THE EDGE Lactate Test Strips, Pack of 25

I bought the Edge Lactate meter about a year ago, based on an online recommendation from Alan Couzens, a deeply thoughtful endurance researcher. I'm a lifetime runner (now in my 50th year) and competitive in my age group, but I was looking to explore a more accurate way to set my training zones. The Edge Lactate meter itself is relatively straightforward to set up and use, and with proper handling of your test strips and care in taking blood samples, it provides accurate and very useful results. I've been very happy with it. That said, I do recommend paying close attention to how you sample and your testing conditions. The strips are quite sensitive to temperature and exposure to sunlight. In the winter, I had to use a hot water bottle to keep the strips and meter warm enough for test results. In the summer, exposing the strips to bright sunlight also seemed to render them inoperable. For sampling, I found that being fastidious in cleaning the sample area on your finger with alcohol and taking care in transferring the sample to the test strip to avoid contamination from sweat is essential for getting accurate results. The only drawback I've seen with the Edge Lactate meter is that it takes about a minute to calculate blood lactate level. This delay isn't a problem if you are careful taking your samples, but if you get a strange reading because of contamination and want to retest, it can disrupt your workout or add a blip in your results if you are trying to perform a full profile

I’m very glad these are available for the lactate monitor. And this set really needs an app to track readings!

There was a bit of a learning curve to get an accurate measurement, but then worked well for my purposes (medical management of hyperlactatemia). Values never matched the lab, but the trends and patterns I saw were obvious and very helpful for home use. Trick is to not touch your finger with the strip, touch blood only (ie no scooping/scraping to get by with a small sample).

These strips are complete duds. I use them twice a day and have for months. I get plenty of blood use clean hands and yet everyday I get at least one “lo” or not ok reading before finally getting a result. I’m averaging six strips per day with this round of strips and they are far too expensive for that. I had one bottle of complete duds that read nothing but “not ok” as soon as they were put in the meter and customer service refused me a replacement until I sent them a video to prove my technique was correct. I’ve bought at least ten bottles at this point because I have to check my lactate daily for medical reasons and I wish I would have gone with a different meter at this point.

Exclent

My wife and I have been using these lactate test strips for the last year or so for our Zone 2 training. They are easy to use and have been reliable. We are able to jump off our spin bike, wash our hands, and get an immediate reading of our lactate levels through a simple finger stick.

The lactate strips performed as expected. The calibration for the strip series number is painless. Read the measurement instructions carefully, paying particular attention to using clean fingers. After making sure to follow the directions to a "T", I have had consistent, repeatable measurements of lactate values.

These test strips are the same ones that come with the lactate meter (also made by the same manufacturer). There is also a code chip in the box that calibrates the meter. The strips work like they should, I just wish they came in a larger pack because I'm going to go through these pretty quickly.