This is where Glucose/ Glycogen is directly converted to energy which must be delivered quickly and efficiently but will exhaust within time. The accumulating lactate will be excreted as sweat or recycled in the liver back to glucose (via the Cori Cycle) or used in the muscle to restore pyruvate, which will in turn enter the mitochondria and lead to ATP production by oxidative phosphorylation. Redundant lactate generally leaves the cell, builds up in the blood stream and will displace bicarbonate resulting in a physiological metabolic acidosis. Any means of increasing the blood buffer capacity such as the production of bicarbonate will enable to cope with higher levels of lactic acid. In the symbiosis of the mitochondria with our cell surroundings it is exactly the aerobic phosphorylation which delivers bicarbonate at the end of the process.