Blood pyruvate recovery curves after short heavy submaximal exercise in man

Arterial pyruvate and lactate concentrations were measured after short heavy submaximal exercise on a bicycle ergometer, at 10 or 30 s time intervals, on six male subjects. During most of the first 2 min of recovery pyruvate concentration decreased. Thereafter, it increased and reached its maximum within the 5th to 9th min of recovery. Finally, it decreased gradually as a function of time. Recovery curves could be accurately described after a short delay time following the end of the exercise, by a sum of three exponential terms according to the equation: (Formula: see text), where the time origin (to) is fixed at about 1-1.5 min(delay time) after the end of exercise, t is the time after to, Y(O) and Y(t) are the concentrations of pyruvate respectively at times zero and T, and Ai and zi are constants. The velocity constant of the final arterial blood pyruvate decrease was similar to that of the simultaneously measured lactate, indicating that the rate of lactate removal is closely related to that of pyruvate. This is consistent with the fact that pyruvate is a necessary intermediate in the lactate metabolism.