Just thought I'd share some of my MAF test results from back in 2009  

Wow!  That is some nice improvement over the past couple of years!

Frimmin's sauna post bumped me into taking the book Slow Burn by Stu Mittleman (©2000) off

the aerobic training shelf in my collection. I found it interesting that, at age 48,

Stu was doing the bulk of his training between 100-125 bpm (page 151).

 

Considering you can keep the same MAF for 5 years if health and fitness continue to progress, his MAF might have been

at the very least, 180-48=132-137, no adjustments.

 

As high as 137-142 with the +5 for being an aerobigod.

 

100-125 bpm  was well below his MAF and in the deep fat-burning zone. Not sure what kind of volume

he was doing at the time, although in 2000 he did his 52 mile a day run across America. It would

be a good guess his prep for that contained some decent volume.

 

If you calculate his SLow Burn Zones (for those who've read the book):

MAP 112-132
MEP 132-142 (his MAF zone)
SAP 142-162 (this zone he considers anaerobic, as Dr. Phil would)

 

I find it encouraging that if working out well below MAF is okay for a world-class ultrarunner, then it's not hurting

a back-yard class amateur like me to be using a -5 adjustment and working out 126 and below.

 

--Jimmy

I have the book myself, the calculations would have my MAP at 143-153, MEP 153-163, and SAP 163-183. according to the subjective feelings this is pretty much spot on, except for SAP, because the 20bpm seemed a bit narrow, I would put the upper end of that somewhere below my LT(190+). also the lower part of SAP is not so much SAP-ish, but that's okay. so yeah, the rest of it is very well spot on. I added the 10 beats because I work out for more than 3 hours

I never got around to try and follow his schedules, but I liked his book a lot...I liked his description of what you feel at what HR because I tend to note these "subjective" things myself.  I do happen to run a lot in his MEP zone (almost all those miles recently ), though I'm not following his training in general.

as for it being a good idea to spend a lot of time at such a low HR. it depends where you are in your training, and where you are going. i.e. what your goals are. if you want to be able to run long and slow (has to be slow so you can easily eat and drink and go on without your HR increasing much etc.), then you should train at very low HR a lot. it will also train your endocrine system too to withstand all that running for very long. it will also have good effects on the higher fat burning zones but only as long as fat burning is heavily dominant over carbs. it doesn't seem to train one too well to run at higher intensities (faster than marathon pace etc). I dared to add this here because I know several ultrarunners and talked to them a bit.

I have the book myself, the calculations would have my MAP at 143-153, MEP 153-163, and SAP 163-183. according to the subjective feelings this is pretty much spot on, except for SAP, because the 20bpm seemed a bit narrow, I would put the upper end of that somewhere below my LT(190+). also the lower part of SAP is not so much SAP-ish, but that's okay. so yeah, the rest of it is very well spot on. I added the 10 beats because I work out for more than 3 hours

I never got around to try and follow his schedules, but I liked his book a lot...I liked his description of what you feel at what HR because I tend to note these "subjective" things myself.  I do happen to run a lot in his MEP zone (almost all those miles recently ), though I'm not following his training in general.

 

as for it being a good idea to spend a lot of time at such a low HR. it depends where you are in your training, and where you are going. i.e. what your goals are. if you want to be able to run long and slow (has to be slow so you can easily eat and drink and go on without your HR increasing much etc.), then you should train at very low HR a lot. it will also train your endocrine system too to withstand all that running for very long. it will also have good effects on the higher fat burning zones but only as long as fat burning is heavily dominant over carbs. it doesn't seem to train one too well to run at higher intensities (faster than marathon pace etc). I dared to add this here because I know several ultrarunners and talked to them a bit.

The point of my post was to show how a world class runner trains below MAF, and that it gives me hope. He does spend time above on occasion. 

How does your MEP training relate to The Maffetone Method?

Do you do MEP tests in place of MAF tests?

How do you structure your MAF training?

How does your experience with a full experiment with MAF training relate to a full experiment with Slow Burn training and/or my post?

Do you find inspiration from Mittleman at all?

SLow Burn is really the Maffetone Method with a personal spin put on it. The MEP zone relates directly to the 10 beat zone below MAF, though he gives you a ten beat bump if you are training a lot and staying healthy. I'm sure if he was working with someone who was obviously unfit and unhealthy, though still running a high volume, that he wouldn't advise taking the ten beat bump. Just as Dr. Phil doesn't advise the 5 beat bump up if you've been regressing, are unfit, or feeling unhealthy.

--Jimmy

The point of my post was to show how a world class runner trains below MAF, and that it gives me hope. He does spend time above on occasion. 

 

How does your MEP training relate to The Maffetone Method?

Do you do MEP tests in place of MAF tests?

How do you structure your MAF training?

How does your experience with a full experiment with MAF training relate to a full experiment with Slow Burn training and/or my post?

Do you find inspiration from Mittleman at all?

 

SLow Burn is really the Maffetone Method with a personal spin put on it. The MEP zone relates directly to the 10 beat zone below MAF, though he gives you a ten beat bump if you are training a lot and staying healthy. I'm sure if he was working with someone who was obviously unfit and unhealthy, though still running a high volume, that he wouldn't advise taking the ten beat bump. Just as Dr. Phil doesn't advise the 5 beat bump up if you've been regressing, are unfit, or feeling unhealthy.

 

--Jimmy

I have already said that I don't follow mittleman's training so there is no answer to your questions. it just so happens that my current slow paced runs are in his MEP zone (but NOT below maffetone's 180-age MAF HR). I didn't even realize that until now that this topic came up. I found that interesting, so I mentioned it.

I did notice that there was this difference that he advocated adding 10bpm while maffetone never advocates more than adding 5bpm. I don't know why. in his book he does mention that the calculations are just a preliminary guess, and that you should really use the subjective feelings that he describes, to fix up the zones properly.

how do you mean it gives you hope?

C

I've been racing in between all those MAF tests. I also bike and swim. I competed in two HM's last year (PR'd the second one by 10 minutes), one sprint triathlon and one duathlon. If I had to guess I'd say that 75-85% of my running would be a strict MAF HR run. Same holds true for my biking and 95% of the swimming.

My log is public if you want to peek at it, but sometimes I categorize a run as "easy" if its a few beats above my MAF of 140. The 140 MAF is not adjusted up for improved and progressive testing, duration or fitness.

yeah, let me also add that maffetone also talks about that phase a lot more with all those strict regulations for the HR ceiling. this plus reading a lot of threads here may be why it seemed to me that way when I came here on this forum originally, that most people tend to do that pure base phase more often than the anaerobic part. so, it's good to see this explanation here.

Totally understand. It can seem that way--especially if the main posters here are all in a base period (about a dozen posters, and 480+ members of this forum! Lots of lurkers and people who have come and gone).  It's also the biggest misconception people have who haven't really read the books or given the method a full try (a full try meaning a base period, some anaerobic work, then some racing, then back to base +MAF TESTS).

--Jimmy

Hey C,

 

Your reply to my post barely had anything to do it, and was attempting to bring you back to the

subject of this thread ("Maffetone Method Support Thread") as stated in the first post, and  also to what you were replying to.

Thus the questions. SInce you are hanging out and replying about both MAF training and Slow Burn, I took it that you were

using one or both of the "LHR" methods, or at least had fully experimented with each before. I wanted to know what your experience with one or both was and how you did it and all that. Especially since the SLow Burn stuff has so much about the what each zone feels like (to Stu). The final question was "do you find inspiration from Mittleman at all?" I figured you read the book and/or knew something about his exploits. I find inspiration and hope, as he ran across America at the same age as I am now. Just wondering if you did. 

 

I haven't really used his zones before, although as I said, and as you know, his MEP zone correlates with the MAF to MAF-10 zone. I never much got into it as I felt the MAF training was pretty clear, simpler, and had a wider array of possibilities (like running above the SEP zone in Slow Burn).

Except for that possible 5 extra beats that you can take in the MEP zone in SLow Burn, it's MAF training. 

 

--Jimmy

yes I did use the MAF HR  (180-age) for base building, then I kept MAF runs + added high anaerobic runs (tempos), they were usually above maxHR 90%. the MAF HR base building didn't do much beyohd bringing me back from the overtraining thing, mixing MAF HR and 1-2 anaerobic runs per week did result in a lot of improvement.

I didn't experiment with the "mittleman method" at all.

about inspiration: yes, those descriptions about the feelings inspired me a lot. it helped me find some connections between the heart rate and how I'm feeling. if you mean that his achievements are inspiring to me: I tend to just think "wow", because his achievements are at such a different level. though, I do hope that one day I could do running like I do walking, it would be so cool. when I run at a low enough HR I feel that is possible. by low enough I mostly mean the MAP zone, or MAF or whatever, in my case, basically the HR below 180-age or so.

you are right, that was a very good thing that I got back from the whatever, I think it was some kind of overreaching, I was trying to do nearly 30mpw at somewhat higher HR and that was too much as a beginner, I regressed at the HR zones I was training at (not just very low HR's) and had a few other symptoms. anyway, I went ahead and tried running at MAF HR and sometimes a bit lower too and in 2-3 weeks I was back. also, your comment on taking a long time to heal first is a good one. I wasn't looking at it from this viewpoint before.

as for the interview , see below:

1. I'd been running for 5 months (1.5 months run-walk to first 5K and then 3.5months of running). I'd been improving nicely for 4-4.5 months and then I got the above mentioned set back.

2. I followed all the strict rules for 6 weeks, staying at or below MAF HR for 6 weeks. after that I added some faster runs (1-2 weekly) because I wanted to run a couple of races. the 1-2/week includes the races. everything else still MAF HR because I was ok with that as long as seeing progress.

3. yeah, for the "pure" base building part, it was all MAF, which is supposedly 153bpm for me. but sometimes I just ran at 150bpm because that allowed me to just set the pace in the beginning and then forget about it (I mean, HR didn't drift up).

4. volume went from 27miles (first week of MAF) to 30-35mpw, excluding the 15min run-walk warmups (I didn't bother to count the warmup miles). 6 days per week. one rest day per week - I didn't feel any need to rest but I did it anyway.
the following could also be related to your volume question...before the MAF'ing, the bad period (regression) was after I tried to do and maintain 28mpw. before upping the mileage to 28, I was happily progressing on 22mpw or so.

5. MAF tests: the first MAF run was right at the 153bpm and it was at around 15:15/mile after warmup. this was pretty bad due to the overtraining thing. 3 weeks later the pace was around 13:30 and stayed there. which was pretty much in line with what I would have before the regression. the paces at higher HR's and race pace were back to the same too, I mean, same as before regression. but better than during the regression, of course!

oh and if we are talking MAF tests, after 6 more weeks where I mixed MAFHR+high HR, that 13:30 went to 12:30-12:45 and 6 more weeks of the same mixed MAFHR+high HR led to a pace around 12:10.

(....side note, after that 12:10, I had a nearly 3 month plateau where there were no races, instead it was a different low HR method, a lot of it consisted of MAF HR runs, but it wasn't pure MAF base building. high HR's were pretty much excluded, though. ok I'm making this post too long!)

PS: how does your friend explain that he quit smoking? what does he think the reason was for this? I'm curious to hear

PS2: hey a funny thing. I looked in my old running logs and I find that 10min/mile pace was at a 180bpm HR back then (after those first 6 weeks of MAF HR running), and now, that pace is at around 155-159bpm. (those HR's apply after warmup.)