For over a year I held out that lactate threshold testing would eventually
provide a test that would settle many disputes regarding exercise. Most of this hope was
based on Brian F. Sharkey's writings. I now understand this belief was in vain. Since
then, other publications by George A. Brooks, PhD (SPORTS, Volume 8; Number 1, January
1988 and Sports Science Exchange, Volume 1, Number 2, April 1988), (furnished courtesy of
Ted Lambrinedes, PhD) cast weighty doubt that lactate threshold is reliable.
Generally described, lactate threshold is that level of sustained work whereby the blood
lactate does not diminish as more of it is produced by the working muscles. Apparently,
this threshold is increased with training effect.
Lactate testing is defined in a number of ways; thus, the first problem with it as a
standard is definitional. In most disciplines this alone would be adequate grounds to
discard it.
Lactate testing is riddled with inconsistencies that are impossible to control in the lab
as well as in the field. The results of this test vary significantly dependent upon the
time of day, the food ingested and proximity to the test, the site of blood withdrawal,
the specific muscles worked and the time lag since the end of the exercise bout. These and
other problems make lactate testing hopeless for meaningful standardization. Of course,
this realization does not stop the exercise physiologists from using blood lactate testing
to gain publicity with its sensationalism. Witness the June 1996 issue of Scientific
American.