I don't want you to think about lactate as a failure of some sort.

I think that when we have heard the story like, oh, I'm burning or I feel a stitch in my side,

I think that we tend to equate that with failure.

When you're jogging comfortably, let's say, like a light trot, you're in second gear, okay? When you sprint,

like that all out ovaries to the wall, you are going for it. You slam into fourth or fifth gear

instantly. So that rapid shift requires a different metabolic lane. I don't want you to become metabolically polite.

Okay. I want you to train power. And my hope is that in training your physical power, this will

also alchemize into mental power as well. I don't know why, but we're having another resurgence of like,

but what about cortisol spikes online, which like gives me all the angry ticks, but avoiding

stress does not build resilience. If you have a really big like cognitively demanding task,

like maybe you have to study for something or have a really big presentation or you have to

memorize something.

Do sprint intervals earlier that day.

All right, friends, welcome back to another solo episode on Better.

You guys are really liking these lately, so I thought I might do another little geeky

magic carpet ride for you.

And today, we are going to talk about lactate.

It is such a misunderstood signal, and it can actually have some profound effects on your body composition,

on the way that you age, on your mitochondrial capacity.

So we're going to talk about lactate not as the villain today, but as the upgrade signal.

So I want to dismantle this because I think that this is one of the most persistent myths in exercise physiology.

For decades, lactate was framed as this like throwaway metabolic debris, right?

...