{"id":3558,"date":"2025-11-05T10:20:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T15:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/?p=3558"},"modified":"2025-11-05T10:20:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T15:20:23","slug":"reflection-2-lactic-acid-the-cori-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/2025\/11\/05\/reflection-2-lactic-acid-the-cori-cycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflection 2: Lactic Acid & the Cori Cycle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I used to swim in high school, and our lactic acid sets were one of the toughest workouts; they were short, all-out sprints followed by a couple minutes sitting on deck to let the lactic acid build up in our muscles. For some particular sets, we chugged small bottles of Gatorade between sprints. It became harder and more painful to sprint the more sets we did because our muscles were burning and heavy. Stomachs full of gatorade and pool water didn\u2019t help either.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was sprinting, my muscles switched to anaerobic metabolism, breaking down glucose into pyruvate, which quickly converted into lactate as oxygen became limited. As we learned when the Cori cycle is in action, the lactate travels to the liver, where it can be converted back into glucose through gluconeogenesis and sent back to the muscles. However, during intense sprints, lactate builds up faster than the liver can process, which explains the burning sensation. Drinking Gatorade added another layer: the extra glucose provided my muscles with an immediate energy source, temporarily reducing the liver\u2019s need to convert lactate into glucose. Still, the Cori cycle continued working just at a slower rate relative to production. <\/span><\/p>\n

Understanding this process makes me appreciate how my body\u2019s energy systems, nutrition, and performance are connected. Now I get why my coaches tortured us with these sets because over time, the body becomes better at both buffering and clearing that lactate, which is part of why lactic acid training builds endurance and recovery efficiency<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to swim in high school, and our lactic acid sets were one of the toughest workouts; they were short, all-out sprints followed by a couple minutes sitting on deck to let the lactic acid build up in our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17896,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[349081],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3559,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions\/3559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}