anyone use maffetone training principles?
has anyone out there read any of the recent books by dr maffetone? If so have you tried any of his training methods AND if so what were your results?
thx!
0
has anyone out there read any of the recent books by dr maffetone? If so have you tried any of his training methods AND if so what were your results?
thx!
Comments
There are a couple of ways to build your fitness house. Maffetone and EN tend to work 180* from each other as I understand. Maff wants to slow down and build endurance first, then sharpen with speed. EN builds your speed first, then draws it out for endurance.
While I did well with Maff with short distance racing, I tend to lean toward EN's philosophy for long events. Mainly because of recovery concerns. I still have plenty to learn and am new to events >2h, so with my experiment of one I'll have to see if it goes well.
I've never checked out Dr. Phil's "method", so I looked it up:
http://www.philmaffetone.com/what-is-the-maffetone-method
Seems he is most interested in getting our whole system tuned up well. So nutrition, aerobic fitness, stress management, etc all seem important to him.
When I;ve heard Mark Allen talk about his breakthrough after encountering Maffetone, he (Allen) seemed to emphasize not Far Before Fast (or vice Versa), but the value in switching gears every 3 months or so. Allen implies that Maffetone taught him that after a period of time, he would plateau using one method of training, so that would mean it was time to switch to another, Specifically, he talks about watching his heart rate gradually drop from, say the 150s to the 130s when he would do his long runs at an easy pace. When his HR stayed level for a while, he would switch to doing fast/short/intense intervals. When his speed at those would plateau, he'd switch back to the LSD stuff. Rinse and repeat.
I don;t see that as the opposite of EN; I see it as the same as EN, as pointed out previously.
I have been suspecting that the truth for me is in what La wrote - That there is value in switching gears from time to time.
I think that I came to EN chronically over z4 and z5'd in my training patterns.
I am tempted to do an experiment this out season to try and cap myself at mafetone's target heart rate (low 130's for my age) and see if I can improve my times at those heart rates.
If you dont have an HIM or IM planned before august, though, there would be value in trying a run or bike durability block, with the type of work you suggest, followed by a Get Faster block before starting race prep.
Here is what I have settled on for Jan and Feb regarding the run -
Tuesday - 1hr treadmill run test - 1mi warm up to target HR (131bpm) then 3x1mi @ 131bpm writing down mile splits. I will compare the avg pace week over week. Same treadmill. Controlling as much variables as possible.
Thursday - 1hr interval run ala get faster or outseason
Saturday - 90min long run with the first hr @ 131bpm.
It is an experiment. My times will either improve or they wont. At the end of Feb I will reasses.