Effects of Breath on the Anaerobic Threshold?

New to training I have been reading on how to improve my performance. The first phase/workout I come across is aerobic training and how it can push back the anaerobic threshold (AT). The AT being the point where lactate is produced faster than tissues can remove it, thus concentration begins to rise. However the real benefits I have noticed thus far are the leaps and bound in my technique. But technique aside…

Being the type of person I am I like to understand every element of my sport and I am wondering how controlled breathe and any breathing (from normal deep controlled breathes and as drastic as hyperventilation during climbing) effects the AT, if at all.

From Wikipedia ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacti… (however citation is needed)):

“The increased lactate produced can be removed in two ways:
1. Oxidation back to pyruvate by well-oxygenated muscle cells
2. Conversion to glucose via gluconeogenesis in the liver and release back into circulation”

My question relates to number 1 and how to improve oxygen in muscle cells.

• Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about physiology and if rather than typing out large explanations someone would provide a link that relates to this I will gladly read and learn. Or if there is already a thread on this topic I will remove this post entirely.

Thanks for any insight into this!

Breathing won't help forearm muscles much directly because they, and their blood supply, are so small. This is why pack-a-day smokers on the French national team warm up on my projects (among other reasons).
You can increase your forearm blood supply via ARC training. ARC training in a nutshell is climbing right below your anaerobic threshold for 20-25 minutes continuously.

Thanks for the info! In week 2 of a 4 week Arc phase and loving it. Or should I say a lifetime Arc phase...

Ben Weigner wrote:Being the type of person I am I like to understand every element of my sport and I am wondering how controlled breathe and any breathing (from normal deep controlled breathes and as drastic as hyperventilation during climbing) effects the AT

Well you may feel the need to understand at a deep scientific level, but for most climbing training the key details are just vaguely informed guesses. Most of the decisions about your training program come down to "Famous climber A does X, so I'm going to try X". Then after trying X ... and Y and Z ... "Seems like Y mostly works best for me".

That's because climbing is different from other sports, and historically it was a small sport without much money in it -- therefore not much careful scientific study of climbing training. And even if there were money, climbing is just tricky to study.

Lacking any well-proven basis which is specific for climbing, climbing coaches sometimes try to borrow well-known concepts from other sports which have been better studied. Like bringing over the idea of Anaerobic Threshold from bike + run + cross-country ski race training.

My suspicion is that only a small percentage of climbers in a small percentage of performances get anywhere near an Anaerobic Threshold in the sense that the term "AT" is used by bike and run racers.

The AT power level for say bike racers is a fairly high percentage of their VO2max. So there is concern with global accumulation of (lactic) acid in the bloodstream generally. btw The performance problem is the acid (hydrogen ions), not the lactate. Lactate itself is a fuel -- it just happens to also be useful as a convenient biochemical marker for a sensor to detect the presence of Anaerobic activity. So racing coaches who are truly serious about managing Aneerobic Threshold in training (used to?) actually prick the racer's thumb in the middle of a workout to measure the global blood lactate level.

The muscle mass used by most climbers most of the time is much smaller than the mass used by bike + cross-country ski racers. So while (lactic) acid accumulation locally in the forearm muscles is important for performance, it's not likely to become a global bodily concern like for bike racers. And most climbers are not going to get their power / oxygen-utilization level up to anything like the percent of VO2max which those same climbers could reach if they were doing fast uphill running.

But for many people it's easier to emotionally commit to their climbing workout of the day if they believe it has a scientific basis. So throwing around terms like "Anaerobic Threshold" and "Oxidation of lactate back to pyruvate" may be helpful.

Ken

hint: If you feel you have a conscious choice about how to breathe at some point during your workout, then you are not at your "Anaerobic Threshold" at that time (using AT in the sense of bike racers).

So racing coaches who are truly serious about managing Aneerobic Threshold in training (used to?) actually prick the racer's thumb in the middle of a workout to measure the global blood lactate level. quote>

Still do. Some mma, boxing, and muay thai trainers do that too. Prick on the ear lobe is the typical method these days.

First off, you have to understand that the term "anaerobic threshold" is not universally accepted to describe what you are talking about. You are talking about lactate threshold, and the two terms are not necessarily synonymous. AT has a lot of controversy behind "what it means".

Lactate can be used as a fuel. There is evidence it can be directly shuttled into the mitochondria when necessary. This is not dependent on respiratory rate, afaik. Lactate is not your foe.

Heavy breathing during intense exercise is primarily to assist the body in ridding itself of dissociated hydrogen ions to maintain pH. Formation of hydrogen ions helps to drive increased ventilation, not the other way around. Breathing less/more frequently in a forced manner will not "stave off" lactic acid production....if that's what you mean.

Ventilatory threshold often seems to rise in a similar fashion to lactate threshold, but studies show they do not always occur at the same work rate. So your breathing is not necessarily indicative of your precise biochemical state.

The liver also removes a great deal of lactate. I don't believe oxygen has any role in this.

It is important to realize that there is no evidence to support the idea that muscles lack oxygen at any work rate, not even at the highest intensities of exercise. So, maybe this will help you realize that you do not need to focus your energy on specific breathing techniques for whatever you want to know/do (which I actually didn't really understand anyway).

What if you could increase your RBC levels? Would this help remove
lactic acid?

Since red blood cells carry oxygen, and the muscles aren't deprived of oxygen at any point, and lactate forms when the percentage of contributing aerobic metabolism is dropping....well, I'll leave it to you to make the connection.

I should mention that the H+ accumulation in the blood is believed by some physiologists to be the result of things other than lactic acid production.

Layperson translation: quit being obsessed with trying to remove lactate.

Aerili wrote:the muscles aren't deprived of oxygen at any point, and lactate forms when the percentage of contributing aerobic metabolism is dropping

Why is the percentage of aerobic metabolism dropping if the muscles aren't deprived of oxygen? Do you disagree that lactic acid is formed when the final electron acceptor, 02, is lacking? Also, it seems that breath holding, during a crux sequence for example, could lead to retention of CO2 and an attendant drop in pH.

Aerili wrote: Layperson translation: quit being obsessed with trying to remove lactate.

I suppose the pretty much sums up my questions following the explanations. I tried my best to pose what seems to be a complicated question without sounding completely ignorant (and failed). Thanks for the insight.

Daniel Winder wrote: Why is the percentage of aerobic metabolism dropping if the muscles aren't deprived of oxygen?

The percentage is dropping because when exercise intensity rises, the contributing percentage of anaerobic metabolism rises. It is not a requirement for oxygen to be absent for this to happen. Studies have shown that the muscle is not hypoxic even during maximal exercise.

Daniel Winder wrote:Do you disagree that lactic acid is formed when the final electron acceptor, 02, is lacking?

I agree that lactate is formed when glycolysis occurs. Glycolysis is dependent on exercise intensity. I know the traditional view is because there is also an absence of O2, but from what I understand, this research by AV Hill et al appears faulty and is over 80 years old. Modern in vivo studies say otherwise. It makes sense that if the substrate is unable/improper to supply the demand, it doesn't matter if O2 is present or not.

Daniel wrote:Also, it seems that breath holding, during a crux sequence for example, could lead to retention of CO2 and an attendant drop in pH.

While respiratory compensation is an important regulator of blood pH during exercise, it has less immediate influence on muscle pH. Muscles have more immediate methods of buffering. So I think whether you breathe or not for a few seconds during an anaerobic crux move-- your muscle pH probably isn't too affected (also people only hold their breath for so long). This is not to say that breathing isn't important in performance as a whole or to prevent Valsalva maneuvers. Although, his question wasn't about PCO2.

P.S. Ben, I didn't think you sounded ignorant, your exact question just wasn't totally clear to me.

To add to what Aerili said about an increase in anaerobic metabolism, a major reason for this is that at higher exercise intensities, we are recruiting more type II (fast twitch) muscle fibers which have a very limited capability to carry out aerobic energy production and rely upon glycolysis to create energy.

Additionally, to respond the question about lactic acid production being a result of low oxygen, there are a lot of other enzymes and substrates that are required to be available in order for us to carry out aerobic metabolism. The lack of oxygen in the muscle/blood is very likely not a limiting factor (at sea level anyway).

kenr wrote:That's because climbing is different from other sports, and historically it was a small sport without much money in it -- therefore not much careful scientific study of climbing training. And even if there were money, climbing is just tricky to study.

What do you mean "was" a small sport w/ no money. Climbing IS small w/ no money.

As to the second part, I don't know how climbing is all that different from other sports. Human physiology and neuroscience hasn't really changed much since humans have been around, so applying sports science to climbing shouldn't be any more difficult than any other sport.

We're back to point A: there's no interest in applying sports science to climbing because there's no money on the table.

Brent Apgar wrote:I don't know how climbing is all that different from other sports. Human physiology and neuroscience hasn't really changed much since humans have been around, so applying sports science to climbing shouldn't be any more difficult than any other sport.

Climbing is different because ...

• there are so many different techniques.
• applied in such a wide variety of contexts
• and every (outdoor) context is irregular, complicated, and a little different from every other one.

Anyway even in sports with fewer and less-complicated moves (e.g. running and cycling) in a simpler and well-defined context (e.g. flat playing field) ...
I'm not seeing how scienctific studies have contributed all that much. Typically they come up with a scientific explanation or justification for some winning practice only after the coaches have been successfully using it for decades.

Example: Baseball pitchers had been throwing curved balls for decades before a correct scientific explanation was worked out.

Ken

AGParker wrote:... at higher exercise intensities, we are recruiting more type II (fast twitch) muscle fibers which have a very limited capability to carry out aerobic energy production and rely upon glycolysis to create energy.

Yes I think this is getting at the key issue.
My non-expert perspective is that difficult climbing moves favor Type II / FG = Fast Glycolitive muscle fibers because the Type I / SO = Slow Oxidative fibers are just not capable of delivering the most quick high-force contractions. The SO fibers can contribute something, but the major load falls on recruiting FG fibers -- which operate without oxygen.

Which seems to imply that you can only climb with predominately Aerobic metabolism if a large percentage of your moves can be performed with a force and velocity which is far below that muscle's maximum capability -- which is nice for long mountaineering routes, but doesn't fit with pushing your difficulty on boulder problems or single-pitch sport routes.

Unlike (non-sprint) bicycle racers who get into non-aerobic muscle activity because the rate and number of contractions comes to exceed the amount of oxygen (and perhaps substrate) available to support Aerobic activity ... Climbers get into non-aerobic muscle activity because each individual contraction in itself requires substantial non-aerobic contractions.

Therefore seems to me ...
for high-difficulty technical climbing, adding oxygen (e.g. by raising the Red Blood Cell count) is unlikely to yield a large improvement - (though perhaps a small performance gain? but surely not worth the increased risk of embolisms)

. (Unlike say for bicycle racers doing a Time Trial of say 20 minutes duration, where adding oxygen makes a substantial difference in measured performance) .

Ken

AGParker wrote:The lack of oxygen in the muscle/blood is very likely not a limiting factor (at sea level anyway).

I think phrases like "lack of oxygen" and "hypoxic" miss the point. In the thermodynamics of chemical reaction kinematics, there is no definite threshold between "some oxygen still available" and "no oxygen available". Raising the effective concentration of any input will increase the reaction rate slightly (though perhaps this is not measurable).

Raising the concentration of an input which is at a concentration (adjusted for its proportional consumption in the reaction) which is similar to or lower than the relative effective concentration other inputs ... will increase the reaction rate significantly.

So if the relative concentration of oxygen around the muscle fiber is merely "not relatively higher than" other inputs (e.g. glucose / glycogen fuel, aerobic enzymes), then raising the concentration of oxygen will increase the rate of Aerobic muscle contraction.

Therefore in a muscle-performance activity (e.g. non-sprint bicycle time-trial) with a substantial Aerobic contraction component ... a higher concentration of Red Blood Cells (to carry oxygen to muscles) will significantly improve measured performance.

This is not just thermodynamic theory. It has been repeatedly demonstrated in actual races (not only humans but also horses) that high RBC count correlates obviously with faster speeds.
Why blood manipulation by racers will not go away: The rewards are too high.

I've found it true myself, when I come back home after a multi-week mountaineering trip, ride my bike up a steep hill the day I arrive home and get a personal best time, even though I haven't practiced any pedaling of a bicycle for a month.

Ken