Lactate has a bad rap. It’s blamed for muscle soreness after exercise and for causing muscle fatigue that forces you to slow down or stop – but lactate isn’t responsible for either of these. The burn you feel when you exercise intensely comes from a build-up of hydrogen ions. Lactate also doesn’t cause muscle soreness after exercise. That achy feeling you get after a tough workout comes from microscopic tearing of muscle fibers and the inflammation that follows. In fact, lactate is your ally when it comes to burning body fat. Here’s why.
How Lactate Improves Body Composition
When you work out at an intensity great enough to reach your lactate threshold, lactate builds up, but lactate is far from a waste product. It can be used directly as fuel or converted to glucose by the liver. It has another important function too. It stimulates the release of growth hormone and testosterone, two hormones that burn fat and build lean body mass.
According to a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, lactate build-up in the bloodstream is the main stimulus for growth hormone secretion in response to exercise. They confirmed this in a study involving participants with McArdle disease. People with McArdle disease don’t produce lactate during exercise even when they work out at a high intensity. In these participants, nine out of ten of them also failed to release growth hormone after a high-intensity workout.
Lactate seems to play a role in helping your body gear up to handle intense exercise by acting as an alternate fuel source and by stimulating the release of growth hormone and testosterone. This misunderstood compound is finally shedding its bad boy image.
How to Get the Benefits of Lactate
Getting the growth hormone stimulating benefits of lactate requires working out intensely for brief periods of time. One of the best ways to this is through high-intensity interval training. With interval training, you alternate periods of high-intensity exercise with periods of recovery. During the intense intervals, lactate builds up and during recovery, some of that lactate is removed so you can work hard again.
To maximize lactate, keep your working intervals short and intense. During the working interval, give it an all-out effort and then walk or pedal at a slow pace to recover before repeating. If you haven’t done intervals before, keep the intensity lighter at first and gradually build up to an all-out effort.
To benefit from lactate in the weight room, lift heavier weights and do more compound movements, supersets and partial reps that cause your muscles to work burn. When the burn is so strong that you can’t do another rep, lactate is stimulating the release of growth hormone to help burn fat and build lean body mass. Limit the rest period between sets to increase lactate build-up. You’ll also get a more pronounced after-burn when you push beyond your lactate threshold for brief periods of time. This means you’ll burn more calories even after your workout is finished as your body tries to restore equilibrium.
The Bottom Line?
Lactate is a “good guy” when it comes to building better body composition. It boosts the release of hormones like growth hormone that increase fat burning. Add some high-intensity intervals to your workouts to get its benefits, but don’t do them more than twice a week to give your body enough time to recover.
References:
Br. J. Sports Med. 2009 Jul: 43(7): 521-5
On Fitness Magazine. January/February 2011.
