Came across this blog somehow a few days ago.
I've not done it before, that is take whole chunks of other peoples post at put them here, but thought you'd be interested in what Tim Waggoner had to say and in his blog. I was, and am.
"And a little something to add. I've been doing MAF work since I had an ice cream with Mike Pigg after my first triathlon, the St. Croix International triathlon back in 1996. He told me to just train at HR 145-155 as much as possible and I would do anything I wanted. I listened and was the #1 amateur in the world at Ironman by 2000. I pretty much trained exclusively in that HR range. If you're patient enough to do the correct work you will see big gains. I posted a video on here in November where I was gasping for breath and walking up a hill to keep my HR down. Even jogging down a hill my HR would hit 150 with no effort. But I walked every hill and paid attention and I did the right thing. Today's run, just ~7 weeks after that video, illustrates what happens. I am a responder to this kind of training now because of the years I spent patiently building my economy. I was running sub 5:20 pace on the downhills today and my HR was holding right at ~155. Just sayin."
What do you reckon about what he said?
Personally I think pure MAF training is more beneficial for longer events, longer than the marathon. I don't think it's coincidence that the athletes who had the most success with Maffetone's training are either Ironman triathletes or very long ultra runners like Stu Mittleman.
ReplyDeleteThat's not to count it out completely. My present training cycle has seen me do countless runs in the same HR range and I'm feeling very good for it.
I think Thomas is right!
ReplyDeleteIf your training for an ironman event you don't have time to recover from very hard sessions due to all the swimmimg and cycling your doing.
But for us marathon guys we need to get some work in at marathon and above paces for max results.
I like it. I've been reading his blog for a year or so (when he was 'Lucho'). I love his 2nd rule of joghard.
ReplyDeleteIf you get the MAF HR right for yourself (I don't think the formula is perfect, but it's pretty close for me), then I think you'll see improvements from doing a lot of running at that HR. There's a good post here about how Mark Allen improved his pace at MAF HR from 4:05/k to 3:19/k over a number of years.
It's worth noting though, that Allen only used 'pure MAF' training through his 'patience phase' (at the beginning of the training year). When his pace at MAF HR plateaued (or declined) he changed phase (to include tempo running etc). I also think MAF training needs a 'decent' volume of running per week to work well. I also think (haven't tested this yet) including 100m 'strides' a couple of times a week during MAF training is good value in order to retain some fast-twitch fibre strength.
I was going to say the same thing as Ewen re: Mark Allen as I came across his article on the topic some time ago here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.markallenonline.com/maoArticles.aspx?AID=2