Maffetone Method

For about a month, I've been training using principles of the Maffetone Method. I mentioned this indirectly; at the time, though I knew a little of Dr. Maffetone, I really hadn't read much of his work.

That didn't stop me from jumping in and start using the one part of his method that I knew -- at least, I nearly used it. I fudged a little.

You can read about it on his web site. In particular, here's a page describing how to pick an appropriate heart rate for training. He dismisses the usual "220-age" formula that you may have seen, and has his own formula. It is mainly based on age, but makes some adjustments for health and fitness. What it does not adjust for, which seems strange to me, is the rather wide variation in maximum heart rate. My own max rate, for example, is fairly high for my age. I haven't done a max test in a number of years, but during a not particularly hard run just this month, I hit 186 beats per minute. I'm sure my actual max is at least a little above that. In past years, I've measured my heart rate at over 200.

All of this suggests to me that my own heart rate range is probably about 20 beats per minute higher than the mean for my age. I'm 48.

Using Maffetone's 180-formula, I get to 127 beats per minute. I can hit that at a walking pace.

Using Mark Allen's slight variation I get to 132 beats per minute. Let's say a moderately brisk walking pace.

I'm no expert, but neither of those seemed like a reasonable benchmark.

I did a little experimenting on the treadmill, and found that I could keep a slow run going at 138 beats per minute, so that's what I've been using.

Here's my routine: I run every day (though I skipped 5 days when I had a viral infection and couldn't run without falling off the treadmill in a coughing fit). My minimum run is 30 minutes, and my maximum is 60. Each day I pick the duration mostly by how I feel and how much time I have available. I hope to get a bit more structure as I progress, and also do some longer runs, but as of now, this is what I'm doing.

I started with a pace that I guessed would be close to the fastest I could manage at a heart rate of 138 beats per minuted. I have a treadmill that will adjust both incline and pace based on heart rate, so each day I just set that up and run. I think my guess was reasonably close. The first seven days I just stayed at that same pace, and the treadmill didn't have to slow me down because my HR went up. On the eighth day I bumped up my pace a tick (i.e., by 0.1 km/hr), and that day I did have to slow down to maintain my target rate.

My original idea was that if I could maintain a given pace all the way through for three days in a row, and keep my heart rate at my target, I would speed up another tick. I kept this up for a couple weeks, and the only times the treadmill program slowed me down were the one I mentioned before (the eighth day), and just after I took those five days off from being sick.

After that, I've never had to slow down, so about a week ago I decided that just two days in a row with no slow-down would be my new standard for picking up the pace. Tomorrow I'm set to go up another tick; that'll be four times in a row on a two-day schedule.

Every run is at a comfortable pace. I'm never pushing myself really hard, and as a result, I'm never dreading a run, and I'm never spent at the end.

But here's the thing: after just over a month (minus sick days), I find myself running each kilometer more than 37 seconds faster than when I started, but my heart rate is the same. In standard (i.e., non-metric) terms, I've dropped just over a minute per mile.

This is all predicted by Dr. Maffetone. He says don't kill yourself. "No Pain, No Gain" is for chumps. You don't have to injure yourself, or be tired all the time, to improve.

I'm part-way through one of Maffetone's books. and it's already changed how I'm going to proceed. I said about a week ago that I was soon going to incorporate some intervals. I've changed my mind. Part of the reason is what I've read (he says to build your aerobic base at a low heart rate for three to six months), but mostly I've just looked at my results so far, and thought about it.

Why change something that's working so well?