tankman10024

I dont know if this is true or not but someone told me that Tums is good to help with lactic acid. Has anyone ever heard of this being true?

Thx
tankman

andre nickatina

Just take MSM...

Tums and similar OTC products generally are not healthy long term. MSM on the other hand is 34% bioavailable sulfur. Your body uses it to make all kinds of neat things like glocousamine. One of sulfur's functions is keeping cells supple. This translates to faster recovery times for athletes, and less soreness after exercise.

DannoXYZ 

Depends upon when and how you get that lactic acid. This is a sign that you're exerting your muscles over its LT-lactate threshold. One way to combat this is stronger more efficient muscles and you'll have an easier time with that same load. That's what training is all about. A more immediate solution is to exert less force, and in order to maintain the same power-output and speed, exert that lower-force faster. Meaning lower-gears and spinning faster.

The other way is if you're trying to extract the most out of your existing strength, such as doing a sprint at the end of a race where you HAVE to be pushing 100% for as long as you can. The track-sprinters use bicarbonate loading as well. About 1-2 table-spoons of baking-soda in 8-oz water sloshed down 15-20 minutes before the even really helps combat the lactic-acid burn and extends 100% effort duration for an extra 5-8 seconds.


So, depending upon when you are experiencing this lactic-acid burn, you may just need to select proper gears, train more, or do come bi-carb loading. You'll have to eat two entire rolls of Tums in order to get the same effect as two tablespoons of baking-soda. Warning, stomach-upsets may be a side-effect of sufficient quantities to have a beneficial effect on performance.

Machka 

Where exactly do you think lactic acid is located?

Roody

That's a good question. I think there's some doubt if it even is located in the human body. My understanding is that lactic acid may be produced in the muscle cells as a result of the anaerobic conversion of glycogen into ATP (glycolysis). I've read that the lactic acid (if it exists) is immediately transformed into lactate, found in the blood, which is then used as a fuel (along with glucose and other substances) in aerobic energy production.

In other words, far from causing fatigue, lactate is really an important fuel for endurance activities. Pretty cool--lactate is like a waste product of one energy process, and also one of the fuels for the next energy process. Molecular efficiency is amazing!

Here's an article in Cycling News by Dario Fredrick that explains the process pretty well, if it's accurate.

Machka 

And my biology textbook says this:

"Human muscle cells make ATP by lactic acid fermantation when oxygen is scarce. This occurs during the early stages of strenuous exercise, when sugar catabolism for ATP production outpaces the muscle's supply of oxygen from the blood. Under these conditions, the cells switch from aerobic respiration to fermentation. The lactate that accumulates may cause muscle fatigue and pain, but the lactate is gradually carried away by the blood to the liver. Lactate is converted back to pyruvate (oxidized glucose) by liver cells."



On the other hand "TUMS work by neutralizing the acid in the stomach." https://www.tums.com/

ModoVincere

I believe the increase in our breathing is to partially to counteract the effects of increase lactic acid production. The body can convert some of the extra CO2 into a carbonate inon (CO3) which is a base, and is then used to absorb some of the extra acid produced. In order for this carbonate ion to be formed, extra oxygen must be available, thus an increase in respiration.

A similar increase in respiration can be seen in patients experiencing various forms of acidosis. Diabetics suffering from Ketocaidosis and kidney patients suffering from lactic acidosis will have very rapid (usually shallow) breathing in an attempt to absorb more oxygen. The body will then use this oxygen to form carbonate ions to decrease acidity levels.

Roody

What's the date on your textbook? (Textbooks are usually a few years behind the current research and there's a TON of recent research on this question.)

From what I've been reading lately, anaerobic production of ATP occurs not only "during the early stages of strenuous exercise," but anytime when the cells' demands for energy outpace the slower (but more efficient) aerobic pathways.

Recent sources indicate that lactate does not "cause" fatigue, any more than faster heart rates "cause" fatigue. Lactate levels (like heart rates) rise during strenuous exercise as a result, not a cause, of increased energy needs. Lactic acid is broken down into hydrogen and lactate. The hydrogen might cause fatigue. Yes, some lactate is carried in the blood to the liver. Also, some stays in the muscle cell and is used as fuel in aerobic respiration.* And some lactate is used in other parts of the body also.


Tums is calcium. Some of it does get absorbed into the blood stream. But most of the buffering action in the blood is carried out by sodium bicarbonate, not calcium, AFAIK. And since there evidently is NO lactic acid in the bloodstream (no matter how strenuous the exercise) neither calcium nor Sodium bicarb could "neutralize" or buffer an acid that doesn't even exist.

*(This is where interval training and sprints come into the picture--increasing the rate of lactate conversion to ATP within the muscle cells, if I understand it correctly.)

(I'm no expert but I've been studying lately. I hope I got most of it right. I hope others will correct any mistakes I made. )

slowandsteady

All I want to know is...what is a supple cell?

Machka 

2005

Ganesha

Biochemically in mammals, anaerobic production of ATP is ALWAYS occurring at some level.

tankman10024

well thanks to you all who responded to this posting. Here is a good website that i found that has alot of good information.

www.active.com

Thx
tankman

andre nickatina

https://www.msm-info.com/

VosBike

I think we should make a sticky thread on this board with a summary and various links about the actualy physiological attributes and functions of lactic acid. It would save a lot of typing

jon10461

At rest, your muscles get their energy from several sources-glucose and other sugars, glycogen (the storage form of sugar), and fatty acids. All of these get converted to ATP which is the actual energy source used by the contractile apparatus of your muscle. To efficiently convert these fuels to ATP, you need oxygen to combine iwth the carbon atoms and form CO2. In the absence of oxygen, you can make some ATP (although a lot less), and the end product is NOT CO2 which your lungs inhale, but rather an intermediate in the breakdown of these molecules, called pyruvate. Pyruvate is then converted to lactic acid, which is made up of two parts-a hydrogen ion, which is essentially acid, and the other half, which is lactate. You convert the pyruvate to lactate so that you can replenish a molecule called NAD+, whcih you need to break down the sugars in the first place.
So, what happens as you exceed your LT, is that above a certain power output, your heart can no longer supply enough blood to get oxygen to all of your muscles. The ones that don't get enough, stop breaking down fuels into CO2, using oxygen, adn instead break them down to pyruvate and form lactic acid=lactate + acid. It is THOUGHT that the acidity is what gives you that burning feeling.
Now, the lactate gets released into your blood (along with the acid), and actually circulates back to the liver, where your liver can actually reverse the metabolic process and form the lactate back into glucose. So, some people think that you can take a lot of bicarbonate and that will help you. The theory is that thie bicarbonate, being a base, will neutralize the acid. This is actually true. HOWEVER, if you look at how much acid your muscles produce, the bicarb you take in would last like two seconds. So, MAYBE in a very short sprint you might notice something, but in any drawn out race, as soon as you started to make lactic acid (that first intermediate sprint on a crit or one hill in a road race) you would probably wipe that out.
In addition, your body is exquisitely sensitive to its own acidity. If you take something like bicarbonate which will decrease the acidity of your blood, that change is instantly noted by your body. Your kidneys are responsible for excreting the excess bicarbonate and would excrete it within a few minutes.

DannoXYZ 

It has to come down to numbers, physiology is quantitative and the results depends upon matching rates of various reactions. The effects of bicarbonate-loading has a yield-curve dependent upon the intensity of the exercise vs. the amount taken vs. the time since ingestion; yielding a 4-dimensional graph.

Background: JAP-Effects of lactic acid and catecholamines on contractility in fast-twitch muscles exposed to hyperkalemia

The imperical data is out there (numbers), talk to all the trackies. You can even gather your own data and find that the sweet-spot for bicarbonate-loading is about 2-3 tablespoons and it has the biggest effects on above-LT sprint/interval type workouts within 10-20 minutes. Absolutely zero effect on time-trials and endurance events. This particular article relates to the OP's question:

JAP-Maximal lactic capacity at altitude: effect of bicarbonate loading

"Six men [age 32 +/- 4 (SD) yr] performed supramaximal exercise until voluntary exhaustion at sea level (204 +/- 54 W) and after sojourning for 1 mo at 5,050 m (175 +/- 23 W), without (C) and with (B) oral sodium-bicarbonate loading (0.3 g/kg body wt). Exhaustion time, arterial blood lactate concentration, arterial pH (pHa), arterial PCO2, and intramuscular pH were measured at rest and after exercise. At sea level, exhaustion time increased from 6.5 +/- 2.8 min in C to 7.5 +/- 2.7 min in B (P < 0.05)."

jon10461

That's an interesting article! thanks for that reference. Nonetheless, I still wonder what the answer is to my question-the effects these authors saw were within 10-20 minutes (approximately the time it would probably take to absorb the bicarb from the GI tract and get it into the blood). I would bet that if these men rode 20-30 miles and then sprinted, you wouldn't see that effect.

DannoXYZ 

Yeah, in my experience, the effect is gone within 30-40 minutes, so less than 15-miles even. That's why I have a 2nd 8-oz bottle of water with just 2-3 TSP of baking-soda that I'll take in the last 20-laps of a crit... Also some caffeine to fight the sensation of pain as well.

edzo

enough jibba jabba
----
lactic acid, maybe yes maybe no with tums


but what tums does do is this:


increases available calcium in the bloodstream

the calcium ion pumps in the muscles refill more completely

net result is 'more power' to a perceived exertion level,
usually in the 2,3 hour point of a ride

------------------------
it means you can rip pretty good after an hour and you notice
you are riding a bit better and you can repeat sprints.


at least these are my direct results with tums. if I expect
to hammer hard on the way home, tums rides turn out better


take 2 or 3 tums chew them and wash them down and immediately ride