This may affect some minds from established
thought. As reported in yesterdays Washington Post and quoted from this
weeks issue of Science Magazine, says..." It is common wisdom among
runners and other sports enthusiasts that lactic acid is the enemy of
endurance. The chemical is a byproduct of metabolism during periods of
intense exercise, when oxygen supplies cannot keep up with energy output.
Its accumulation in work-stressed muscles has long been considered a major cause
of achiness, exhaustion and failure. Now in an Olympian reversal,
scientists have found that lactic acid actually enhances a tired muscle's
ability to keep on twitching. The biochemistry and physiology that propel
leaping legs and barbell-boosting arms start with a nerve impulse that delivers
the mental demand for action and ends with a rush of electrically charged
sodium, potassium, chloride, and calcium atoms into and out of cells in
synchronized succession.... In the words of Science magazine, in whose
Friday issue the new work appeared, lactic acid may be "the latest
performance-enhancing drug." The new work does not prove that
various strategies for reducing lactic acid buildup-such as drinking bicarbonate
of soda or "warming down" muscles-are of no value to athletes, researchers
said. But it may mean they work for reasons other than what was
thought." ts
