Posted by Cris LaBossiere (24.66.94.141) on February 27, 2004 at 13:37:27:
In Reply to: Re: Protocol posted by Mike on February 27, 2004 at 07:42:59:
It is best to test steady state loads, preferably after being at a specific pace for 10 minutes or more. If you don’t bring the Lactate Pro with you, then leave everything set up at home, test your self when you arrive, then head back out and do your cool down. Don’t cool down before testing. Ideally you will bring the lactate kit with you when you train outdoors. Indoors it’s a piece of cake to test while training, especially if you are on a stationary bike trainer.
If you are at a steady pace, 30 to 60 seconds of lag time for getting a lactate sample won’t change a thing, so don’t worry about it at all.
Hard training is not justified merely by the desire to do it, so I suggest re-thinking your training concept of “wanting” to train hard on certain days. Typically one-day rest is not enough recovery to justify another “hard” training session, depending on how you define “hard”. In this case you don’t require a lactate sample to indicate whether or not hard training should be done with only 24 hours recovery after the last hard training session, because generally this not done anyway.
While you may get some indication of fatigue with higher resting lactate levels, your lactate, heart rate, and power output levels durring exercise will be more telling of fatigue and recovery. Don’t forget to listen to your body; if your legs feel like bricks don’t train no matter how low your lactate is that day. Instead relax, go get a massage, and maybe do 20 minutes of easy spinning on a bike (don’t run if your legs feel thick, like bricks, or tight and weak).
The main variable you should test for is a gradual decrease in lactate for the same pace, or an increase in pace for the same lactate over time. This is a measurment of improvement.
Are you aware of what specific lactate levels indicate? Ie; what is a normal resting level, in general what level is ideal for aerobic "base training".