This study examined intra-individual variations in salivary lactate (sLac), alpha-amylase (sAA) and chromogranin A (sCgA) with reference to the accumulation of blood lactate (bLac) during incremental maximal exercise in swimmers. Samples of blood and saliva were collected simultaneously from 12 male professional athletes during an incremental test that consisted of eight series of 100 m in front crawl with increasing velocity (0.03 m s(-1) each) and 70-s intervals. The concentration of blood and salivary lactate was determined by an electro-enzymatic assay, whereas sAA and CgA were analysed by Western blotting. Inflection points in the concentration of bLAc, sLac, sAA and CgA were found in all subjects. The accumulation of lactate in saliva followed the same pattern observed in blood with a high correlation between the two (r = 0.91). Similar results were observed between the dynamics of sAA (r = 0.81) and sCgA (r = 0.82) in relation to bLac. These findings support the usefulness of saliva for the determination of the lactate threshold and provide the first demonstration of sCgA as a novel marker of exercise intensity in well-trained men.