Your heart is running on lactate right now.

Yep, it is true, yet nobody told you.

There’s a certain kind of coach I keep running into.

Smart.

Reads studies.

Programs decent work.

Probably has a whiteboard covered in percentages like he’s planning a military coup against weak glutes after watching "A Beautiful Mind" too many times.

Then one of his athletes starts fading under repeated hard efforts.

Legs get heavy.

Power falls off.

Face turns into that thousand-yard stare you only see in war movies and commercial gyms after Bulgarian split squats.

And out comes the same dusty line:

“Yeah, lactic acid will get ya.”

Nope.

And we beat that dead horse in yesterday's email since that old story needs a shallow grave and a polite funeral.

Because lactate is not the metabolic villain people keep making it out to be.

Your heart is burning lactate right now while you read this and most likely your brain too.

Not as a metaphor. Not as some fringe theory. Right now.

Slow-twitch fibers can use it too.

The liver grabs some, runs it through the Cori cycle, and kicks glucose back out into circulation like a deranged little energy laundromat.

So no, lactate is not trash.

Lactate is a great fuel.

Better yet, it’s one of the main ways your body moves energy around when the work gets ugly.

And ugly is where performance starts telling the truth.

Dr George Brooks spent decades hammering this point home: high lactate is not proof the system is breaking. It’s proof the system is doing hard, expensive work and shuttling energy where it needs to go.

That should change how you think about training immediately.

Because if you’re still treating lactate like toxic swamp runoff from suffering, you’ll spend your whole coaching life avoiding one of the most useful molecules in exercise physiology.

The really fun part?

Lactate doesn’t just help power the engine. It leaves fingerprints on adaptation too.

One of those fingerprints shows up in mitochondrial biogenesis.

Fat tissue gets the memo as well

Your brain converts lactate into BDNF - think of it as brain fertilizer for new neurons.

Under stress, fuel handling starts changing in ways that make the whole machine more capable.

Which is why fake-hard training drives me so insane to see that I want to toss battery acid into my eyes to make the pain stop.

I’m not talking about breathing a little heavier on the elliptical while watching ESPN and pretending you touched the never-ending void.

I mean real S.H.I.T. training.

Super High Intensity Training.

Short bursts.

Violence with a timer like the Concept 2 rower personally offended you by saying you have strings hanging out of your shirt instead of arms.

Enough effort to make lactate pile up like bar tabs at Milwaukee Metal Fest.

Then full recovery.

Try this on the rower:

Warm up
30 seconds all-out.
Track watts.
Rest completely.
Go again but you are only allowed a min of 5% drop off

Now the machine starts gossiping.

The watt drop tells you one story.

Recovery between bouts tells you another.

One hints at buffering. The other leans more toward clearance and recovery capacity. Related? Sure. Same thing? Nope.

Some athletes have a dragster enginie, but after that single initial burst, no amount of sildenafil will get then going again.

Other athletes may have a more modest engine, but are like the Energizer Bunny and they keep going, and going and going.

How you train each one is radially different.

Most coaches dump all of that into the same bucket and slap the word “conditioning” on it, which is like calling a knife fight, a tax audit, and a house fire “a stressful Tuesday.”

Inside the Phys Flex Cert, I show you how to separate those problems so you can stop guessing and you will learn the basics of what is happening during true high intensity interval work.

You’ll learn when the athlete is more buffering-limited versus clearance-limited.

And no, you do not have have to use a lactate monitor to do it. That can be done for sure, however I should how to do this without it.

And instead of relying on vibes, sweat, and whatever nonsense your athlete said between gasps, you’ll know how to find thresholds that actually mean something.

That’s how you keep an athlete from folding the second the work gets interesting.

​https://miket.me/physflex <--full details
​Payment plans are live at checkout via Affirm and Klarna.

If you need something else, hit reply.

Much love, lactate, and metabolic violence,
Dr. Mike

PS —"Dr. Mike T. Nelson has put in a great deal of time and effort to not only push forward the evidence base in the field of metabolic flexibility, but also to help translate this complex scientific knowledge into practical applications that actually help individuals, athletes, and coaches make meaningful improvements." — Daniel Pardi, MS, PhD, CEO humanOS.me

PPS — The AMA audio series expires tonight at midnight PST. Five calls. Four and a half hours. Enroll before then and it’s yours

​https://miket.me/physflex <--full details

____________________

Mike T Nelson CISSN, CSCS, MSME, PhD
Associate Professor, Carrick Institute
Owner, Extreme Human Performance, LLC
Editorial Board Member, STRONG Fitness Mag

Mike T Nelson is a PhD and not a physician or registered dietitian. The contents of this email should not be taken as medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any health problem - nor is it intended to replace the advice of a physician. Always consult your physician or qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health.

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