Frisbez wrote:Also just curious, I've found that when I play that my legs get tired well before I'm breathing heavily. I'm struggling to pass stuff that I know I have the stamina for endurance wise, but my legs will just stop responding in the middle of the song. Any suggestions on how to fix this? Am I playing too much? Not giving my legs enough rest?
The Why
This is called the Lactate Threshold. I'm assuming you get this feeling from short fast songs. When you exercise at a high intensity your body uses Glucose for energy rather than oxygen since it can be converted faster. As your muscles convert glucose (sugar broken down from food) to ATP (energy for your cells) it creates lactate. When you exercise above your Lactate Threshold, your body builds up lactic acid faster then it can be pumped out, and this causes your muscles to give up on you even when you don't feel tired. Your goal is to play
below your lactate threshold so you use oxygen as your main energy source and play for much longer periods of time. The best way to do this is to
raise your lactate threshold and increase the rate at which your body can deliver oxygen. IE you need to train harder.
What you can do
The most effective way to increase leg endurace, lactic acid removal rate, and O2 transfer rate is with Interval Training. Most athletes do 400 meter (quarter mile) sprint repeats. If you don't have a track you can just Sprint 60 sec, jog 60 sec, and repeat. If running isn't your thing, play songs you can barely pass right after another with short breaks. My personal fav is playing ReaF 3 times in a row.