Plasma lactate decline during passive recovery from high-intensity exercise

PURPOSE: An athlete's ability to repeatedly perform at high intensities during intermittent exercise could be related to an accelerated plasma lactate removal ability during recovery periods. METHODS: We determined the decline in plasma lactate levels during passive recovery after an incremental exercise test to exhaustion on a bicycle ergometer in five trained and five untrained male subjects. Venous blood samples were taken during exercise and recovery for the analysis of plasma lactate concentration. The endurance fitness of the subjects was characterized using a variable known as the maximum turn point power output (MTP), measured in W x kg(-1). MTP describes the workload at which lactate levels rise significantly above resting concentrations. RESULTS: The decline in plasma lactate levels during recovery was determined at selected intervals from the exponential recovery curve plotted as a percentage of peak plasma lactate versus time. No significant relationships were found between the recovery parameters measured from the curve and the MTP values of these subjects (Spearman's rank order correlation; r(s) values from -0.042 to -0.31). CONCLUSIONS: Therefore, we can conclude that training confers no advantage to the decline in plasma lactate while recovering passively from exercise at equivalent relative maximal work intensities.