How Lactate Alkalinizes Your Muscles

Sep 6, 2024

Andy Galpin, an exercise science expert, and George Brooks, a leading researcher on lactate, dive into the surprising truth about lactate and muscle alkalinization. They debunk the myth that lactic acid causes muscle soreness and fatigue, revealing that lactate actually helps alkalinize muscles. The conversation covers the biochemical processes of lactate production, its role in preventing exercise-induced acidosis, and insights into muscle fatigue mechanisms. They also discuss the limited benefits of lactate supplements and effective strategies to enhance performance.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Lactate Export Removes Protons

Lactate export from muscle via proton-coupled transport removes protons, further alkalinizing muscles.
This transport and lactate production together create a strong net alkalinizing effect during exercise.

INSIGHT

Lactate Dehydrogenase Strongly Alkalinizes

Lactate dehydrogenase reaction alone can raise muscle pH by 3.1 units, a thousand-fold alkalinization.
Lactate production does not cause metabolic acidosis; rather, it counteracts it substantially.

INSIGHT

Glycolysis Acid Base Balance

Early glycolysis steps are acidifying while later steps (pyruvate kinase and LDH) are alkalinizing.
Net muscle acidity arises when acidifying reactions exceed mitochondrial respiratory alkalinization capacity.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

For a long time, most people believed that when we exercise, our muscles make lactic acid, this acidifies the muscles, and the acidity contributes to contractile failure, fatigue, and delayed-onset muscle soreness. Some people still believe this.

You may have heard the argument against it from well-known figures like Andy Galpin, or, if you’re deep into the science, you may have read the work of George Brooks.

In this lesson, we are going to cover the biochemistry of lactate production. We will see that we never make lactic acid, ever. We make lactate. Making lactate is fundamentally alkalinizing.

We will take a look at the presentation of glycolysis in the Berg and Lehninger biochemistry textbooks to see that, on the one hand, they give us everything we need to know to understand that the human body never makes lactic acid, but, on the other hand, they really do not equip us well to understand where acidity does comes from during exercise. This is because they do not consider acid-base balance important enough to completely present the proton balances of the chemical reactions.

Finally, we will cover what does cause muscular fatigue, take a look at the research on lactate supplements, and come to some conclusions about the best way to manage acidity during exercise to maximize performance.

This is part of a larger course on the biochemistry of how we derive energy from food and use it to fuel our wellness, performance, and longevity. Take the full course here:

https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/masterclass-with-masterjohn-energy

To see the slides, watch this lesson on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrpbLllsSHQ

To obtain the written version with timestamped slides for better studying, see here:

https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/how-lactate-alkalinizes-your-muscles

This lesson is free for one week. After that it will be reserved for Masterpass members. You can learn more about the Masterpass here:

https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/about

You can subscribe to the Masterpass here:

https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/subscribe

2:52 How textbooks present glycolysis

3:36 What is acidity?

4:32 The acidfying and alkalinizing phases of glycolysis