Serious? wrote:
Haha!!! The joke is on you!
I think you need to do some homework on what LCHF athletes eat on race day. If you want to educate yourself, check out Zach B's blog.
No. Every athlete ahead of him probably just eats normally but he's special.
The 50 year old Maffetone runner Mark Cucuzella is going to get destroyed by NON-Maffetone Method 60 year old runner David Walters. Why is David eating high glycemic GU gels with lots of sugar during his 2:45 marathon? Has Phil Maffetone talked to David Walters about why David is doing it all wrong?
He will also get destroyed by 60 year old NON-Maffetone Method 60 year old runner Brian Pilcher:
Did Brian Pilcher consult with Phil or read his books…or listen to Phil's music CDs?
No.
Brian Pilcher decided to go to a book by someone else.
Brian Pilcher decided to go to a book by 2 time U.S. Olympic marathoner Pete Pfitzinger.
That is also a book I recommend.
It is just a coincidence.
loqueelvientoajuarez wrote:
fred wrote: Yeah well, it's Canova System and has nothing to do with Maff. Stop trying to claim that you invented the wheel.He never stated that. Rather, various coaches with different approaches have come to the similar conclusion that a pace close to the aerobic threshold helps improving endurance during base phase.
Exactly!
Many roads lead to fast times. Yoshi Hosaka used unique interval training coupled with brutally high mileage to run a world best 2:36:30 at age 60.
http://www.runnersworld.com/masters/day-after-day-with-yoshihisa-hosaka
His longtime goal was to challenge Ed W's records, but he has been injured now for three years, unable to race marathons. Meanwhile, Ed keeps shuffling slowly along in the cemetery and re-writing the upper age record books.
http://www.runnersworld.com/rt-web-exclusive/yoshihisa-hosaka-meets-ed-whitlock
Dr. Mark would refer to himself as a hobbyjogger, as he does little or no fast training above MAF. Nonetheless, he is remarkably consistent at a very good level, having run 60 marathons averaging 2:40, including the last 16 Boston and USMC marathons. Longevity + speed = area under the performance curve. Most of us would love to have that kind of consistency and longevity.
Benefactor wrote:
I think that what makes Maffetone's system unique is that he has made a solid effort to locate AeT via objective methods (using HR), whereas before Maffetone (eary 80's), coaches use often vague and even misleading terms.
I remember being in high school in the 70's, trying to figure out what pace to do my long runs. I knew that guys like Clayton and Snell ran 5:00-6:00/mile all the time, but I was no Clayton or Snell. I broke down even trying to do 7:00 most of the time. Lydiard used terms like "1/4 effort" or "1/2 effort" which were frustratingly vague. Those terms probably worked fine when he was present with his athletes, but were almost indecipherable through his writings.
Although I didn't use Maffetone's method directly, I was influenced by his writings when building my base. As a result I went from an also-ran in HS and college to numerous national masters medals and overall wins at medium-large road races, both for me and the runners I coached. I now use a HR monitor, and find PM's formula perfectly appropriate to my own needs and to the needs of my athletes, one of which just sliced almost 20 minutes off his marathon PR to 3:20 in less than a year.
One can argue whether Maffetone's numbers are relevant to every runner, but they offer a benchmark which is conservative, and appropriate to building mileage, especially for aerobically-underdeveloped athletes, which is most.
Absolutely, this is it.
The comparison with LYDIARD is very relevant. In his 1962 landmark Sports Illustrated paper "Why I prescribe marathons for miler", LYDIARD wrote the following, describing his base building process for a starting runner:
"How do you give them the necessary stamina? By makÂing them run and run and run some more, until they don't even think in terms of miles. There is no psychological magic and no pain barrier involved. It is mere ly a process of gradual conditioning. "
It seems to me that what LYDIARD was trying to do with his beginners, was to exactly to what MAFFETONE is also trying to do: lead them to run as much as possible at or right below their aerobic threshold during an initial long base building phase that would last many months.
And the difference is that LYDIARD was indeed very imprecise about it, and so of little use, while MAFFETONE propose with his "180-age" formula A much more practical way do get there that works for most, in a HEALTHY way with little risk of injury.
And this is the second important specificity of MAFFETONE: he does not provide simply a training method, but a whole lifestyle system where training, rest (including enough sleep), healthy eating, and stress reduction are all equally important. And that is unique and MOST important for 99.9% of the runners out there, I think.
Hmm. Decades ago athletes were using heart rate on intervals workouts.
My father, who practiced in the 60's, used to wait until the heart rate dropped below 80% of max before starting another interval.
There were many heart rate based training techniques before Maf, but were not labeled.
Everyone likes these days to name their methods, to turn them in a brand.
Or write books, or name their periodization systems.
This could be said for ANY sport or ANY coach.
Think about it this way: there are > 30,000 (maybe over 40.000) Christian denominations. Over 95% of it is the same; yet, each has SLIGHT variances.
This is also true with running systems. Options are good. Pick what works best for you and your goals.
I HIGHLY doubt PM cares about his reputation/fame or gives a rat's behind about "branding" himself.
There are people who care about money, not necessarily about reputation or fame.
And honestly, this thread wasn't constructive in the past few pages, but sounded more like promoting a product.
I was doing low heart rate training in 1975, before Maffletone ran New York in 83.
Maffletone stole my system
I was doing high heart rate training in 1983 and winning races.
Maffletone stole my system.
What did Maffetone run New York in? My buddy ran New York in sub 2:40 on non low HR training.
My other buddy ran New York in 2:32 off high heart rate training in 1984. It was his 4th year of running.
Benefactor wrote:
Many roads lead to fast times. Yoshi Hosaka used unique interval training coupled with brutally high mileage to run a world best 2:36:30 at age 60.
http://www.runnersworld.com/masters/day-after-day-with-yoshihisa-hosaka
20 miles everyday at 60? Did he sell his soul to the devil?
BBen wrote:
TC: On Maffetone’s 180-minus age formula
MA: That is a valid question to be asked. I get it a lot. If you have a maximum heart rate higher than expected for age, is the 180-minus age way out of whack? Say if you are 40 and your max heart rate is not 180 but it is 220, that does not mean you have a naturally high maximum heart rate. That means that you do not have a healthy developed aerobic system. And you have not developed your aerobic assets properly.
This is simply wrong.
Variations in max heart rate are natural.
With training, your HR at a given pace will go down, but max HR only declines with age, lack of exercise, medication, or heart disease.
fred wrote:
No, people were training in standard ways that Maffetone tried to claim was his.
This has always been evolving in ways since Shorter and has nothing to do with Maffetone.
Radcliffe and Kipchoge did not do Maff training. Radcliffe and Kipchoge did Radcliffe and Kipchoge training which evolved from what other elite runners were doing.
This nonsense has to stop.
This is right. Nobody is saying that Maff is totally wrong or that athletes can't develop on his system. But most coaching systems are going to have about 80% overlap with each other. As a consequence, anyone can look at a particular athlete's training, squint, and claim that the athlete is doing "basically" what coach X advocates.
But we aren't actually interested in the 80% overlap. Or we shouldn't be. What we're interested in is what makes a particular coach unique. In Maff's case it's a silly, heart-rate based forumula for aerobic running that could only have been conceived by someone who doesn't understand running. Otherwise, he's basically saying that you should do a lot of aerobic base building and that it takes years. Wow. Earth-shattering. What's more, Maff's linear, Lydiard-style periodization is well out of step with the modern practice of pretty much all the world's best athletes and coaches, except perhaps in Japan.
fisky wrote:
BBen wrote:TC: On Maffetone’s 180-minus age formula
MA: That is a valid question to be asked. I get it a lot. If you have a maximum heart rate higher than expected for age, is the 180-minus age way out of whack? Say if you are 40 and your max heart rate is not 180 but it is 220, that does not mean you have a naturally high maximum heart rate. That means that you do not have a healthy developed aerobic system. And you have not developed your aerobic assets properly.
This is simply wrong.
Variations in max heart rate are natural.
With training, your HR at a given pace will go down, but max HR only declines with age, lack of exercise, medication, or heart disease.
Sounds like his whole goal is to make the engine smaller and then try to make it efficient. Fast runners need a big engine.
It seems as though Lydiard and Maffetone are similar, at least in terms of basic aerobic base training.
My own experience in the late 70's was in rural Canada with no high school coach. I read an early Lydiard book and earnestly worked my way up to 100 miles a week, all very relaxed running, no straining or pushing the pace, for most of the Spring of grade 12 and the following summer.
Went to college in Seattle where the cross country team did workouts and raced. I maintained lots of easy additional miles with morning runs keeping up 100 mpw.
Ran the Seattle marathon that November on a whim and ran 2.27 at age 18.
The more intense running of the college program led to deteriorating results over 4 years.
Maffetone is ALL about branding himself. It's no coincidence that the acronym 'MAF' is his nickname. The '180 - age' which has become synonymous with him is huge branding of his system.
Discipline wrote:
20 miles everyday at 60? Did he sell his soul to the devil?
In a sense, yes...see the part I wrote about the injuries.
George Ilie wrote:
Hmm. Decades ago athletes were using heart rate on intervals workouts.
My father, who practiced in the 60's, used to wait until the heart rate dropped below 80% of max before starting another interval.
There were many heart rate based training techniques before Maf, but were not labeled.
Everyone likes these days to name their methods, to turn them in a brand.
Or write books, or name their periodization systems.
When Gerschler developed interval training he kept track of heart rates. You were supposed to get to 180 for the rep and recover to 120. There are stories of him making athletes lie down in order to get back to 120 quickly. Tracking HR for intervals is common and was from the start. That was not true for steady runs. The first person I can recall doing it was van Aaken who wanted his athletes to keep between 120 and 150 on their steady runs. Lydiard never dealt with HR very much though you could get him to say that 150 was sort of as high as you'd expect it to go on an aerobic run. It's probably inevitable that as heart rate monitors became available and affordable for most runners you'd see people developing training systems that rely heavily on HR.
Did you actually write that Lydiard was of little use?
You have no businesses discussing training methodologies.
The most successful coaches in the world currently and have for a long time now coached on the basis of Lydiard principles.
You can look at any given East African or elite athlete's training schedule and see that it is either straight up Lydiard or an altered or modern version of it.
At an endurance conference in Vancouver three years ago James Li coach of Lawli Lalang and Bernard Lagat got up to speak and the first words out of his mouth was, "I coach according to Lyidiard methods."
He was followed by Alberto Salazar who spoke and the first thing out of his mouth was, "I coach the Lydiard way."
Not verbatim, might have said, "I coach according to Lydiard's principles and practices." ....whatever.
No one mentioned Maffetone at anytime and they had no reason to.
There are so many cases of great successes using the Lydiard method that it is ridiculous that we are having this conversation at all.
The Arkansas Razorbacks coach John McDonnell won something like 40 NCAA Division 1 championships. In his book he talks about the Lydiard influence several times. Is that relevant to you in your brilliant mind?
17 Olympic Gold medals, head coach of five different countries, equivalent of Knighthood in two countries....responsible for developing a method and a set of principles that nearly 100% of successful programs are based on weather loosely or exactly or somewhere in-between.
If I want to make this post 10,000 words long of cases of Lydiard training winning, I could so easily.
At no time has a Div 1 coach or an Olympic coach or anyone of good success ever said, I coach according to Maf, ever. He doesn't exist.
Lydiard being imprecise at times had a purpose, the nuance of which is clearly lost on your brilliance.
If you want to shuffle a somewhat tidy time in your 60 or 70 plus age group and not get injured then sure pay money for the service of someone telling you to take is easy. At 60 or 70 you are older and therefore should take it easier....ooooh so profound.
Remember, the biggest section of the population are the boomers, for which the youngest are about 52 years old and 50 in Canada (our boom started a little earlier according to Dr. David K. Foote author of Boom Bust and Echo). I will give the old hippy dude business credits:
He took a booming fad: Bucket list marathoning and the biggest demographic: old people and sold them a program based on the logic that because you are old you should slow down.
Who cares about a 2:40 marathoner? There are 50 and 60 years olds who have run faster on the Lydiard method....Arthur Taylor ran 2:27? or 2:28 at age 55 I think....something like that. Totally Lydiard....Jack Foster! 2:21 at 50 - def Lydiard... There is that Japanese fellow at 60 ran a 2:36....
Put away that one example of mediocre marathon results and give us a real evidence.