Who here has done Maffetone Method (180BPM HR minus your age) for base?

Update:

1) Kaiha Bertollini:

http://mugshots.com/US-Counties/Georgia/DeKalb-County-GA/Kaiha-Bertollini.41620606.html

2) Mike Rossi:

http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/06/28/boston-marathon-dad-mike-rossi-arrested-at-kenny-chesney-concert/

Now we are getting some real results.

3) ???

I agree with you for the most part. I've pointed out the flaws of: ["arbitrary number" - age] to determine heart rate training zones and relative intensity as it is a moving target with training age, actual age, individual variations on max Hr, weekly mileage/experience etc. My personal "MAF" pace would be way too hard as well. For beginner runners (think new to running, low mileage etc) it can be very good because it slows them down. Many people tend to push their easy days too hard and they get injured. I recently did a video on HR zone training. Some comments: "this doesn't apply to beginners because "marathon race pace" is slower than "easy day pace." Valid points. For people running over 4 hours in the marathon the spectrum of pace/intensity between "easy runs and marathon race pace" can be amazingly tight. People head out the door at their marathon race pace every day like it's a piece of cake. But maybe they are only running 20mpw. Get them to slow down a bit (MAF hr zone) and increase their mileage to 35-45mpw and they'll probably start making some big gains. On the flip side they are racing a marathon maybe at only 75% of max HR.....whereas a more experienced marathoner (high mileage training for years, periodized with actual speed work) may race at 80-83% of max HR for a marathon and be knocking on a sub 3 or faster. Of course their "Easy day" pace should probably be at least 1-min/mile if not 1:30/mile slower than marathon race pace. There is a bigger discrepancy is "Easy Day" v. marathon race pace, but their is a tighter discrepancy between their "Lactate Threshold"/HR and marathon pace velocity because they are pulling out more of their potential. Final note on the "Dr." thing. That is true, it is likely many MD's don't know much about nutrition or running related science. They may give bad advice to runners. However, I respect higher education (generally). I'm sure there are also some chiropractors that are very good and provide excellent advice....there are also guys that work in shoe stores that may give the best advice. The issue is that guys like Maffetone (and "Dr. Josh Axe" for example) seem to intentionally throw around use the label "Doctor" to try to pass off like they actually went to medical school and are MDs. I get that it is marketing, but it's a bit misleading IMO.

Since this thread seems to have no input from those both informed and experienced with the Maff method, here is an archived thread of actual athletes discussing the topic:

http://www.coolrunning.com/forums/Forum6/HTML/024412.shtml

Farflung wrote:

Since this thread seems to have no input from those both informed and experienced with the Maff method, here is an archived thread of actual athletes discussing the topic:

http://www.coolrunning.com/forums/Forum6/HTML/024412.shtml

First post says "This past year I ran 6 sub 3:20 Marathons." I stopped reading there.

Farflung wrote:

Since this thread seems to have no input from those both informed and experienced with the Maff method, here is an archived thread of actual athletes discussing the topic:

http://www.coolrunning.com/forums/Forum6/HTML/024412.shtml

Here is some absolutely free training information from a secret coach of some really good runners. There is no mention of any heart rates at all.

Here is his schedule for the world record holder at 25K and 30K before his marathon debut in 2:03:06 at the Boston marathon:

Here is the same schedule as relative paces:

(It does not look like the Phil Maffetone method.)

It involves some really hard workouts (such as 7.5 to 15 total miles of high intensity-high volume-long intervals at high altitude)... instead of the Phil Maffetone method.

25 @ 5:07 6 weeks out from the 2:03

What speed/intensity did you do the 15 miler at, Sage, that you said you couldn't get the recovery on with the Hansons.

It's funny/or not funny that some guys get recovery and other guys are damaged by the hard training.

Although Renato did say that they would go easy until they did get recovery from a hard workout, even if it took a week.

Can you gallowalk the Maffetone method?

I'm really curious what your point is here. If it's that people winning major marathons and the like aren't using Maffetone's method I think pretty much everyone knows that. If it's to persuade recreational to semi-serious runners to train that way I think you know it's going to fail. Really, do you think the OP is going to decide "Screw Maffetone, I'm going to hammer out 120 mile weeks?"

I'm not a big Maffetone proponent. I have a couple of his books. I've looked at his website and what struck me right away is that most of the athletes he uses to illustrate the "success" of his method are not primarily runners and whenever I see someone pushing a really radical eating plan I start thinking he's got another prime interest other than making runners faster. I also think it's telling that we're onto page nine on this thread and we really don't have anyone chiming in with stuff like,"Yeah, I used it and went from 63:00 for 10 k to 36." That does happen here when people have started threads like this asking about using Hadd's stuff, for example. So I can see why you'd want to show there are better ways to train but not many people are going to use what you've linked to as the basis for what they do but I don't get why you put up the examples you did. To me, they kind of seem irrelevant to the point of the thread. .

If you are working in Flagstaff with hundreds of athletes training their asses off, and people are going by you on the trails at a serious clip, you would come to a have a viewpoint of what normal is in terms of running.

So when a guy comes along and says I'm a fitness expert, run at 180 minus your age, eat paleo, and other stuff, a bell goes off.

So they may seem irrelevant to the point of the thread, but they might also be a way of rejecting what is being sold.

I get that they might be rejecting what's being said. That's pretty clear and yeah, I hear that same bell that you mention. But if you are working in Flagstaff with hundreds of athletes working their asses off, (and how does that connect to the thread?) your idea of normal training is probably kind of far removed from what the majority of recreational runners has too. I suspect most of them would look at those examples and feel more inclined to do something like Maffetone.

The point of him posting elite training from the super fast guys (I assume) was showing the fact that one can't reach their max potential in the marathon (whatever that may be) by following MAF.

Like i mentioned earlier, for the masses trying to run a faster marathon (or just finish their first marathon). Usually all they need to do to improve is:

1. Slow down on their Easy days so they don't get hurt

AND

2. Run higher weekly mileage more consistently (i.e. instead of 30mpw they start running 45-50 mpw). MAF tends to appeal to these people. It really is not a special "method" though and for flat road marathons one really doesn't need to look at Heartrate data all the time when actual velocity/pace is more important.

@Fred: It wasn't the single 16-mile 'simulator workout' at Hansons that usually crushed me (before my 2:16, I ran it at about 5:05 pace)...it was a combination of 6:00min pace on "Easy Days" at 130mpw as well as crushing 20-mile long runs in the low 1:50s, and the notorious "8-10 mile negative split "cut down runs." The Hansons also never let me run more than 20-miles on a single long run...I personally think if I just ran easier on the Long Runs and got in some solid 22-23 milers it would have been better. It was the overall sequence/periodization of the quality workouts that was hard (lots of guys got injured....we lost Luke Humphrey and Tim Young before the '12 trials in the build-up). Running on ice/snow at Stoney Creek early in the morning and always trying to force a pace.... Many may disagree with me, but I consider my 16th place at Boston last year to be a better performance than the 2:16:52 I ran with Hansons.

And my point is asking about this is that most people aren't going to reach their max potential in the marathon by doing, or trying to do, the training of elite Kenyans either. I don't think either example is going to be helpful to most runners. I do think, somewhat along your lines, that really most of today's marathoners would be noticeably faster if they just ran a lot more which naturally involves doing most of the running easily enough that they can run a lot more.

HRE wrote:

I get that they might be rejecting what's being said. That's pretty clear and yeah, I hear that same bell that you mention. But if you are working in Flagstaff with hundreds of athletes working their asses off, (and how does that connect to the thread?) your idea of normal training is probably kind of far removed from what the majority of recreational runners has too. I suspect most of them would look at those examples and feel more inclined to do something like Maffetone.

I don't see any reason to do something like the Phil Maffetone Method. It looks like nonsense to me. He has no published research to back it up. He has no world class runners who use his method. People can pay this guy to learn how to run slowly if they want to. I think most runners can learn how to coach themselves with the books I mentioned by Arthur Lydiard, Pete Pfitzinger, Jack Daniels, or Allan Lawrence. It does not have to be all complicated.

The physiology and training principles are the same for a world class runner or a recreational runner. The schedule of Moses Mosop has hard days with several easy days to recover. He can do 12 miles of long intervals and 120 miles per week. A runner who does 30 miles per week could do 3 miles of long intervals. It is the same physiology, just less volume and a lot slower, but the workouts can be at the same percentages of that person's race pace, or VO2max, or max HR, etc. in terms of intensity.

I would be bored running slowly all the time. I still do hill workouts, speedwork, long intervals, tempo runs, fartlek, runs up to 12,000 ft., weights, and easy days. Most of my hard workouts are exactly the same as when I was 25 years old. They are just a lot slower than when I was 25 and I need more easy days to recover. You still want to get in a healthy amount of aerobic mileage, volume at LT and specific marathon pace, and volume at vVO2max pace. There are many studies backing up vVO2max, vLT, improving running economy with strength training or altitude training, etc.

For example:

A study which found lower intensity training (by only 15 bpm in HR) was less effective than moderate intensity training:

A study on the time at vVO2max in elite Kenyan runners and 10K time:

High intensity resistance exercise improving running performance:

Altitude training improving running economy:

Hill reps improving running economy and 5K time trial performance:

Phil Maffetone Method published studies:

NONE

People learn all their lives. You got in the Hansons team at a point when they probably were very excited about a recent "proof" of concept.

I said for so many times "this is it, I can't find anything more efficient than what I know already", just because I had a good progress recently. And a few months later to discover something new. Their method was not mature enough when you joined them. Maybe they've changed their ideas in the meantime, but they build a business around that concept, so they can't step back now.

I don't want to be harsh with them, but when someone gets hurt (injured), I feel like I have the right to warn others. As you said, forcing the pace and their periodization model are pretty bad ideas.

In my opinion, the best characteristics for runners are discipline and consistency. You have them both, but you seem to be discouraged by the experience with the Hansons.

The reason I love Zatopek is that he never stopped to search for methods to become a better athlete. He was a modest person. A modest person is not ashamed to learn from others, listen others, or verify if his own concepts are correct. That makes one a stronger person.

If you know what to look for, you can understand one coach's training method in 2-3 months. Every coach may have something original, from psychology and strength training method to attitude towards the sport.

I know you've been focused on ultra running in the past year, which is like changing the sport somehow. I wouldn't give up the standard distances in your place, especially with the good foundation you have.

But you would have to look for ways to improve, even uncharted methods.

Here are a few topics that I found and are not common:

- ways to measure consistency and its impact on performance. By consistency I understand the variation of effort or volume in a period of time. For example, how it impacts running all weekdays between 3-10 miles and on Sunday to run 17 miles? How it can be improved and what's the benefit?

- from the biomechanics perspective, how exactly are the hills improving the performance? Why doing strength at the gym is not as useful as running uphill? Is there any static exercise which simulates uphill running?

- is there any way to optimize the effort in a single training day? Besides running a specific distance, a specific time, a distance at a certain pace, a distance/time at a certain heart rate, is there any other method?

- how long it takes for the muscles to assimilate one training day?

- how can you combine all the above?

I actually found my own answers to those questions, but is not the place to talk about them.

Good luck!

(and show us more pizza recipes :))

And there you have it: straight from the wizard, himself. This guy knows best. He even has a book that is adored by 1:1,000 teenage boys.

I also love that SC cherry picks PM concepts without providing context.

Sage, you NEED to learn more about PM methods before spouting off. You sound like a moron to those that are familiar to PM principles.

For me, this is the highlight of the thread.

Yeah, I saw Trent Briney ( 2:12 marathon ) falling off the back end of a 800 workout at 2:14-2:15 pace. It was not respectful, nor did it address where he was at.

shug wrote:

And there you have it: straight from the wizard, himself. This guy knows best. He even has a book that is adored by 1:1,000 teenage boys.

I also love that SC cherry picks PM concepts without providing context.

Sage, you NEED to learn more about PM methods before spouting off. You sound like a moron to those that are familiar to PM principles.

This is horseshit. Sage isn't cherry picking PM.

Easy mileage on recovery day, and increasing your mileage existed long before Maffetone started running.

Maffetone:

"Just after the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials in Los Angeles, coach Alberto Salazar claimed that Galen Rupp (his star 10K runner and now marathon winner) had recently clocked a 20-mile training run at a 4:52 minutes per mile (min/mi) pace, with a heart rate of 150 beats per minute (BPM). If this is true, Rupp would be the clear favorite to beat the East Africans at this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil. But the normally secretive Salazar rarely surrenders specifics about his athletes.

However, it must be considered that when running at any given heart rate (HR), the onset of fatigue causes later miles to be slower than earlier miles. If HR remains constant, pace drops. And if pace remains constant, HR rises. Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that Rupp can perform a workout where the 1st and 20th mile are run at the same pace, while maintaining a constant submax HR."

Yes, but this probably his average HR on his Garmin printout.

The guy has the balls to say something about Rupp's training never having produced anything other than a triathlete that blew up at 18 miles in a real marathon.

PM produced the greatest triathlete in history. What have you produced, fred?

Urea.