Abstract

Arterial blood lactate concentrations were determined in two groups of eleven males before, during and after near 2 W/kg body mass bicycle exercise. One group of subjects cycled for 3 min, whereas the second group exercised for 60 min. All the lactate curves during recovery could be fitted to a bi-exponential time function consisting of a rapidly increasing and a slowly decreasing component. This typical evolution pattern indicates that the two-compartment model which has been proposed to represent the movements of lactate after short exercise applies also to recovery from prolonged exercise. Lengthening exercise duration decreased (respectively 10 and 28) the value of both velocity constants of the fits to the lactate recovery curves, with the difference (28) being statistically significant for the velocity constant describing the slowly decreasing part of the curves. This result indicates that extending exercise from 3 to 60 min impairs the ability to remove lactate after the exercise. Verf.-Referat