Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #77: Gill1918 Presents Sports Physiologist Shannon Grady “The Basics of Lactate Testing” Powered by Coach O

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#77: Gill1918 Presents Sports Physiologist Shannon Grady “The Basics of Lactate Testing” Powered by Coach O · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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  coaches for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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  Think of it as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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  Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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  you grow as a coach. This episode is part of the
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  Youth and Beginner Series, brought to you by Coach O.
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  In this series, we focus on topics relating to coaching
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  youth athletes, coaching beginner athletes of any age,
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  and supporting brand new coaches as they find their way.
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  With that in mind, let's grow. Know the secrets to peak
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  performance that many Olympic and NCA champions and even the
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  top high school athletes have in common?
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  Well, I do. They use lactate data to drive
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  their daily training. Hi, this is Shannon Grady,
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  sports physiologist, Lactate Queen CEO, founder of the My Via
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  app and author of the Lactate Revolution.
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  Just a little background on me. I ran track in high school where
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  I became the number one recruit and I went on to run track at
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  the University of Florida where I ultimately became a graduate
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  assistant under Coach JJ Clark. I went on to become a
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  professional elite runner and triathlete where I have 4 top
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  ten world championship finishes in the ITU Triathlon World
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  Championships. Over the course of this series
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  on sports science applications and running, I'm going to dive
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  into the, quote, secret science behind many of the top
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  performers that have graced our nation's top runners for the
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  past two decades. My love affair with lactate
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  began in 1999 when I was a sports physiologist at the
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  United States Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, CA, where
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  my main job was testing and consulting our nation's top
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  Olympic athletes and coaches. And then I went on to perform
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  testing and consulting for hundreds of coaches and over
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  100,000 athletes in over 25 sports across the globe.
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  For over 2 decades I've worked in the background applying in
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  depth analysis and applied Physiology to the success of
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  thousands of athletes and programs which which led to
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  numerous NCAA, Olympic and World Champions.
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  In fact, just this past 2024 Olympic Trials, six of the 12
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  women in the semi final of the women's 800 had either tested
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  with me or a coach I work with and uses or has used my model in
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  their college or pro training careers.
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  But why did my journey begin? Well, because I was working at
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  the US Olympic Training Center. I did what most sports
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  scientists do. I have one of the top positions
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  in the country as a sports physiologist, and I thought,
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  wow, this is going to be awesome.
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  I'm going to be providing our nation's top athletes with the
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  best information and the best resources in order to make
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  Olympic champions from Team USA. So I did what most sports
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  scientists do. I performed testing.
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  I collected data, I analyzed data, but I provided no
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  actionable insights to those coaches or athletes.
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  I would test, analyze, rinse and repeat.
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  Coaches and athletes would go on their merry way, continue the
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  same training, and hope the next time they came to the center to
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  get tested that their tests got better.
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  They got some nice data, but no actionable solutions for our
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  nation's Olympic athletes. What?
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  Like, what is going on here? This approach was just not
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  enough for me. I was actually in a unique
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  position as an elite athlete and sports scientist.
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  I wanted the data, but I also wanted solutions.
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  How can I improve? Why is this training not working
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  for me or somebody else, yet somebody else that's doing the
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  same training is making great improvements?
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  This was the ultimate question. That is when my mission began.
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  Figure out the what, why and how to improve human performances.
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  I got out from behind the data and integrated with athletes and
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  coaches in the masses. Over the next 6 to 8 years is
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  when I built my model. I've tested thousands of
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  athletes, more than 100,000 tests, and some athletes were
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  tested every 4:00 to 6:00 every four to six weeks for four or
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  more years straight. This is what it took for me to
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  create a repeatable, predictable model of stimulus response to be
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  able to precisely train lactate. That's right, you heard it.
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  I'm precisely training lactate. I did this through various
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  workout manipulations such as specific pace, pace designations
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  for each athlete, work intervals, rest intervals, and
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  total volume to create predictable, repeatable lactate
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  responses across the entire lactate spectrum.
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  And what I did was address all four important aspects of
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  lactate dynamics, which includes clearing or elimination, lactate
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  buffering, lactate shuttling, and lactate production.
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  Not once did I just focus on the quote UN quote standard lactate
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  threshold or flattening that lactate curve, but I, I went to
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  actually focus beyond that quote UN quote lactate threshold and
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  all aspects of lactate dynamics, which to the shock of many are
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  important. All of those aspects, the
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  clearing elimination, the buffering, the shuttling, and
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  the production all lead to human performance optimization and
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  performance gains. Today I'm going to kick things
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  off and talk about the basics of lactate, demystifying what it
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  really is and why it can be your secret weapon too.
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  In training for athletes, coaches young and old, whether
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  you're just starting out in track and field or a long time
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  veteran of the sport, lactate can be your secret weapon.
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  Using lactate data effectively can maximize performance at any
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  level and take the guesswork out of planning your training.
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  Most people think lactate is some villain that you need to
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  get rid of or train to make less of it.
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  Well, they're wrong. Lactate is the key to success.
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  Lactate is actually the human energy currency and the fuel
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  lactate. The lactate energy spectrum
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  actually ranges from .7 to 32 millimoles per liter.
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  Those are the units in which lactate is measured.
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  I over the course of my my years of studying lactate in masses in
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  depth in in in the real world scenarios of real world
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  athletes, I break the lactate spectrum into 8 lactate systems.
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  And each of those lactate systems actually has unique
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  characteristics that all work together not only to create
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  optimized performance, but also to regulate metabolism, balance
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  homeostasis, and also balance hormones.
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  By only focusing on the traditional and quite frankly
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  antiquated concepts such as lactate threshold or the old LT1
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  or LT2, you will not only limit physiological development and
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  performance. But this approach of only
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  focusing on LT1LT2 or lactate threshold, which are all areas
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  of lactate under 4 millimoles will most definitely lead to
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  negative health impacts, not only performance impacts but
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  health impacts. So this traditional approach is
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  is of focusing on LT1LT2 or lactate threshold.
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  Everything under 4 millimoles is actually leading to detrimental
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  effects in athletes performances and their health.
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  Lactate contribution across the spectrum is and in order to
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  perform work or to your performances is what I kind of
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  like to compare to an assembly line.
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  If you're trying to build cars on an assembly line, you're
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  going to need various, all the parts of that assembly line are
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  important to go into the production of the total number
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  of cars. So if you're trying to produce
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  cars and you've got 100 engines but you only have 50 steering
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  wheels, you're only going to make 50 complete cars because
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  you're missing parts. So the work output and the
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  production of making cars is going to be limited by one of
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  those parts that goes into that assembly line.
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  Well, performances are are exactly the same thing.
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  You have to take into consideration the entire lactate
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  spectrum, all of those parts, all of those 8 lactate systems
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  that go into performances and work output in order to maximize
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  and optimize the outcome. We cannot just sit back and only
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  focus on 2 millimoles or filler millimoles, the lactate
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  threshold or quite frankly anyone lactate system, you're
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  going to reduce your performance and total work output.
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  And here's another news flash. Guess what?
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  There's no single lactate threshold.
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  The concept is probably what 99% of the public understands about
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  lactate is what's my lactate threshold and how do I train to
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  reduce to improve lactate threshold?
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  Well, this concept of a single or even 2 lactate thresholds LT1
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  Lt. 2 is limited and quite frankly antiquated.
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  There is actually a quote UN quote threshold or more aptly
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  term which I I never use the word lactate threshold.
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  I call them lactate capacities because there's actually a
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  lactate capacity to do work at every unit of lactate from .7 to
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  32 millimoles. So there's actually 32 lactate
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  quote UN quote thresholds in the human body.
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  Again, lactate is simply the human energy currency.
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  I measure a lactate in terms of power and I developed a metric
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  called the bioenergetic power, Bioenergetic Power score.
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  So athletes can have objective data to understand and see how
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  their lactate is, is developing across eight of those lactate,
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  all eight of those lactate systems across the spectrum.
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  And we train capacity or quote, UN quote threshold at each of
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  those 8 targeted systems. And the combination of
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  understanding your lactate power and your lactate capacity across
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  the entire spectrum is what ultimately is going to give
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  coaches athletes deep insights as to better decisions they're
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  going to make to decide which type of training do I need?
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  Because now we have a clear, precise picture of the each
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  athlete's underlying Physiology. And if you can see exactly where
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  they're lacking, you can make better decisions on which type
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  of training each athlete needs in order to develop their
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  Physiology. But and then ultimately which
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  will lead to better performances.
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  If you perform any sort of lactate threshold test and you
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  see an exponential jump in lactate readings, really all
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  that means is you fail to train appropriately and there's
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  actually a weakness in your Physiology and lactate system.
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  So looking for these exponential jumps is not really something
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  that you want to base your testing on or look for these
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  lactate thresholds per SE. You're really trying to make
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  sure that we're not, we don't have weaknesses in any lactate
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  system because that's going to, again, take away from your
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  performances. In fact, one of the most common
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  areas of physiological weakness and neglect is the upper and
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  aerobic systems, what I refer to as ARC 1, Arc 2, and Arc 3,
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  which are all above this magical formulamole mark that everybody
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  loves to focus on. Almost every single athlete that
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  I test has a weakness above that magical formulamole.
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  These traditional concepts of lactate threshold mark.
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  And once we start targeting these upper end lactate systems
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  to improve their power and capacity, that's when we see the
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  performances start to skyrocket and also be have less plateaus
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  and and less as unless regressions in those athlete
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  performances. Some of the practical
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  applications of lactate is that you can use that lactate data to
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  identify areas of weakness and decide which types of workouts
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  are appropriate and which paces are appropriate to target in any
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  level athlete from beginner to Olympic champion.
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  I'll discuss these topics in more detail in episode 2.
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  In short, embracing lactate basics empowers athletes of all
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  levels to train smarter, not harder.
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  Basic training around lactate system is the foundation of my
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  system based training approach which has helped Olympians and
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  world champions worldwide for over 25 sports, but it is now
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  accessible to everyone right at your fingertips.
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  For a deeper dive into the science of lactate discussed in
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  this episode, you can check out chapters 2 and three of my book,
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  The Lactate Revolution, which is available for purchase on my
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  website, www.mybiah.com. You can also visit my website
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  For more information regarding my recently released my Via
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  mobile app, which analyzes and tracks lactate and heart rate
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  right from your phone. Let's revolutionize training.
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  Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Thanks for joining us for this
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  episode in the Youth and beginner series Powered by Coach
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  O Powered by Coach O is more than a platform.
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  It's a movement to benefit track and field by supporting coaches,
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  athletes, parents, officials and event directors in countless
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  plugged in to the Powered by Coach O by visiting coacho.com
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