What is lactic acid and why does it cause fatigue?

Far are the times when it was thought that the laces were due to lactic acid. However, this substance resulting from the metabolism of sugar is largely responsible for the fact that in an exercise session we begin to accumulate fatigue and end up retiring.

The lactic acid from the decomposition of glucose when no oxygen present (glycolytic metabolism), i.e. an anaerobic exercise as weight lifting or would run at high speed, where there is high intensity and short duration. Under normal conditions that lactic acid and when we are trained is reused and there is no major problem.

But when we follow an exercise with intensity, the lactic acid will begin to accumulate by not giving the body time to remove it. This causes the acidification of muscle fibers, which has two important consequences:

    • The enzymes responsible for breaking the glucose molecule are inhibited to obtain energy, so we cut the energy grigo of this way and as we know, if there is no energy, there is no movement.
    • It prevents calcium from binding to muscle fibers and consequently contraction.

Therefore, when there is a lot of lactic acid in the body, we have neither energy nor ability to contract the muscles, this is nothing other than fatigue and the best we can do is stop the exercise or activity.

How can we avoid lactic acid? with training, there is no more. Based on training, the organism deploys adaptive mechanism that makes the lactic acid does not accumulate so quickly and if it starts to do so, the muscle supports it more effectively.

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