The Two Hidden Forces Behind Every Lactate Test Result

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]The lactate profile curve is either related to a power output or speed depending what, you know, your sport of working in, right?

[00:00:08]And what is conventionally be done is people look for a right shift in this term in this curve. So that's the narrative, right? We want the lactate curve to shift to the right, which means we have a higher power output or higher speed at the same lactate concentration or at a given power or speed a lower lactate concentration. That's basically the right shift. Okay, let's think about what creates the lactate concentration.

[00:00:36]So the first place is of course the lactate production, right? So when you produce more lactate, the concentration should should generally speaking increase, right? This I mean the stuff has to come from somewhere. So obviously, in order to have a higher concentration, you need at some point you need a higher production. So it links back to your glycolytic system.

[00:00:57]How much glycogen is broken down or glucose glycogen is broken down and transformed into lactate, anaerobic metabolism glycolysis. Now during exercise and therefore also during your conventional lactate profile test, there's lactate combustion. And the combustion of lactate happens in the aerobic metabolism. And so the higher the aerobic metabolism, the more lactate is combustion is combusted. Therefore, the concentration, which is the result so to speak, how much is produced, how much is combusted, the concentration will be lower. And those two system combined create the concentration.

[00:01:32]Right? The concentration is that you measure in your earlobe at the finger at the end of the of an increment an increment of the step in the lactate profile testing as a result of a certain production and a certain combustion.