I understand how lactate works to a certain degree, but the important thing is that you can burn that lactic acid by cooling/warming down after a workout (ie walking after a footrace).
I’ve heard that built-up lactic acid helps build muscle if you keep it, but I’ve also heard that it’s good to burn asap after a workout.
So after hypertrophy weight-training, should I be somehow cooling down my muscles?
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You don’t really burn lactate in the sense you’re thinking, and you can’t do anything to lactate in your blood–warmup/cooldown have no effect on blood lactate. Your body removes/uses it in about an hour after exercise.
Lactic acid is also not why we experience muscle soreness–either the acute form or DOMS.
The science is kind of out on whether cooling after lifting helps or hinders hypertrophy though. It may depend on the temperature and duration. While an ice bath may decrease the inflammatory response, it may *also* decrease the hypertrophic response by slowing the production/absorption of those chemicals. One of those chemicals may be lactate, which would be a strike against it.
But just cooling down doesn’t actually appear to do anything. Cooldowns are for teambuilding if anything, but are otherwise going the way of static stretching before exercise.
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