twister said...Tim Noakes who wrote Lore of Running is now also on board with this strategy, and is a supporter of Maffetone.
got that book ,comprehensive or what?...Might get the book you suggest and have a read.
Thanks for mentioning this..always up for new approaches..keeps the mind involved
You've got to respect Noakes as a scientist when he publicly states that what he wrote about diet is wrong. The great thing about real science is its not static and set in stone. Personally I'd love to see more data, but on N=1 basis I've seen my hill climbing go from strength to strength this year as I gradually wean myself off the carbs. I'm now doing 4 hour slow runs pre-breakfast on a handful of trail mix, I hope to reduce this to no trail mix soon.Originally Posted by creaky
A quick google search brought this up. http://www.health24.com/dietnfood/Di...1173,66523.asp
[QUOTE=creaky;491303]very very sceptical about this. 180 minus age is totally meaningless and for me would give an 'anaerobic limit' of 138, which is nonsense. I know my anaerobic threshold is around 170 bpm.Although I'm finding myself quite sceptical about it I've been following the Maffetone approach last winter during the aerobic base building phase of my training.
So I use the HRM to make sure that I'm not going over the point where Maffetone says you start becoming anaerobic which is 180 minus your age. in my case 144 Bpm.
This is very interesting, it certainly puts a different complexion on training pace, if I used this system i would need to keep below 120bpm to stay aerobic.
Not sure my training partners would let me run that slowIt might explain why I can't get a decent sequence of training sessions going though. Might try this out next winter.
But as far as I know, theories about building base endurance over the winter at low hear rates aren't anything to do with aerobic / anaerobic - you're talking much lower levels. So 138 might well be about right as a max HR if I was going to adopt it - but that's not anywhere near my anaerobic threshold.
Is not the Maffetone approach just another way of saying that most runners do their slow runs too fast , and as a consequence, their fast runs too slow? We should do about 80% of our runs at guilty slow pace, 5-10% at eyeballs out phlegm on the face pace, and the rest at target race pace, but not target race distance.
I don't know if it's Maffetone, but one quite 'extreme' version of the base building idea goes something like this: that not only is the best way to train the aerobic system to do weeks and months at low intensities, but also that straying into higher intensities will spoil the effects of that training, so while you are training the aerobic system you should do no high intensity work at all.
A slightly less extreme version says that if you go above a certain HR within the same session, into sugar-burning territory, then that will negate or spoil the steady fat-burning system work you've been doing.
I dunno, I'm not knowledgeable enough to know whether these theories are widely accepted or 'fringe'.
All I know is that the racing cyclists I know - who are the fittest people I know - ride fast all the time and at bi-weekly chaingangs are training in the upper heart rate zones.
" I don't know if it's Maffetone, but one quite 'extreme' version of the base building idea goes something like this: that not only is the best way to train the aerobic system to do weeks and months at low intensities, but also that straying into higher intensities will spoil the effects of that training, so while you are training the aerobic system you should do no high intensity work at all.
A slightly less extreme version says that if you go above a certain HR within the same session, into sugar-burning territory, then that will negate or spoil the steady fat-burning system work you've been doing. "
If there is any evidence for this I would like to see it - to me, for what it is worth, it makes no sense in evolutionary terms.
Two different thresholds involved here.
(1) aerobic or lactate threshold (the lower one) below which the anaerobic contribution to your total effort is essentially nil.
(2) anaerobic threshold (the upper one) above which the anaerobic contribution becomes unsustainable (you can't process the accumulating lactate fast enough).
Zoothorn you're talking about (2) the Maffetone formula gives you (1).
Traditionally many racing cyclists will also have spent three or four months over the winter doing long steady aerobic base mileage. Of course to get value from that takes a *lot* of training time...nowadays in cycling if you haven't got that time the focus is moving towards higher intensity / shorter duration methods ie. interval training programmes of the Carmicheal variety.
[QUOTE=Twister;491387]Simplest introduction I've heard to this approach was from a podcast by the Talk Ultra guys. Search iTunes store for Talk Ultra podcasts and theirs should come up. It's Talk Ultra Training 40:30:30 Diet (or something to that effect). Doesn't go in to as much detail as Noakes, being only a 30 min discussion, but outlines the principles and theory behind it. Have to say I've used since in prep for longer runs and not once since had a problem with 'bonking'; a symptom of an over-reliance on carbs as a fuel.
There was a training film in the run up to the Lympics following the rowers, saying that their success is built on the '000,000s of km's they do on their lake: all low level stuff; which is then supplemented by more intense sprint, interval & TT type stuff (not to mention specific strength training).
"The best shield is to accept the pain, then what can really destroy me?"
http://garyufm.blogspot.co.uk
To be fair, I've been sceptical about the Maffetone approach, the 180 - age + (other stuff) formula is a bit, well, meh. The book is not referenced and has mild anecdotes (from his friends) and his big trump card the Tri Athlete Mark Allen. It's shaky as far as science goes, but a lot of people were raving about this on some of the barefoot minimal forums so I gave it a go. Over 3 months running at MAX 145 BPM (which at the start meant walking hills) I went from 11 min/mile average to just under 8.5 min/mile average. What does this mean? I don't know. I went back to speed work (hills and intervals) in the last 2 months and dropped the HRM totally and felt "stronger" after this period.
The takeaway... I'll go back to a period of 3-4 months of very low intensity work this winter and not obsess too much about the heart rate, I'm going to try and run "by feel" as such.
I beg to differ here elliptic.
I have done a field test and my lactate threshold HR is around 170-75 - the HR that I average during a 60-min maximal effort.
I'm not sure how 'anaerobic threshold HR' differs - but according to you it's higher.
Training 'below lactate' is standard and it can include some pretty high level aerobic effort - i.e., in my case HRs from 150-170.
In any zone system that I know of, what Maffetone is saying is to train right down in zone 2 - nowhere near lactate HR at all.
As for your second point, yes quite possibly.
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