The problem with lactic acid buildup is to find a way to increase the anerobic threshold (so you don't build as much up in the first place ) or find a way accellerate the diffussion of lactic acid across the muscle celll membrane so that it gets taken up by the liver and converted back to glucose in the Cori cycle. Right now, and I'm trying to remember all the different kreb's cycle, cori, etc. that was rammed down our throats but the elimination of lactic acid just does not happen in the muscle cell. Remember, if muscular activity continues, the availability of oxygen for use at the end of the electron transport chain becomes the limiting factor and the cells soon exhaust their supplies of oxygen. When this happens, the citric acid cycle is inhibited and causes pyruvic acid to accumulate.
However, glycolysis continues even under anaerobic conditions even though the citric acid cycle works only under aerobic conditions. (when the cells become anaerobic, glycolysis continues if pyruvic acid is converted to lactic acid . The formation of lactic acid buys time and shifts part of the metabolic burden to the liver)
What I do as an athlete and with my athletes is tell them that lactic acid (post event, such as sprinting ) is best cleared with low intensity aerobic (with oxygen) movements. Though high intensity aerobics would supply ample amounts of oxygen to your body, it would also induce higher levels of lactic acid, which is counter productive. The first lactate threshold has been shown to be between 40 % and 60% of ones VO2 max, but may be higher for the elite athlete. For recovery, you would want to perform movements below your lactic threshold, so that lactic acid production is minimal, while oxygen consumption, and hence lactic acid clearance is maximized.
Several scientific journals support the notion of applied active recovery between working sets. A perfect example would be sprinters,(such as track and field if you are thinking of sprinting)which are often dubbed the cousins to bodybuilders due to their massive muscles achieved from high intensity, hypertrophy elicited movements. Active recovery was examined during repeated sprints in a study using college athletes that performed 2 maximum intensity sprints, separated with 4 minutes of either active recovery (cycling at 40% of their VO2 max), or passive recovery, on two separate occasions. Those who performed active recovery in-between sprints showed a much greater power output on the second sprint. They concluded that active recovery is superior to passive recovery for performance. If you want the referance journal I can dig it up. I have a vested interest in this since I see a lot of athletes as well.
11 minutes - you could walk backwards faster than that.
