Continuous blood gas and lactate monitoring during exercise

An improved computer method for continuous monitoring of arterial blood gases synchronized with an analysis of ventilatory variables was developed. Lactate was determined every 30 s. Sixteen healthy male volunteers who exercised regularly were included in this study. To evaluate the different transients of ventilation and metabolism, a gradual increase in the work load was used, starting with 40 W and increasing the load by 20 W every 2 min. This method generates large amounts of data and requires the development of computer programs for automatic determination of break points and general data reduction.