Mastering Nutrition

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.

01:34:50

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Episode guests

Andy Galpin

George Brooks

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Quick takeaways

Lactate, contrary to popular belief, acts to alkalinize the muscles rather than producing lactic acid during exercise.

The biochemical processes of glycolysis illustrate complex acid-base dynamics, highlighting important reactions that contribute to muscle acidity.

Research on lactate supplementation shows mixed performance effects, suggesting improving muscle buffering capacity may be more effective than supplementation alone.

Deep dives

Lactate vs. Lactic Acid

Lactate is often misunderstood as a byproduct that acidifies muscles, but the actual process characterizes lactate as alkalinizing. Contrary to common belief, muscles do not produce lactic acid during exercise; instead, they generate lactate along with protons. The speaker emphasizes that this confusion stems from how biochemistry is traditionally presented in textbooks, which often neglect the importance of understanding acid-base balance. Lactate itself acts to remove protons from the system, making it essential for maintaining muscle pH during high-intensity activities.

Intro

40min

Understanding Lactate Biochemistry and Metabolic Pathways

3min

The Biochemical Role of Lactate in Muscle Alkalinization

20min

Exploring Muscle Fatigue: Mechanisms and Biochemical Interactions

23min

Exploring the Role of Lactate in Muscle Performance

10min

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:

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2:52 How textbooks present glycolysis

3:36 What is acidity?

4:32 The acidfying and alkalinizing phases of glycolysis