Lactic acid
put to work.
A 2018 treadmill study of bonito peptide and the late-race fade, with five professional running coaches and Professor Hideo Hatta of the University of Tokyo Graduate School.
Late in long races,
the lactate wins.
In the second half of long races, fatigue sets in, pace drops, and the body slows. One cause is lactic acid the body can’t fully process. Even 0.1 mol of lactic acid is a heavy load: early in the race you can still counter it, but as fatigue builds it weighs you down like a lead weight.
According to Professor Hideo Hatta of the University of Tokyo Graduate School, a specialist in exercise physiology, blood lactate rises sharply once intensity passes the lactate threshold (LT, 2 mmol) — the point at which the run starts to subjectively feel “tough.”
Long-distance performance is closely tied to lactic acid. The key to beating the late-race fade is lactic acid breakdown power — the body’s ability to rapidly convert lactate into usable energy.
Bonito peptide.
Extracted from wild bonito — a fish that swims its entire life at speeds up to 100 km/h — bonito peptide is the ingredient drawing attention for boosting lactic acid breakdown. It promotes lactate clearance and aids recovery.
Blood lactate contains roughly 15× the energy of glycogen. Efficiently breaking it down and converting it back into energy turns a performance-killer into fuel.
Five coaches.
Seven stages.
Five professional running coaches each ran a treadmill protocol of 3 minutes × 7 stages, with pace increasing each stage to measure their LT. Each subject ran the protocol twice: once without the supplement, once after taking bonito peptide. Blood lactate was measured at every stage.
At every intensity from 160 to 280 m/min, blood lactate was lower with bonito peptide — suggesting it efficiently breaks down lactate during exercise and improves endurance.
The five who ran it.
RunplusTrail magazine, issue 29, p. 60 (2018). English translation. The study tested the bonito-peptide supplement Katsusapu — the predecessor formulation behind Katsuo Stamina.