[Scott Johnston]

Nick:

It depends on the intensity you were at when you stopped.  If you are into the red zone  (Z4) there is a good chance that your lactate will continue to rise for at least a couple of minutes (if not several) after you stop exercising. That’s because there is a transit time from the muscle cell to the blood.   The diffusion of the lactate across the cell wall depends on the shuttle proteins of course but alto on the difference in lactate concentration across the cell wall.  If there is a lot of lactate to be shuttled the blood concentration will continue to rise for minutes post exercise.  To prove this to yourself take a sample at 2min, 5min and 8min post very intense exercise and you will see lactate level climb and peak at maybe 5 minutes and decline after. The faster that decline the more aerobically adapted the athlete.

For more moderate intensities the best you can do is to be consistent in the timing.  A minute is about the fastest you are going to get this process accomplished.  With that consistency you will at least be comparing apples to apples.  You can take some comfort in the fact that the lower lactate gradient across the cell wall the slower the drop will be.  But everyone is going to be somewhat different. At least with the lactate plus you only have to wait 13 seconds to find out you messed up and need to test.  If you don’t get a good sample on the second poke don’t try again or you will end up adding another minute on tot he testing (with all the fiddling around).

It’s an imperfect science. Just try to make it a bit less imperfect.

Scot