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Lactate measurement
Train more effectively and with greater precision, reduce your weight or build up additional muscles through health-oriented fitness training.
Prevent or optimize the treatment of lifestyle diseases such as high blood pressure, obesity, cardiovascular disease and immune system weaknesses.
The goals you pursue are always individual. You can positively influence the results through effective monitoring and medical training plan control. I am your specialist for lactate performance diagnostics in Bonn.
I offer you a professional, effective and individual concept for your training.
In order to achieve optimum performance, the four success factors:
- the training concept
- the diet
- the regeneration
- and the motivation
be optimally coordinated.
Make an appointment now and come to my practice. My comprehensive range of performance diagnostics offers you the opportunity to objectify your performance progress and optimize your training based on an initial examination.
FAQ
The common test procedures in the fitness and rehabilitation sector with the aim of assessing and controlling endurance performance are based on determining the heart rate under load – usually on a bike. Various mathematical methods or rules of thumb are used in an attempt to determine the aerobic training zone, which is valuable for health. However, all these methods are flawed, as the dynamics of the heart rate are primarily influenced by genetics and the change in energy requirements in the muscle (lactate behavior).
This range cannot be determined with any test method that only relates heart rate to performance. Only with the help of the blood lactate concentration during physical exertion is it possible to draw conclusions about the individual metabolic situation. And this is so important because very specific individual lactate concentrations must be maintained for mild aerobic exercise (= the working muscles have sufficient oxygen available) with the aim of losing calories in the form of fat and/or triggering positive adaptation symptoms. This determines whether more fats or carbohydrates are consumed for a given training load and how high the optimum heart rate is for cardio/fat metabolism training or other training goals.
This makes it possible to improve the quality of the fat metabolism and the increasingly stressed immune system, to reduce high blood pressure – often in connection with obesity – and to cushion work-induced stress through training-related “vagotonia” (calming, balancing, HF-lowering situation) and to generally “feel better”.
Training 2-3 times a week with the determined values is generally sufficient to safely achieve your goals in conjunction with a targeted nutritional strategy.
If, during intensive endurance exercise, the oxygen absorbed through breathing is not quite sufficient to cover the energy requirement (ATP, energy-rich phosphates) needed in the muscle for muscle contraction, the acidic metabolic product lactate is produced.
Lactate is the end product of anaerobic lactacid metabolism (= the working muscles do not have enough oxygen available, so they have to switch to a less energetically favorable form of energy production) and is the best indicator for the objective assessment of endurance performance. The formation and metabolism of lactate increases with increasing exertion; at some point, an intensity is reached at which formation just corresponds to elimination (balance!).
Sports medicine refers to this range of 4 mmol/l lactate as the maximum lactate steady-state, aerobic-anaerobic threshold or fat metabolism threshold, which should not be exceeded during cardio/fat metabolism training. The optimum training heart rates for your goals are determined on the basis of this individual threshold.
In special cases, i.e. for competitive athletes or extremely untrained people, slightly different thresholds may be used.
Such a test is generally recommended for anyone who wants to train in a health-conscious manner. Such a test is particularly recommended at the start of training, combined with a re-test after 6-8 weeks. During this time, the body shows the greatest changes with regular training.
If you are already training, you can take such a test at any time and either optimize your current training plan or have a new one created based on the analysis.
For the average athlete, one test once a year is sufficient. For endurance athletes with competitive ambitions (marathon etc.) or those who want to become one, I recommend two tests per year. If possible, these should be coordinated with the competition schedule.
The prices for lactate performance diagnostics are based on the scale of fees for doctors and are between 130-150 € depending on the scope.
Individual offers can be arranged for several athletes.
In principle, for all people who want to carry out targeted endurance training. First and foremost, these are athletes who perform an endurance discipline as their main sport, such as runners, cyclists, triathletes, duathletes and inline skaters. However, team athletes and individual athletes from many other disciplines should also carry out accompanying endurance training.
Increased endurance performance leads to faster regeneration after exertion, but also, for example, to the ability to successfully perform a movement that requires concentration or coordination for longer.
Lactate performance diagnostics can now be used to control endurance training more precisely and monitor the development of endurance performance.
The amount of energy stored in the muscles is only sufficient for a few muscle contractions. After that, new energy must be made available to the working muscles in various ways. The body can metabolize fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Fats and carbohydrates (glucose) are particularly relevant for training and competition.
In general, energy can be supplied in three ways:
The aerobic metabolism (glucose and fat metabolism under oxygen consumption) is relatively slow, but due to the high amounts of stored body fat it is almost inexhaustible if care is taken not to completely empty the body’s carbohydrate stores.
The anaerobic lactacid metabolism (glucose breakdown without the aid of oxygen) can provide energy very quickly and is intended for higher exercise intensities. However, the time to exhaustion is severely limited by the size of the carbohydrate stores and the tolerance to developing blood lactate levels.
The anaerobic alactacid metabolism (energy production directly from energy stores in the muscles without the aid of oxygen) is only relevant for start phases and short phases of exertion, such as in acyclic sports (jumps, throws).
Always! Lactate is also formed at rest (resting lactate values are in the range of 0.5 – 1.5 mmol/l). Around 50 % of the glucose broken down at rest is metabolized anaerobically. Nevertheless, this does not lead to an increase in lactate levels. At the same time, lactate is continuously broken down, even during hard work.
Lactate elimination mainly takes place in the muscles (including the heart muscle) and in the liver. There, lactate is reintroduced into the metabolism and processed further. The half-life of lactate at rest is around 15 minutes (with a “baseline” value of approx. 10 mmol/l). It decreases at lower exercise lactate values as well as during active recovery, e.g. running or coasting. This should also make it clear that muscle soreness cannot possibly be the result of hyperacidity, as the muscle soreness occurs at a time when the lactate has long since been eliminated.
The current lactate concentration in muscle, blood and other body fluids is therefore always the result of lactate formation, diffusion, transport and elimination.
The following information is possible from the lactate measurement:
1. direction of effect of the training
Determine whether exercise was aerobic, aerobic-anaerobic or anaerobic.
2. current level of performance
The level of lactate concentration after the competition allows the ability to mobilize to be assessed.
3. aerobic performance basis
The lactate performance curve can be determined using laboratory or field level tests. This curve can be used to draw conclusions about the level of aerobic performance in the respective sport.
4 Conclusions for training intensities
Training takes place in different intensity ranges. By determining the lactate and the training speed, it is possible to classify a workout into the training ranges.
5. use of training aids
In sports where several training aids (cycling, running, swimming) are used, the effectiveness of the training can be better estimated for the corresponding motor movement with the help of lactate measurement.
6. application of training methods
Each training method, such as the endurance method, interval method, etc., has different effects on the metabolism. Lactate measurement can be used to assess compliance with the intensity and duration of the specified training method.
The measured lactate value can be influenced by various factors.
Daily periodicity
Similar to the heart rate, the blood lactate concentration fluctuates throughout the day. These are so significant that the test subjects should take the step test at the same time each day when repeating the test. It has been shown that the achieved performance values corresponding to 3 or 4 mmol/l lactate can easily separate an entire test level, from the lowest to the highest performance achieved in one day. Performance diagnostics should also be carried out during the main training period if possible, as this is usually when performance peaks during the day.
Nutrition
Influencing the lactate by depleting the muscle glycogen depots has also been the subject of many sports medicine studies. Such a reduction in the storage content of the glycogen depots can be the result of increased physical exertion, but can also have nutritional causes and can also be a mixture of these reasons. Eating habits in particular play a role after physical exertion.
This can be illustrated by the fact that lactate is a temporary breakdown product of glucose or glycogen. If the total amount of glycogen present is relatively low, less lactate can be formed. This could then be falsely regarded as an improvement in performance or lead to an overestimation of the person being tested, as the lactate performance curve of a test in a state of partially depleted glycogen depots, as occurs after prolonged and intensive training sessions or competitions, is shifted to the right or downwards. However, it often does not reach such high values as is the case with examinations in a state of filled glycogen depots.
The diet in the run-up to performance diagnostic examinations should be rich in carbohydrates and as low in fat as possible, which generally applies to the diet of endurance athletes.
Pre-workouts
Pre-workouts can also have a major influence on the behavior of lactate values. During intensive or long training sessions on the day before or on the same day as a test, the partial depletion of muscle glycogen stores can be expected to influence the lactate performance curve.
Exertion that exceeds the performance corresponding to approx. 80 % of the speed at 4 mmol/l, can, with a corresponding duration (from about 45 min), already cause such a distortion of the performance diagnostic values towards the positive.
The variability of the lactate behavior due to a pre-exercise is closely related to the endurance capacity of the test subjects. The higher the endurance capacity, the lower the influence.
The day before a performance diagnostic test, no or only very low-intensity training of short duration should therefore be carried out if possible. No more training should be done on the day of the test itself.
Scientific background
Scientific background and further information on lactate measurement can be found at
