Not looking for a discussion of its value, I want to understand the implementation. My MAF HR is 133. I understand the idea is to build aerobic capacity, and to lower the risk of injury. But don’t you have to do very high mileage for this to be effective? Dr. Maffetone certainly had success with Mark Allen, but that guy put in way more hours than I will. If I spend a few months committed to staying under 133, will my pace at that HR really improve with only 3 runs/week?
To follow the suggestions, does that mean I keep my HR under 133 on the bike too?
I ask because I’m actually SUPPOSED to keep it down there until January, according to my cardiologist. So, I’m an experiment of 1. But if I’m going to spend 10 weeks on this, I want to understand the HOW.
If you’re only doing 3 runs a week, then MAF probably isn’t the most effective approach for building speed as there is not much pressure put on the body for adaption. For me, running with a HR cap works very well with high volume. E.g running 12km every day for a couple months at under 120BPM ave had me flying on the 10k at the first Duathlon of this season.
Fitness gains are achieved through progressive overload. If you cut intensity and volume, you get less fit, not more fit. The only reason to slow down is to do more volume. If you reduce your intensity but do not increase volume (steadily and consistently), you will not build fitness.
Exactly what I thought. Interviews I’ve heard with Phil Maffetone, and acticles by him, make it sound like, if I stay under 133, my easy pace will drop to 5:00/mile like magic. The part that seems to be left out is the need for volume. And lots of it.
Coming back from a heart issue, I need to keep t low, but just starting up again (issue was now 3 months ago), even working back to 8 hrs/week is great. Been swimming, but last night was my first run since. 130 HR, 11:00 pace. Slowest 2 miles of my life. Lol. Just so happy to be able still be alive and run again!
I spent this past winter training almost all of my miles in the MAF heart rate zone and I increased mileage up to a max of 60 miles in a week. Just on that aerobic capacity block, I was able to PR in a 5K in 17:29 with no speed or tempo work. I liked the MAF method because I was able to log more miles while staying healthy. It also allowed me to swim and bike more with some quality sessions on the bike that were really hard. It does seem boring and unproductive at first, but once you start bumping up the miles you will eventually get to the point where you will feel different. Once I started hitting higher mileage, my body felt different. My hips felt really strong, I felt really efficient, and I PR’d with no quality running. Stick with it and see how it works - I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
As an aside, there is some research that have recently come out that shows that endurance work at lower intensities for large bouts of time are very effective at making you faster.
Pretty similar situation here, spent winter training MAF until 18 weeks out of IM. Definitely improved my marathon and 50k PR as well as my 70.3. It takes a long time though. I started at high 9 minute miles and now am just under 8 minute miles.
I’m curious how many miles/week you were doing to PR your marathon. A long time ago, I did a marathon in 3:00, and ran about 40-50 miles/week, but it was FILLED with quality. It was all the classic stuff, tempo, 1200m cruise intervals, 5K TT, Fartlek, etc. I suspect that to get the same result, I’d need more like 70-80 with MAF running? Being in college at the time, that many hours wouldn’t be possible. Was I more likely to get an injury by doing the track work, and the hours of MAF would have been the same result with less risk? Also, I have a really hard time believing that people PR without EVER doing the speedwork. Solid blocks at the track to learn efficiency, leg turn-over and such, seems important. But THEN you can back off and claim that it was MAF that made you faster? The big story is that Mark Allen did all this MAF work, and saw fantastic improvement. But how many miles/hours of it did he do? And I refuse to believe he didn’t have a hundreds of hours of speedwork already in his legs.
Right now, it’s not an option anyway. Dr. has me on a 140 heart rate cap until January. My guess is that, since I’m just getting the shoes back on, 11:00/mile @ 130 hr is going to improve back to 9:30/mile, and for longer runs between now and New Years. But that’s a solid way to build back without injury. Once I can do a few hours at 130, and my pace stops improving, I have 2 choices: 1, add MORE MAF mileage, or 2, mix in some Z4 work.
I still don’t understand why Dr. Maffetone says not to EVER go over your MAF pace while using this method.
I don’t really take much notice of the MAF method, I just run at a low HR that seems to work for me. I also don’t worry if the hr spikes a bit on hills as I’m not going to start walking.
As far as speed work is concerned, I’m sure adding that in after all the low HR stuff would make you faster on a 5/10k, but in multi sport, I don’t think it would make that much difference and would impact on the bike training as mentioned above. I’ve found that hard bike intervals seem to help running at 5/10k, probably because of the hard aerobic workout.
Since you are restricted to a max HR of 140 until Jan., this might be a blessing in disguise. You can keep all of your running miles in the aerobic zone and build the volume slowly and see how you respond. Most everyone agrees that the more you can train the better. Then, in January you can reevaluate what you have been doing and make a choice to change. If you see results, maybe keep adding miles and see how much your body can handle. Or you can cut back and do some quality running above your MAF HR target and see if that provides some adaptations. It really depends on what kind of racing you are looking at doing. It would make sense that if you are going long such as an IM distance race, piling up the miles might be a better training stimulus for that. And if you are going to be doing sprint and olympic racing, doing track sessions, tempo runs, etc may be better suited for that type of racing. Much of the research shows that more is in fast better…in general…for elites.
all that makes a lot of sense. Thanks. If you’ve seen my other thread(s), I’m bike-less for now, but swimming more and started Slowman’s Guppy 10-week program. Since I can now add running to the schedule, I should be able to build up a decent volume this Winter w/o the bike option. It’s always a balance of making sure your training is smart and valuable, but not to obsess to the point that you never get out there. SO, I’m off to the pool.
thanks again for the comments.
Michael
As a 17:30 runner, how fast were you doing your distance runs? I’m a little faster, but I’ve run my PRs off of low volume and high quality running, with lots of swimming and biking to boot. I know that’s not quite a sustainable/improbable approach, so I’d like to build some volume.
Why are we discussing MAF to begin with?
Also, I have a really hard time believing that people PR without EVER doing the speedwork. Solid blocks at the track to learn efficiency, leg turn-over and such, seems important. But THEN you can back off and claim that it was MAF that made you faster? The big story is that Mark Allen did all this MAF work, and saw fantastic improvement. But how many miles/hours of it did he do? And I refuse to believe he didn’t have a hundreds of hours of speedwork already in his legs.
Right now, it’s not an option anyway. Dr. has me on a 140 heart rate cap until January. My guess is that, since I’m just getting the shoes back on, 11:00/mile @ 130 hr is going to improve back to 9:30/mile, and for longer runs between now and New Years. But that’s a solid way to build back without injury. Once I can do a few hours at 130, and my pace stops improving, I have 2 choices: 1, add MORE MAF mileage, or 2, mix in some Z4 work.
I still don’t understand why Dr. Maffetone says not to EVER go over your MAF pace while using this method.
If you read the Maffetone books or Mark Allen’s current stuff, both advocate doing speedwork at certain periods of the year such as when you stop getting faster at the suggested HR cap. Maffetone also suggests doing short spurts or downhill running where you can increase leg turnover but stay under the suggested HR cap.
I agree that the MAF program requires lots of patience and time to train. I never had enough of either to give his theories a serious test. Enjoy getting back on the road after the heart issues!
Since I haven’t actually read the material (just heard about it on Endurance Planet Podcast), maybe you can explain why the training is supposed to be EXCLUSIVELY in the aerobic zone. I tend to build my training blocks from what I’ve learned from Joe Friel, and completely agree that every session should have a purpose. But what, 5 sessions at low heart rate are wasted if I do some tempo work on day 6?
Again, I can’t do ANYTHING except for Zone 2 right now anyway, so it’s more an academic curiosity for me at this point. Partly, I’m hoping to feel better about having my wings clipped, and that I’ll still make some progress in spite of my setback…
Michael
My pace fluctuated based on what my HR did that day. The day after a hard workout (hard swim or bike that is - no hard running early), heat, stress, etc all had a part in that. My MAF HR was supposed to be around 155 so I tried to run as close to that as possible without going over. Some days, I either didn’t worry about HR or ran even slower keeping my HR closer to 145. On good days, I was able to cruise along at 7:30 pace or slightly faster while days I felt like crap were closer to 10:00 pace. I know that’s a huge range but I stayed consistent with the HR.
There is no physiological basis for maffetone’s program.
Well, someone asked about it and other people responded…kind of how ST works. Kidding aside, I think if more athletes adopted something like this they would see more improvements and less injuries. For most folks, they go too hard on easy days and then can’t go hard enough on hard days. This is a way to keep them training smart. There is a lot of science as well as elite athletes who do this sort of polarized training. I always remember an elite US runner once quoted as saying, “make your easy days easy so your hard days can be hard.”
Well, someone asked about it and other people responded…kind of how ST works. Kidding aside, I think if more athletes adopted something like this they would see more improvements and less injuries. For most folks, they go too hard on easy days and then can’t go hard enough on hard days. This is a way to keep them training smart. There is a lot of science as well as elite athletes who do this sort of polarized training. I always remember an elite US runner once quoted as saying, “make your easy days easy so your hard days can be hard.”
I think that pretty much sums it up. My OP just wanted to better understand the idea. Not implying it’s the best way to train, just couldn’t get any clarification as to why he prescribes 100% of a block to be sub-aerobic. For me, if I went hard now, I’d probably end up back in the ICU. The minute I stop questioning, I stop learning. I did my first Triathon in 1987, and Runner’s World was my only guide (no internet for sure). I did Wildflower the years that Cameron Widoff was winning it every year, and lived in Santa Cruz during the Iron War, so I’d bump into Mark Allen at the coffee shop now and then, and he was like a rock star to our local track club. All my friends were naming their new babies Scott (Molina? Dave?) I did Vineman half WAY before it was called a 70.3 (early 90’s). Most of you probably were born with a cell phone and have no idea what I’m talking about…
I just make a hobby of collecting information, and trying it out. All part of the journey.
Build a base, become more efficient. Net result: Faster with less aerobic work.
Key component: lose weight.
Key component: Long, slow distance over significant time.
Contrast with: “120 Days to Ironman Beginner Program” and “Intervals for New Triathletes.”
Relevant famous Slowtwitch quote: “Intervals are the icing on the cake, and you don’t have a cake yet.”
As someone who read “The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing” and am trying to get through “The Endurance Handbook” (Don’t waste your money get only one or the other). I find the lack of scientific references a little concerning (opposed to a Friel book). I do struggle with the strict base phase as the lack of explanation by Maffetone seems a little shoddy. I listen to Endurance Planet which I really enjoy but sometimes it just drinking the Kool Aid. Personally I noticed that my MAF pace decreases a bit upon adding intensity (am seeing this the second time around). In my less than professional opinion I think it will help coming from an anerobic background (even HS and college XC bc it’s all interval training) but if you were a backpacker it wouldn’t help. It also hel0s by taking the guessing out of recovery/easy pace as you have an objective number (MAF heartrate that you cannot exceed). This is more appealing then doing a LT test that Friel suggests but at the end of the day you have to fo what works for you. Unfortunately sports nutrition, performance etc. from a scientific standpoint is in its infancy.