Maffetone Method (Read 759 times)

...Anyway, i'm curious to hear if anybody else has tried this and what kind of results you had.

You should go to the "Low HR Training" User Group, where you'll find some folks who know a lot about this, and there's at least one "hugely long" thread where people post their results. Be sure also to go the the FAQ which "formationflier" (aka Jesse Leitner) has put up and read that. Selection of the proper training HR for this basebuilding is easy for some and hard for others. Although Maffetone's "180 formula", with adjustments, seems to work fine for many people, I've seen a number of VO2 test results indicating that there are folks for whom the formula does not find the right HR very well (it is the point where there is a significant change of slope in the RER (RQ) vs HR graph.) I have been training for 4 months at the HR which my VO2 test indicated would be the best for LHR endurance basebuilding. This is only about 8 bpm below my training HR of last year, but it is paying off, judging from a HM I just did. Despite all conditions (sleep, food, weather) being worse this year, I beat last year's time by 21 minutes with a significant negative split and felt far better at the end. If you do MAF tests maybe once a month, it can take a while to have the variations due to conditions get evened out in the results you are seeing. I myself don't do traditional MAF tests, but just do a "pace" test every so often where I run a couple hours at a track and check my pace at the MAF HR by timing a lap every 20 to 30 minutes. Some people do a mile at a time, with walking a lap in between, some do the traditional 5 miles at HR recording each mile split, etc. The time it takes for people to get results varies. Some can see good results in only 4-6 months. For some it can take longer. Post your question over in the Low HR Training user group and you'll get good feedback.