What is lactic acid?
When you exercise, sugar is broken down into different chemicals, to produce energy for muscles. As long as you get all the oxygen you need, the final products are carbon dioxide and water, but if you exercise so vigorously that you can’t get the oxygen that you need, the reactions stop, causing a chemical called lactic acid to accumulate in your muscles and spill into you bloodstream. Lactic acid causes muscles to hurt and makes you feel tired. You breathe hard and fast and slow down to catch up with your oxygen debt, which converts lactic acid into carbon dioxide and water that are blown off as you breathe. Blood levels of lactic acid lower and your muscles stop hurting. A pace that you can hold breathing deeper and faster, but not gasping for breath is called the lactic acid threshhold and is the training level for most competitive athletes.
Lactic acid, also known as milk acid or 2-hydroxypropanoic acid, is an acid that both is formed by the body. It also exists in some foods. In the body, lactic acid develops generally in conjunction with exercise. As for foods, lactic acid exists in certain milk products, like yogurt, as well as some processed foods like some breads and beers. In the body, lactic acid forms when there aren’t enough oxygen molecules to completely breakdown the glucose in the body. A complex process known as glycolysis, breaks glycogen in the muscles into glucose and is one of the primary sources of the energy we need to exercise. During glycolysis, each glucose molecule splits into two pyruvic acid molecules. The resulting energy is released and forms into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Normally, the pyruvic acid merges with mitochondria and undergoes the oxidation process, which produces more ATP. During strenuous exercise or activity, however, oxygen is lacking and the reaction cannot take place. The py
