Heart Rate Math Question (Read 2728 times)

clarity of mind. 

This is confirmation that I am putting forth 100% effort.  Thanks for that.

As far as the MAF training goes, it is not about running slow, but getting faster and faster at the same aerobic heart rate. Building aerobic speed.

Mark Allen explains it well here. An excerpt:

"To keep my heart rate below 155 beats/minute (note: his MAF), I had to slow my pace down to an 8:15 mile. That’s three minutes/mile SLOWER than I had been trying to hit in every single workout I did! My body just couldn’t utilize fat for fuel.

So, for the next four months, I did exclusively aerobic training keeping my heart rate at or below my maximum aerobic heart rate, using the monitor every single workout. And at the end of that period, my pace at the same heart rate of 155 beats/minute had improved by over a minute. And after nearly a year of doing mostly aerobic training, which by the way was much more comfortable and less taxing than the anaerobic style that I was used to, my pace at 155 beats/minute had improved to a blistering 5:20 mile.

That means that I was now able to burn fat for fuel efficiently enough to hold a pace that a year before was redlining my effort at a maximum heart rate of about 190. I had become an aerobic machine! On top of the speed benefit at lower heart rates, I was no longer feeling like I was ready for an injury the next run I went on, and I was feeling fresh after my workouts instead of being totally wasted from them."

It's about get faster, not running slow. Though it might be slow in the beginning. Allen writes about having to walk hills and at the end of long runs when he began this type of training. And also of being left in the dust and mocked by his training partners. It wasn't long before he was running at the same pace as them, but his heart rate was very low.

It's basically the idea around any heart rate training,  you should be getting faster at the same training HR's. The body determines the pace in its own time. If you use a heart rate monitor for anaerobic intervals, and for example, use 95% MHR for a target HR, then you are looking to get faster at the same HR. The body will get faster in its own time, not the time dictated by a schedule. When not using a HRM, an athlete might run intervals starting at 6:00 pace and then push them to 5:30 pace because of a schedule or wish, then he or she might be running way too hard, the body isn't ready, and the heart rate (if measured)  might be at 98% instead of 95%. Breakdown could start to occur.

There are athletes that develop, or have the ability, to feel the exact intensities at which they should be working, and if measured with a HRM, would be correct every time at hitting the right intensity. They are their own HRM so-to-speak. The same should happen with them. They should get faster at the same "feel". Some athletes have developed this ability through use of the HRM, and have left the tool behind with no ill-effects. Perhaps, a superior way to go if you can do it, as it frees you up in one sense of things. In another sense, the HRM frees you up from the stress of having to pick and adjust your training paces (if you don't have a great sense of feel), the body does it for you. You just have to know and work with your HR zones.

Of course, there is always the debate about the correct zones for this or that type of workout. Experimentation is really the only way to find out what works for you. Thus far, I've done full experiments with no HRM, Pfitzinger's HR's, Hadd training HR's, using 70% as a ceiling for base periods, and MAF training. I can really only speak of my experience with each. Arguing which method or zone is better, or if this or that is false or voodoo math  or not, really never goes anywhere.

On a personal basis, the only thing that has ever proven anything to me is a full experiment through all phases of a particular type of training. Experience. Otherwise, it's all an intellectual exercise. A merry go round of contradictory studies and methods and opinion. It would be arrogant and short-sighted of me to suggest that the way I train should be the way everyone else trains. I can say with complete confidence that if an athlete is breaking down physically or mentally, then adjustments in training, diet, or one's life have to be made that reduce overall stress. I have found that the principles I've learned in MAF training, especially the MAF test, are the best way for me to monitor the state of my aerobic system and avoid getting to the breakdown point.

Chemical, mental, and physical serenity now.

--Jimmy

These discussions start because people just want some kind of guide when they're starting out.  "Running by feel," while it has a lot of advantages for runners with even modest levels of experience, is probably not that helpful for most beginners because they have no frame of reference from which to judge their effort.

This is like saying it takes practice and experience to see the color red. 

MTA: I'll stop now. There is a lot of good stuff about MAF, and it's obvious that many people here have had good results using the program. 

What's hard about running easy is not knowing what it feels like to run easy. It's actually doing it. If a HRM and MAF training helps a beginner learn, that's great.

This is like saying it takes practice and experience to see the color red. 

It does take practice and experience to see the color "red."

It does take practice and experience to see the color "red."

Okay, then. I am stumped.

Or that you are hung over. 

After reading all this, i will be tomorrow.

Running by feel is made into a "zen like thing" by folks who insist on a quantitative approach and can't fathom that they can understand an easy effort like they see the color red.

Maybe it's just trying to find the boundaries between easy and not-easy.  How do you explain to someone where the boundary between red and purple is?  You and I know where easy is when we see it, some people need to look at a few more crayons before they know.

Lateralus

Black then white are all i see in my infancy.
red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.
lets me see.
as below, so above and beyond, I imagine
drawn beyond the lines of reason.
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.

Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must
Feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines.

Black then white are all i see in my infancy.
red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.
lets me see there is so much more and
beckons me to look thru to these infinite possibilities.
as below, so above and beyond, I imagine
drawn outside the lines of reason.
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.

over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
Withering my intuition leaving opportunities behind.
Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace the random.
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.

I embrace my desire to
I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired to fathom the power, to witness the beauty,
to bathe in the fountain,
to swing on the spiral
to swing on the spiral
to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human.

With my feet upon the ground I move myself between the sounds and open wide to suck it in.
I feel it move across my skin.
I'm reaching up and reaching out. I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.
what ever will bewilder me.
And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been.
We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been.
Spiral out. Keep going.
Spiral out. Keep going.
Spiral out. Keep going.
Spiral out. Keep going.
Spiral out. Keep going.