High Lactic Problems. . . any suggestions?

Hi All!

Does any one else have trouble with a high level of lactic acid during any form of dynamic apnea? I seem to be stuck as I'm currently in unfamiliar territory. Normally, all my dives are within the "comfort phase" and I surface at around the first desire to breathe. This means my dives are limited to anywhere between 0:45-1:20ish depending on how active I am, but that I also don't experience any lactic sensations. I've been interested in being able to expand this range further, as we all are I presume, and having been working on things like apnea walks that allow me to safely get into the struggle phase without fear of an in-water BO.

Tuesday, I did two brief apnea walks that left me utterly drained. The lactic build up caused by those two brief stints coupled with a brief pool session has taken 2 days for my legs to feel somewhat back to normal again. I had a pulse oximeter with me and recorded my sensations as I went. Unfortunately, the sun was so bright that I couldn't read the meter until at the very end of the walk when I held it up to my face and blocked the sunlight.

As a note, I did not spend much time relaxing or anything before these attempts. I wanted to experience the "struggle phase" deeper and figured that relaxing, doing a breath-up, etc. would just prolong that moment. Nonetheless, here's what I did:

1st attempt:
Full lung-
Distance: 154 yds.
Contractions at 0:39 (around 58-62yds)
Vasoconstriction at 0:43
Total walk time: 1:49
O2 reading at end about 84%
Fairly strong lactic feeling in legs.

Waited approximately 5-8 minutes between attempts

2nd attempt:
Full lung-
Distance: 154-156yds.
Contractions at 0:42.
Vasoconstriction at 0:50
Total walk time: 1:40.
O2 reading at end about 83%
Very lactic in legs. . .like I had just sprinted the entire distance several times.


Is such an overwhelming lactic feeling normal for just 2 short walks like that?
1. If so, how do you do repetitive dives after being so drained?

2. If not, does anyone have any experience overcoming this obstacle? I feel like I'm making some headway in my CO2 tolerance, but the lactic issues have me stopped dead in the water (pardon the pun). It starts so fast after vasoconstriction and comes on so strong that no amount of CO2 tolerance will let me dive more than twice like this if I venture very far into this area. After that brief stint, my legs have been exhausted for the past 2 days! (can't say I've ever experienced that before without having done some very taxing cardio)

Thanks for any help you can offer!

Thank you MarcinB. I really appreciate the help. It sounds as though this level of lactic buildup is fairly normal in a beginner then? It's quite frustrating to have my muscles be the lynch pin that's screwing up much advancement for me right now, not that my breath holds are anything great. . quite abysmal frankly. Still, it is quite frustrating to have such insanely high levels of lactic buildup over what seems like such simplistic and physically-easy exercise. It certainly doesn't bode well for me being able to dive into that zone anytime soon.

Thanks again for the advice though. I'll keep at it and see if I can get anywhere.

Fraa said:

Triton1715,
I have the same problem - lactic acid builds in upper legs, especially back side, in dynamic apnea. I even noticed this effect during static apnea when I go past 4 minutes. So, I guess this is normal - just a lack of CO2 elimination due to the breath hold.

I have a question for you: what device do you use to measure O2 level?
Thanks on advance!

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Same here. While I rarely do statics (been over a year plus), whenever I've played around with the at all, I get really lactic in general no matter what I do. It's definitely worse if I'm more active obviously, but it still is a pretty decent lactic buildup even if I'm just sitting in a chair. It's really quite frustrating to feel so handy-capped in that regard. While I'm not great at CO2 tolerance, terrible actually, it's the lactic build up that's currently my limiting factor. I have to ask myself, "would I rather have another 20 seconds or so of dive time, but then need about 7-10 minutes of recovery, or just quit now and be able to dive again in 2 minutes?" Very frustrating.

As for measuring O2, I've been using a pulse oximeter I picked up from Liquidvision earlier this year. It's definitely more expensive than I'd have cared for, but according to a post from E.Fattah back when it was launched, it's supposedly tracked a $6,000 unit the best of their test bunch. Otherwise, you can find many cheaper ones on Amazon. It's an interesting device and really opened my eyes as to how much O2 I still had even though I felt like I was really struggling. It turns out that when I thought I must have been getting low on O2, I hadn't even started to move the reading yet! Talk about a confidence booster! While diving, I was so anxious and paranoid that I would push myself too far, I'd cut a lot of things short and it turns out, I wasn't pushing myself at all. . . not even close! Definitely worth the investment to me for that bit of knowledge all by itself.

You are correct. It is not waterproof. I just use it for dry training. It was really helpful to me to go deeper into the struggle phase with the lactic acid building up quite high and be able to see that I was still, despite my discomfort, nowhere near blackout territory. It helped my mind relax a TON and immediately resulted in an additional and repeatable 18-25yd gain in DYN without feeling like I was doing anything all that different. It's kind of amazing how much O2 is burned with extraneous thoughts and overall stress.

Thanks for the link. I'll have to look into that a bit more!

MarcinB said:

Triton and Fraa, in my opinion you should start to do exercises that will improve your lactic tolerance 2-3 times a week. In my case vasoconstriction and resulting lactate build up is not as extreme as in yours, nevertheless, I was also limited in DYN by lactic burn. After 110m my legs were so fatigued that I could barely move them and I had to use my arms to get to 125m. After 2-3 months of apnea stairs training I did 141m (there was no need to use arms anymore) and my legs were still fine.

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Thanks MarcinB! That post definitely makes me feel that there may be hope for me yet ;-)