The Effect of Aging on the Lactate Threshold in Untrained Men

Thirty-three men (age 26–55 years) who did not exercise regularly were exercised to exhaustion using an incremental treadmill protocol. Blood lactate concentration was measured to identify lactate threshold (LT, oxygen consumption at which blood lactate concentration begins to systematically increase). The correlation coefficient for LT (ml · kg −1 · min −1 ) with age was not significant, but when LT was expressed as a percentage of peak oxygen consumption (VO 2 peak), the correlation was r = +.69 ( p < .01). This was despite a lack of significant correlation between age and VO 2 peak ( r = −.33). The correlation between reserve capacity (the difference between VO 2 peak and LT) and age was r = −.73 ( p < .01 ), and reserve capacity decreased at a rate of 3.1 ml · kg −1 · min −1 per decade. It was concluded that the percentage of VO 2 peak at which LT occurs increases progressively with age, with a resultant decrease in reserve capacity.