The effects of leg-cooling on blood lactate disappearance following supramaximal exercise

In order to clarify whether leg-cooling after supramaximal treadmill exercise will change lactate disappearance rate from venous blood, blood lactate, calf blood flow, and skin temperature were determined in cold application and non-cold application recovery. In the cooling experiments, both legs were cooled with ice packs for 23 min during recovery. The skin temperature was significantly lower in the cold application as compared with the non-cold application. However, no significant difference was found in the blood lactate and/or calf blood flow between cold and non-cold conditions. In addition, there was no significant difference in the slope of regression line (blood lactate/blood flow) between cold and non-cold applications. These results suggest that no significant difference in the blood lactate between cold and non-cold applications could be explained by the lack of difference in the blood flow between cold and non-cold applications.