Lactates and erging

[MChase]

I stepped on another thread regarding lactate testing and thought I'd start a new thread. It's the winter doldrums anyway.

We started lactate testing a year ago and really only collect lactates during winter erging-- it's just simple to do on dry land and technically too difficult in a boat. So we've been testing for the last month, plus have many hundreds of tests from last year. The database of values is growing and so time to crunch some numbers.

We initially put the varsity rowers through a lactate step test, but I dropped that after realizing that it provided no apparent value to me-- we have no cuts, no tryouts, and so it's like getting VO2 max.....it won't change much. What we do get are lots of steady state lactates because we have an intense interest in moving that lactate curve to the right. With lactate on the Y axis and intensity (watts) on the X axis, moving the curve to the right means more power at the same lactate. That is our goal because it is universal among exercise physiologists that in an aerobic sport, that improves performance.

The first question is, can we move the curve to the right? Unequivocally we can. We see it reflected in higher watts at the same prescribed lactate level. It's a slow improvement, but one that can be measured every few weeks in our rowers.

The second question is, does it correlate with a rower's 2K time. We have enough data to now say yes and it correlates better than any other measure that we have. It even correlates better than the rower's prior 2K scores (hard to believe-- you'd think that a 2k - 2k correlation would be highest). It also correlates better than a 10sec, 30sec, 1min, 2min and 4min all-out sprint.

I've asked several times if one can be too anaerobic? I believe so, but an equally valid question is can one be not enough aerobic? How 'bout both?

Lactate is produced in the glycolytic/anaerobic "compartment" of each muscle cell as a by-product of that quick energy production. To simplify the view of the process, the lactate is flushed out of the cell into the venous blood only for some to reenter from the arterial side where it can be reused by the "oxidative/aerobic" compartment by being broken down to pyruvate and shuttled though Krebs cycle. There are many, many enzymes used in the process, all doing their job based on exercise intensity, available oxygen, speed of pyruvate degradation in the mitochondria, level of lactate, and thousands more factors. Still the underlying view from 30,000 ft is if you build up the aerobics sufficiently, you use more lactate as an energy source. Using more lactate as an energy source means the degradation of lactate and moving the lactate curve to the right (increased power at the same lactate level, not higher lactate).

So how do you measure this movement of the curve to the right? Simply measure lactate values at a given steady state of intensity (watts). Lactate testing takes 20sec, is virtually painless, and does not interrupt the training regimen. That is, it's perfect for long and slow workouts.

The chief benefits are that kids can learn whether they are improving, stale, or worsening (at least if the lactate values at steady state correlate sufficiently with 2k's and I am satisfied that they do). While the underlying goal is to PR on the next 2K test, the more immediate goal for each rower is to improve their watts of intensity with each consecutive lactate test. The kids know the protocol-- raise your hand to show you need a lactate after at least 20min SS at your prescribed watts. If you're in range or low, you may increase your watts by 5-10 watts. Test whenever you want.

The next question to answer is how to move the lactate curve to the right in the most efficient way-- what percentage of long and slow, long and slow at what prescribed lactate, what percentage of intervals, what about periodization and what kind, what about tapering....etc. Do some workout regimens work better for some but are lousy for others? Do the most "aerobic" need a different exercise regimen than the "most anaerobic"?

I have a feeling years from now I will come to the conclusion that it's easiest to recruit really strong rowers...but that wouldn't be fun.

[Stewie Griffin Should Cox]

The reality is that at the end of the day, starting with good raw material is key to producing a top athlete.

To coin a phrase, "You can't polish a turd"

In a rowing sense, it is the case that if you have a 160 lb female who has some background in sports and she pulls 180 watts at 4mm you are not going to produce and Olympian. Or the alternative is finding a 135lb femal who is producing 210 watts early in her rowing career. We are not all equal.

I am convinced that after 3 or 4 months of training for rowing Ursula Grobler would have produced a significant wattage at 4mm even if it was technically a bit rough.

Now of course there are other factors, boat moving skill etc. But the bottom line is that Watts per Pound is a pretty good indicator of potential.

The lactate test i.e. step test does show the slope of the curve as well and although the objective is to push it to the right, its is also to flatten it somewhat as well.

[Long'n Strong]

Assuming year-round access to water, if you do regular lactate testing, is there really any need to do erg tests?

[Stewie Griffin Should Cox]

Assuming year-round access to water, if you do regular lactate testing, is there really any need to do erg tests?

for a variety of reasons the answer is not no, but you need to test far less often.

[Arch]

...The second question is, does it correlate with a rower's 2K time. We have enough data to now say yes and it correlates better than any other measure that we have. It even correlates better than the rower's prior 2K scores (hard to believe-- you'd think that a 2k - 2k correlation would be highest). It also correlates better than a 10sec, 30sec, 1min, 2min and 4min all-out sprint....

Sorry, Matt. What is "it" here?

[JD]

Just to stir the pot, here is an abstract by Billat that I found on an SDSU website and taken for Sports Medicine Magazine. It is titled ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD - A RELATIVELY USELESS CONCEPT FOR COACHING and from what I gather, decries lactate testing as mostly worthless because of poorly understood concepts and application. The article ends with an anecdote about the '96 USA men's 8+'s poor performance despite lactate testing done by USOC scientists showing increased conditioning.
Here is the link to the entire article
From: http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/csa/vol46/billat.htm

Here is the anecdote from the end of the article.
A story. During the spring of 1996, this writer attended the ARCO Training Center in Chula Vista, California. One day a USOC testing group had completed lactate threshold and aerobic parameter testing sessions on the US men's heavyweight rowing eight that was to compete later that year at the Atlanta Olympic Games.

The eight had just completed a European tour and performed worse than at any time in the previous three years. Based on comparative racing performances, it was a boat in trouble.

The head USOC scientist related that the members of the eight were still improving in fitness as the measures that were taken were better than previous test results.

Despite improved "fitness measures" the eight recorded a performance that was worse than any in the previous four Olympic Games, and compared to the boats that it had raced during the recent European tour, it had also degraded in racing capability. The fitness measures indicated that training was progressing satisfactorily. Unfortunately, racing performances were declining. Training improvements in physiological indices were negatively correlated with racing achievements. In 1994, the eight were world champions, in 1995 world bronze medalists, and in 1996, when they had the best testing results, were fifth out of six at the Olympic Games.

Just what is the value of lactate and lactate threshold/MLSS testing for making coaching decisions that relate to competitive performances?

[MChase]

Sorry Arch. The "it" is "watts of intensity at our prescribed lactate range". During steady state, the kids use lactate testing to dial into an intensity (watts) that will keep their lactate in a narrow band. So each varsity rower has a current wattage that they adhere to during their long and slow. That wattage increases as they improve their physiology, but they can't increase their watts randomly ("Oh, I feel good today, so I'm going to pull 180 watts"), but instead are allowed to increase their watts when their lactate is low enough on a steady state test.

The other action we take is to get "random watts". The coxswains all come to erging and they are kept pretty busy. Once task is to monitor/record random watts during steady state on each rower. My interest in that is to learn who is going higher, at watts, or lower during SS workouts. As these values accumulate, I will also correlate the difference with 2K improvement. If, for example, the kids who chronically go higher than their prescribed watts get better faster, then I will adjust our lactate range. I think I'm seeing a pattern already-- that kids who chronically go over their watts are more likely to get stale. Similarly, kids who miss workouts and try to make up by pulling higher watts get stale.....but it's going to take lots of numbers to know.

[MChase]

Just to stir the pot, here is an abstract by Billat that I found on an SDSU website and taken for Sports Medicine Magazine. It is titled ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD - A RELATIVELY USELESS CONCEPT FOR COACHING and from what I gather, decries lactate testing as mostly worthless because of poorly understood concepts and application. The article ends with an anecdote about the '96 USA men's 8+'s poor performance despite lactate testing done by USOC scientists showing increased conditioning.
Here is the link to the entire article
From: http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/csa/vol46/billat.htm

Here is the anecdote from the end of the article.
A story. During the spring of 1996, this writer attended the ARCO Training Center in Chula Vista, California. One day a USOC testing group had completed lactate threshold and aerobic parameter testing sessions on the US men's heavyweight rowing eight that was to compete later that year at the Atlanta Olympic Games.

The eight had just completed a European tour and performed worse than at any time in the previous three years. Based on comparative racing performances, it was a boat in trouble.

The head USOC scientist related that the members of the eight were still improving in fitness as the measures that were taken were better than previous test results.

Despite improved "fitness measures" the eight recorded a performance that was worse than any in the previous four Olympic Games, and compared to the boats that it had raced during the recent European tour, it had also degraded in racing capability. The fitness measures indicated that training was progressing satisfactorily. Unfortunately, racing performances were declining. Training improvements in physiological indices were negatively correlated with racing achievements. In 1994, the eight were world champions, in 1995 world bronze medalists, and in 1996, when they had the best testing results, were fifth out of six at the Olympic Games.

Just what is the value of lactate and lactate threshold/MLSS testing for making coaching decisions that relate to competitive performances?

John,

Great story! I believe it too.

We all know that ergs don't float. At our workouts, we spend lots of time on the slides-- two rows of slides are busy each night. We spend lots of time with all rowers erging together to improve timing. And kids will spend 20 sec every other week, or so, getting their lactate to help them gauge their best level of intensity during SS. Does it work for us? I think so, but I don't know yet (which I have made clear). I am feeling better about this big expenditure of time learning about the physiology and a lesser expense in $ in purchasing the equipment and test strips.

Also I don't want to represent correlation as causation. Increasing shoe size correlates well with reading skills. Of course-- take a 2 yr old with small feet and the kid cannot read. Take a 7 yr old, and the kid has bigger feet and can read better. Take an 11 yr old and the kid reads the best (and has the largest shoe size). Correlation is not causation.

One big difference is that I am testing lots of kids and I am not using AT, VO2 max, and lots of other parameters that an exercise physiologist might use (and have access to). I am using lactates like we use HRM's-- cheap, painless, quick. We are using a limited subset of lactate testing-- only during steady state, not a step test to determine AT, for example.

Another big difference-- statistical significance (I expect). I don't have 8 women. I've got in the varsity erging slot, 50 kids (of which most test). That increases my opportunity to learn what correlates. My n is bigger.

I started the thread because I had a big question nagging me-- do watts-at-lactate (what we call it internally) correlate with 2K score? Yes. 83% of a rower's 2K score (r=0.916) can be explained by their watts of intensity at steady state (when in their proper lactate range). Secondly, can the kids improve their steady state watts-at-lactate? Yes they can and quite remarkably. On the other hand, could they improve their VO2 max as much? Doubtful. Very doubtful but we'll not invest in that equipment to find the answer. We know that you cannot improve your VO2 max significantly.

There are lots of good rowing coaches out there and each has his/her own story of how they improved as a coach. "Better" for me is taking non-rowers of any physiologic status and providing them with the means to become good rowers most efficiently with the fewest injuries, burnout and staleness. That is, I want the experience to be good for our kids and their parents. I want our kids to believe that we can provide them with a means to their end. Lactates might help these kids by allowing them to set more immediate goals (improve my SS by 5-10 watts in the next 2 weeks), and then to improve again, and again. The winter is long.

It might be working.

[southernrower]

Maybe an interesting test would be to find out what the lactic acid threshold at 4mmol is in Watts for all members of the Natl team using a standardized protocol and see how close they are. If they are highly correlated to 2k times then the argument would be solved at least on the training part. On the water a team boat is a whole different bucket of minnows since there is more involved in making a boat move than only fitness.

[Long'n Strong]

The reality is that at the end of the day, starting with good raw material is key to producing a top athlete.

To coin a phrase, "You can't polish a turd"

In a rowing sense, it is the case that if you have a 160 lb female who has some background in sports and she pulls 180 watts at 4mm you are not going to produce and Olympian. Or the alternative is finding a 135lb femal who is producing 210 watts early in her rowing career. We are not all equal.

I am convinced that after 3 or 4 months of training for rowing Ursula Grobler would have produced a significant wattage at 4mm even if it was technically a bit rough.

Now of course there are other factors, boat moving skill etc. But the bottom line is that Watts per Pound is a pretty good indicator of potential.

The lactate test i.e. step test does show the slope of the curve as well and although the objective is to push it to the right, its is also to flatten it somewhat as well.

How do you suggest we achieve significant increases in watts at 4mm? Lots of power SS at 18spm (as preached by Carlos), bungee pieces at low rates (per Gluckman), three hour marathon weight-lifting sessions (Grinko), multiple 3ks at 26spm (Buschbacher), miles and miles at 1.5mm (Aitken)or some combination of all the above?

[Arch]

Sorry Arch. The "it" is "watts of intensity at our prescribed lactate range".

OK, I'm going to hazard a guess that the correlation is dependent on choosing the right prescription. I take it you're saying that if you have two rowers who both pull W watts at n mmol/l, then they will be close to pulling the same 2k assuming you choose the appropriate value for n. Two rowers who consistently put out 175 watts at 2 mmol/l may not have the same output as each other at 4 mmol/l. Different deflection points. So only one of the values (i.e. either at 2 mmol/l or at 4 mmol/l) can be well-correlated. Or are you saying that your data suggests that you get correlation regardless of the selected lactate concentration (within reason)?

[MChase]

You are correct. Since lactates are not always right on, I will take normalize lactates which are close, adjusting the kid's watts as well , to give the kids a better idea of what they should be pulling. If a lactate is 0.5 high, for example, I will normalize it and decrease their watts appropriately. Similarly, if they are just under. I feel comfortable doing that after looking at lots of lactate/watt combos in the lower lactate range where the lactate curve is more linear.

[jrc]

The second question is, does it correlate with a rower's 2K time. We have enough data to now say yes and it correlates better than any other measure that we have. It even correlates better than the rower's prior 2K scores (hard to believe-- you'd think that a 2k - 2k correlation would be highest). It also correlates better than a 10sec, 30sec, 1min, 2min and 4min all-out sprint.

Really interesting stuff. Please keep posting your findings.


Quick question. Are you correlating watts-watts in all cases? I ask because the non-linear relationship could throw off your numbers if you used speed or time or distance.

[MChase]

Yes, everything that we do is based ultimately on watts. Though the kids record 2Ks as a time, my database program converts and stores average watts. An exception is the 10-sec watt test where they record the highest watts achieved during the test.

We did 2K testing last night (5 wks after our last) and my "r" on rerunning Pierson's coefficient dropped ever so slightly to r = .90, but still accounts for 81% of their 2K score.

It was fun running the numbers on the kid's watts-at-SS (what we also call "watts-at-lactate") and telling quite a few, "Your numbers reflect that you will PR today." during the warm-up. (My daughter did the regression analysis to create an equation where I can plug in their watts-at-SS and predict their 2K). And most of them did indeed. One notable exception was a rower who took it to heart too much and flied-and-died, missing a PR.

Which brings up the point that SS rowing at a prescribed lactate is easy enough rowing. It does not have much a psychological component because it's not like doing an all-out 6K. I'm sure a big part of that 17% of a 2K score that cannot be accounted for by SS watts is the significant psychological aspect of a 2K, the dumb mistakes made in pacing, and the acute illness (the usual winter coughs and bronchitis).

I ran some quick numbers on improvement versus number of prior erg tests. As you'd guess, the greater the prior number of 2K tests, the slower the improvement.

There were several outliers last night. For example, one of the kids was just getting over illness and she was far, far off of her PR and predicted 2K. The flied-and-died didn't help but he was not nearly as far off of a PR. So I need to rerun the numbers without at least the worst outlier. The other to-do is to retest lactates in those who have not tested in the last 2 wks so that we have watts-at-lactate in temporal proximity to last night's 2K.

We do not include novices in these numbers because we don't lactate test them unless we invite them to the varsity workout slot.

[Stewie Griffin Should Cox]

The thing I really like about your approach Matt is that you work with large numbers of athletes, see great improvements across the majority of your athletes and can make strong recomendations based on solid information.

In truth the conclusions you are coming to support the conslusions the BOA and Institute of Sport have come to about a SS based training program. I think what you have really nailed down is the optimal training ranges for your athletes but also worked out how to keep these ranges fluidly moving and relevent with perhaps a quicker pace of improvement than you would find with an elite athlete.

For me this sort of post is far more credible that others (outside of this board) that I have read recently which advize on a training methodology based on pretty much the experience of one successful athlete. There are athletes who you can almost throw any program at and they will improve and become exceptional. These athletes actually are dangerous in a team environment when a coach says, we should all do what he/she does because it worked for them. In following that program the "Norm" athlete gets blown to shreds.

Reality also is that even this super athlete will either fall apart or actually reach a higher peak if trained properly. If you take Xeno, he was successful prior to the Aitken influence, but once Marty took full control and completely set his program, success became a matter of course and performance pretty much entirely predictable. I dare say he would have been in the mix in Atlanta on any program, but his dominance was due to absolutely maximizing his potential.

I will say though it IS difficult sometimes to convince athletes that a program like this works. If it doesnt hurt its not helping is a many peoples idea and psychologically they struggle to believe that they are optimized because they haven't put themself through suifficient agony.