Lactic Acid Build-Up and Vibration Training

by Lloyd Shaw

Since all exercise creates lactic acid, the question is not whether we can stop the production of lactic acid, but can we stop its collection/build-up in our muscles?  Also, if it does build-up in other forms of training can it be removed with Vibration Training?

In order to help you get your head around this subject, I want you to visualize your body as a kind of plumping network with each muscle acting as a separate pump connected together by a system of small hoses. The pumps only work in short, sharp bursts each time you move, pushing fluid a small distance with each “contraction”. If all the pumps are running at the same rate the fluid in the hoses will run freely and circulate between all the pumps without restriction.

Blood, as you know, is circulated by the pump called the heart, but other fluids are moved by your main skeletal muscles which act like pumps during exercise. The only problem is to get all the muscles moving at the same rate is near impossible and no standard exercise program is designed with that exact purpose in mind.

Until Now

The term you must get familiar with is the “King Exercise Pose”. Unlike an isolation pose, where you try to isolate just one muscle, a “King” pose tries to engage as many muscles as possible all at exactly the same time. This allows you to withstand a lot more pressure and sustain it for longer than an isolation pose.

An Example

A squat, where most of the pressure is in the ball of the foot, will activate your calf muscle, quad, and upper glute, but if you put your foot flat with equal pressure in the heel and ball of your foot, you add your hamstring and lower glute to the equation as well. Now think about something like running, you overwork some muscles and under work others. This is like operating some of the pumps on high, others on low, and some not at all.

Not a good situation if you want lactic acid to be moved out of the muscles as fast as its being produced. Most of the time during normal exercise it will collect at certain points and cause unnecessary discomfort and sometimes put you off training altogether. Most people resort to massages to help “flush” the acid from the muscles.

Now you would think something like running would get all the leg muscles pumping away quite nicely, and you are correct, but there is just one problem. The muscles are not pumping simultaneously, but they are pumping in a given order depending on the exercise. For instance, running heel to toe would mean the pump would move from the hamstring under the heel strike and then to the quad as you push off with your toes. They have to contract at “exactly” the same time for perfect fluid exchange and movement to take place.

So the very nature of most exercise, which requires lots of semi-random movement, means that imbalanced muscle pumping is almost a certainty.

So how is Vibration Training any different?

The biggest difference between Vibration Training and conventional exercise is  that you don’t move, but rather stay basically still which allows the ability to find the “sweet spot” in the  “King Exercise Pose”, where all the muscles are working in exact unison with each other. In fact, its so effective that even accidentally being in the correct pose for more than a few seconds could result in about 200 “flushes”. Enough to make the difference in lactic acid build-up after a long run.

Important note: If you decide to deliberately keep away from King poses because of soreness, it may exasperate the problem or cause even more acid buildup.

Categories: Health
Written by Lloyd Shaw on September 24th, 2008

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Before asking an unrelated question - take a look at the Beginner's Guide to WBV.