{"id":4908,"date":"2025-02-16T18:41:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T18:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/?p=4908"},"modified":"2026-03-25T13:07:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T13:07:05","slug":"lactate-and-glycogen-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/?p=4908","title":{"rendered":"Norwegian Method Lactate Testing for Non Norwegians."},"content":{"rendered":"

Lactate Testing for non Norwegians.<\/h3>\n

I am a big fan of Norwegian Training methods. The method was developed by Marius Bakken and has had a profound effect on the endurance world. Norwegians hold approximately 7.45 Olympic golds per 1 million inhabitants. America – 0.095 medal per million. Point illustrated.\u00a0 At the cornerstone is understanding lactate levels and why they are so important.<\/p>\n

\"Norwegian<\/p>\n

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Norwegian-style lactate testing will turn your training on its head by using blood lactate as a compass that keeps effort precisely where adaptation thrives and damage stays minimal. By calibrating intensity just below the point of metabolic drift, athletes steadily raise their speed ceiling over time, accumulating fitness instead of fatigue.<\/p>\n

The problem with Norwegian training methods is that constant lactate testing is for most, impractical and costly. So, if you don’t have someone to prick your fingers a few times during each training session this could be for you.<\/p>\n

The biggest mistake that most athletes make is that their easy runs are too hard and their quality sessions result in high levels of fatigue that then inhibits recovery and the ability to train properly the next day.<\/p>\n

Here is how it works.
\n1. We meet in Sunninghill Gardens. There is a relatively flat and safe road where we will do the testing. You will do a series of 1 km runs starting\u00a0 super slow and building speed over time.
\n2. Measurements will be taken recording your pace, RPE (Rate of Perceived Effort), lactate, HR and glucose levels.
\n3. I collate these measurements and will give you a suggested pace, RPE and HR for your easy runs and then the all important sub threshold value for your speed sessions.<\/p>\n

The goal of this is as follows:
\n1. Make sure that you build volume safely especially on your easy runs.
\n2. Make sure that your interval sessions are dialed in for both longer sets and shorter sets.
\n3. With reference to the above point, this will enable more advanced athletes to do double speed sessions on a specific day and so multiply your fitness levels and hence, your running speeds.
\n4. We will take the data and translate this into your 5 zone HR levels on your watch.<\/p>\n

The zones are linked to your heart rate. Sports scientists began to realize a while back that the 5 zones have to do with a number of factors, the most important being your body’s ability to deal with lactate. Lactate is a byproduct of what happens as you use up fuel when exercising. Without getting too technical, as your body burns glycogen it produces lactate. This is known as the glycolytic energy system.<\/p>\n

At higher efforts your body puts out high levels of lactate that it cannot repurpose at the same rate as it is created. That together with a jump in hydrogen ions (H+) will cause that familiar burn in your muscles. The jump in hydrogen ions takes place both in the muscles and the blood stream and this gets recorded in your brain. Prof Tim Noakes’ so called “Central Governor” in your brain kicks in and in an attempt to protect you begins to slow the nerve communication pathways to your legs.\u00a0 You know the feeling well, you push hard up a hill and suddenly your legs begin to burn and with that you make a decision (or more accurately, the decision is made for you) to back off a bit till your legs feel better. That’s the point when your lactate levels begin to sky rocket. Have a look at the Zone chart below.<\/p>\n

\"Running
\nNotice how lactate rises gradually through zones 1 and 2 (It’s really manageable at this point) It then goes up more rapidly in zone 3 (You can typically race at the upper levels of zone 3 for an hour). Lactate really begins to go up in zones 4 and 5. Zones 4 and 5 are zones you experience when running hard, lets say at a track session. You end your 400 meters breathing hard with your hands on your knees.<\/p>\n

You can read more about Lactate here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Glucometer<\/p>\n

Click HERE<\/a> for pricing.<\/p>\n

Yours in sport.<\/p>\n

Mike Roscoe.
\nCoach\/Kinesiologist.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do lactate testing on athletes. You can read more below.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1675,484583824,484583761,7461],"tags":[144323,484583595,484583953,484583918,484583919,484583952,484583951,1130753,484583826],"class_list":["post-4908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-running","category-sbr-coaching","category-training","category-triathlon","tag-endurance","tag-glucose","tag-ingerbritsen","tag-lactate","tag-lactate-testing","tag-marius-bakken","tag-norwegian","tag-run-2","tag-triathlete"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sbrsport.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/s1.jpg?fit=225%2C225&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7ythf-1ha","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4908"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5269,"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4908\/revisions\/5269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbrsport.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}