Lactato

REVIEW ARTICLE

Sports Med 2009; 39 (6): 469-490 0112-1642/09/0006-0469/$49.95/0

ª 2009 Adis Data Information BV. All rights reserved.

Lactate Threshold Concepts
How Valid are They?
Oliver Faude,1,2 Wilfried Kindermann2 and Tim Meyer1,2
1 Institute of Sports Medicine, University Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany 2 Institute of Sports and Preventive Medicine, University of Saarland,Saarbrucken, Germany ¨

Contents
Abstract. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Historical Remarks on Endurance Performance Diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Incremental Exercise Testing and the Interpretation of Blood LactateCurves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 The Entire Blood Lactate Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Test Design and Data Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Methodology of Blood Lactate Determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 A Framework for Endurance Diagnosis and Training Prescriptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Validation of Lactate Thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Competition Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 The Maximal Lactate Steady State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Lactate Threshold Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Located Lactate Threshold Concepts. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 Aerobic Lactate Thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 Anaerobic Lactate Thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Lactate Thresholds and (Simulated)Competition Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Lactate Thresholds and Maximal Lactate Steady State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Conclusions and Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469 470 471 471 472 472 473 474 474 474 475 475475 476 477 480 484

Abstract

During the last nearly 50 years, the blood lactate curve and lactate thresholds (LTs) have become important in the diagnosis of endurance performance. An intense and ongoing debate emerged, which was mainly based on terminology and/or the physiological background of LT concepts. The present review aims at evaluating LTs with regard to their validity in assessingendurance capacity. Additionally, LT concepts shall be integrated within the ‘aerobic-anaerobic transition’ – a framework which has often been used for performance diagnosis and intensity prescriptions in endurance sports. Usually, graded incremental exercise tests, eliciting an exponential rise in blood lactate concentrations (bLa), are used to arrive at lactate curves. A shift of such lactatecurves indicates changes in endurance capacity. This very global approach, however, is hindered by several factors that may influence overall lactate levels. In addition, the exclusive use of the entire curve leads to some uncertainty as to the magnitude of endurance gains, which cannot be precisely estimated. This deficiency might be eliminated by the use of LTs. The aerobic-anaerobic transition...