burning feeling in your muscle during a workout. Accumulate enough of it and it will lead to weakness and nausea (I guess this is where throwing up after a particularly intense run/ ride comes from?).
Lactate is actually not all bad – it’s recycled by your body into more energy. But you have to give your body a chance to get to it! It’s associated with some waste byproducts though and those do have to be cleaned out of your system. Not that it makes much of a difference at the end of the day, does it?
How does it impact my performance?
One thing you can probably guess right off the bat: if you are building up lactic acid, you can’t maintain this level of activity for too long. So basically the point of training is to move your lactate threshold up, allowing you to maintain higher effort for longer. And that’s the goal of training, isn’t it?
How do I improve it?
Proper training.
Yeah, right 😅. Anybody who’s done research on improving sport performance will tell you that. I think you were looking for something more specific.
In general, just like with working on your VO2 Max, you need to do some intervals. These need to be around or slightly below your lactate threshold and a bit longer than the VO2 Max runs – more like 10 minutes than 30-60 seconds. The more you do it, the more your body gets used to ‘recycling’ increasing amounts of lactate, which means you gradually move your lactate threshold up. And in the end, that means you can run longer and faster.