I guess a better question to you is: have you seen improvement using the 117 HR as a ceiling for aerobic training?
Happy
The information on this thread is a little difficult to understand - perhaps especially for those of us who have never had those tests done or who have never seen an actual graph like the one described. Jimmy and GMoney, is it the famous fig 3.12 in Noakes? Re-reading Gino et al's posts this morning made me realize the importance of tinkering with your MAF until you start to see improvements in your MAF tests. One could be running at a modest MAF yet be 3-5 BPM too high and continuously be running the head into a wall and not seeing the improvement that would occur if the MAF was adjusted 5 BPM down - or in Gino's case 3 BPM down from 120 to117. Gino your improvements from 2007 to 2008 are rather drastic and impressive to say the least. It is difficult in hindsight to know if the difference had to do with laying a solid base all through the year of 2007 and then coming into 2008 taking off from that platform. We want to draw the conclusion that it was the downward adjustment of the MAF that made all the difference, right? But was it? How do we/you know? I am not trying to be devil's advocate - I am genuinely interested. If your running success could be copied we would all be willing to pay money for "the secret".
I think a lot of the improvement was due to the increased mpw, but of course that was possible only because of the LHR training right at (or below) that 117 HR.
Wasatch Speedgoat
Life is short, play hard!
...Gino your improvements from 2007 to 2008 are rather drastic and impressive to say the least. It is difficult in hindsight to know if the difference had to do with laying a solid base all through the year of 2007 and then coming into 2008 taking off from that platform. We want to draw the conclusion that it was the downward adjustment of the MAF that made all the difference, right? But was it? How do we/you know? ...
Flower, the Noakes figure 3.12 and the related discussion deals with a study that was done by a graduate student in Noake’s lab. As I understand it, she took 61 equally-performing, recreational cyclists and measured their RQs at rest and at different levels of activity. By plotting the number of cyclists on the vertical and the RQ level of each on the horizontal, she developed a curve that showed how the cyclists RQs lined up at each activity level. What she found was that there was a wide distribution among the cyclists’ RQs at all levels of activity, but that the general relationship among them (i.e. the shape of the curve) remained the same for each separate level and, at each level of activity the entire curve moved to the right (toward higher RQs across the board). Only a small number had an RQ of 0.7 (100% fat burn) at rest and none of them did at higher levels. Some were burning very high amounts of sugar even at rest. Noakes uses this data to postulate, I believe, that some of us are genetic “fat burners” predisposed to be better at burning fat than others, while others of us are genetic “sugar burners” who have a genetic preference to burn sugar.
Man, reading all these post shows me this group has come a long way! Here's my take on the whole HR training thing....it is almost all just pointing to trying to get us to not train too hard for most of our training. Keep it low, the magic is how low? My numbers in parentheses) Maffetone says to run at 180-age and if you've been running for awhile injury free add 5. (my number today is 128) Mark Allen is with Maffetone. Mittleman, who had a lot of success with Maffetone as his coach says it's OK to add 10, but also you can go by visual and audio effects around us. If you feel like you're in a 3D world, hearing the birds and wind you're burning "mostly" fat, if you feel as if you are in a tunnel, separated fro the world that speeding by, you're burning "mostly" sugar. ( 133) Hadd says to do most of your training at around 50 bpm below your max (136) Ernst Van Aaken (back in the 60's) said to run between 130-150 bpm. All of these numbers point (for me) to basically 60% of my max. That is very easy running and is what these coaches are trying to get us to buy into. Now let me give you a good example of when these formulas and such "don't" work! My wife and I started on Maffetone at the same time back in late 2003 after reading Training for Endurance. I could do some jogging, with lots of walking, which eventually came to all running except for the largest hills. My wife struggled early and often, never able to run at all! So we went out and over several weeks, had her do a Max HR test (I did as well). My max came out to be 186, hers 206. We both have a resting down around 50. So what does this tell you, her, me? Maffetone had her running at 135 bpm. Mittleman at 140 Hadd at 156 Not even close! So we figured out her approximate 60%, which came out to 143.6, 70% was 159.2. (most coaches will tell you to train at or around 70% for all of your aerobic running). Hadd had her closer to 70%, so she settled on that and was smiling from then on... These days I'm trying to stick with 130 just to see what happens, much like Jimmy is doing. It feels ridiculously slow to me and i had to walk a lot during my 6 mile run today (windy and hilly), but I am hopeful that in time I will be running faster at 130 Anyway just to summarize what I was saying above...I think you cannot say that I am going to run at 180-age and that will be correct, most likely it is not but it's a good place to begin. Talking about tests to find some definitive answers, while reading Slow Burn again last night I saw and remembered the PH litmus oral test where you spit on litmus paper. If your saliva is acidic, you're sugar burning... Sometimes i think we get too anal about our training...I like to run easy, my body likes it when I run easy, therefore I run easy...plus it fits well with Ultrarunning. But I will add that when I was running sub 2:50 marathons 25 years ago, I was a Van Aaken follower and ran all my miles slowly, we just didn't have monitors then. I'll bet I was still running too fast for my today thinking... Steve
...Gino, how old are you?
I'm very certain that slowing down and running easier in 2008 (HR 117) is responsible for my being able to run more miles without injury. In 2007 (HR 125 or so) I just couldn't have added the miles. In 2006 (HR 127-131) I might have had a decent marathon if my legs hadn't cramped horribly at about mile 15 (due, I'm sure to not enough training mpw plus lack of electrolyte replacement in the race.) I didn't lay down any particular solid base in 2007. Sorry if the following is Too Much Information... just history to illustrate why I think 2007 was not that great a year... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In 2008 I started in mid-February training at HR 117 doing maybe 20 mpw. I just kept increasing the mpw, drinking nothing but water (and sometimes an Endurolyte capsule or two) on my runs, which were done in a "fasting" state (no food/calories of any kind for at least 12 hours.) Most of my running was on trails, including 3 of the 5 20+ mile runs. No leg cramping in the marathon. Felt good. Anyway, I'm convinced that running easy at the right HR allowed me to boost the mpw and stay uninjured.