If you are interested in finding out more about MAF training have a look at this book by the man himself https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1616080655/ref=cm_sw_r_em_apa_i_igXTEbKV7NBD1
Maffetone recommends a 15 warmup and cooldown so it’s perfectly fine to ride below your MAF heartrate and let it rise gently.
I wouldn’t do any of that.
What you can do is do a MAF test periodically - maybe once a week or every two weeks. On a MAF test you do a steady 30-45 minute interval at your MAF HR. After that you can record the average power for the interval. Over time you can see how the power at your MAF HR rises as you get fitter and fitter.
I don’t do a warm-up for any of my MAF work as it’s already pretty low intensity. I purposely go a little harder to start with to get my HR up to my MAF range and then I settle in from there. I can usually sit around FTP or slightly under for a minute or so until my HR drifts up to where I want it.
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More MAF progress tonight with a 9w increase at the same HR as my last 30 min attempt. I did a hilly 35km run yesterday, so I didn’t expect this to be so smooth. My MAF pace (for 30 mins) is now 92% of my FTP.
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I’m thinking how this method would apply to athletes with low HR like Lionel Sanders for example. His max HR is like 150. 180-age(32) = 148bpm. So his MAF HR is his MAX HR? 
Might need to adjust MAF per age.
https://philmaffetone.com/maf-180-personalizing-exercise-heart-rate/
Thanks you all for helpful responses to my questions. The forum is a gem.
Looks like the main takeaway is just to stay below MAF as a ceiling and give it some time. So far it’s been really interesting. Going slow and steady is by no means the bore it might seem. But I’ll hold off on more effusing until I’ve done it a little longer.
No, when I’m in early base and want to measure power:HR then I have a special workout that is flat 60% FTP for 90 minutes. Toss out the warmup and then look at HR. For example first week of December:
and then two weeks later:
after 40 minutes, with same FTP and same power, my HR dropped from 128bpm to 125bpm.
That custom workout was based on Lazy Mountain -1.
My own philosophy is to base workouts on power as % FTP. During early base I expect to see a drop in HR but its not a big deal. I’m more focused on raising intensity over time, to improve cycling fitness. That is not MAF as far as I can tell, but it works well for me and is a traditional cycling build. Not sure many of us can relate to being 79, so take what I said with a few grains of salt
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Much appreciated, @bbarrera! And especially the data, which clearly illustrates for me a couple things: a) “cardiac drift” within the same workout (a new concept for me, like so many), and b) gradual improvement over time — well, actually not that gradual since you gained a few percent in just two weeks! I will likely use some fixed time interval as a periodic test of power/HR, as you do.
Like you, I have so far been oriented to the metric of power as % of FTP / intervals of varying length. Unlike many other older folk here, TR has been my kindergarten, so I can’t harken back to the old HR days or RPE days before that. Until I ran across this thread, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to start using HR as a base reference, although I often look at it out of curiosity.
If I understand correctly, you crank out a constant power for an hour, and look at how HR drifts upward. That’s the kind of thing I’m used to in TR workouts — trying to hold a power. Whereas what I did last week was try to keep a constant HR (MAF in this case) for an hour, and look at how much power drifts downward. Same relationship, but different constant. And new for me.
The reason I think I’ll give the new thing a try for a bit is the subjective experience that has gone with the constant HR. I do want to ground it in reality, which is why I asked for details about exactly how to measure.
I’ll wax too effusive if I try to capture that subjective experience in words. If I had to use one, it’s the one I heard a few years back when Lizzie Deignan was still Armitstead, and somebody asked her how to ride a team time trial (I barely knew what that was), and she said in that great Brit accent: “Smeeooooooooth . . . !” I can’t pronounce it that way, so instead here are 4 TR views of my first MAF ride outdoors. The ones I posted earlier were on the trainer in ERG mode and so everything is predictably flattish and smooth, just minor squiggles on the main lines. I thought that as soon as I went out and rode in traffic and a rolling residential area I’d be as hard pressed to keep a steady HR as I am to keep steady power — the challenge of outdoor workouts.
Surprise.
Except for the gaps (stopping to calibrate, or at stoplights, etc) the HR line looks much like the indoor rides. The elevation profile is of course highly exaggerated but there are some short steep ups and downs in one area as well as stops and starts, which are reflected in the power and speed data, which are all over the place. But I found it both possible and informative to keep HR within a very narrow range despite the terrain, and doing it (admittedly at this very low rate) kept me both very alert and very calm as everything else was changing — cadence, speed, torque, slope, etc. Like being the calm at the center of the . . . well, not storm, but minor turbulence anyway.
And paradoxically, it helped me relate in a direct way to a lot of the wonderful stuff I hear on the podcast which I will never actually do, but can still experience in an age-appropriate way. For instance, Amber’s recent stuff on “intentional focus” (or vice versa). I had to stay “associatively” focussed, both internally (how do I feel) and externally (terrain, traffic) to keep HR steady, but there was no “fight or flight” anxiety draining energy, or inner conflict of must-must-must vs can’t-can’t-can’t. At the bottom and top of the hills it illustrated perfectly Jonathan’s or Pete’s tactics — staying within myself going up and then flying up and over the crest and down the other side. Cheap thrills for a geezer. And precisely because HR changes relatively so slowly I get to work on the stuff in slow motion. I even found myself replaying Coach Chad’s pedalling and cadence drills in my head, or experimenting with standing up, or getting aero low and all that. After 5 or 6 minutes at threshold any suggestions to do anything at all but survive I hear as his attempts to kill me. When I can still hum to myself he becomes a friendly mentor inviting some fun experiments. All to a steady but not stressed heartbeat.
Well, it may all be a pipe dream and I may just get older and fatter riding longer easier for a few weeks (until I try critical race on Zwift 
) But maybe not. Maybe I’ll find a way to modify the Greg LeMond thing that everybody likes to repeat into: “You don’t get slower. It just gets easier.”
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Generally I look at longer steady power intervals, because my HR is pretty stable. Search the internet try “joe friel decoupling” and interesting articles will pop right up. Friel originally wrote about the concept of decoupling close to 15 years ago (something like that). The idea was to answer the question “when am I done with early base?” or put another way “when have I developed enough aerobic endurance to advance to the next phase of base training?”
I’m a fan of Friel’s Cyclist Training Bible and blog, and he generally recommends using power to set the intensity of workouts. He is also in his 70s, an early adopter of heart rate monitoring and power meters, and has a really good book “Fast After 50” that you might want to read.
MAF appears to have come out of the running culture of the 70s, and is focused on keeping HR low to serve several purposes.
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I would try sticking with the MAF concept for a solid 6-8 weeks. Do those 30-40 minute MAF intervals where you note your power @ MAF once a week and see how you progress. I did a similar base training block last year, built up a ton of endurance and my FTP also went up 20 watts at the same time.
If it works for you keep going. If you plateau then you can think about working on other intensities/intervals to get past the plateau.
For some reason, I also remember Lemond saying that the actual cycling wasn’t that hard. He was crushing adults when he was a junior so maybe it wasn’t that hard. 
I’ve always run a lot, however, being a “competitive” cyclists running was always an autumn/winter activity. This means I have pace/heart rate data for the last 10 years. For each “build up”.
I’ve always run slow. Did not want to fall victim to the typical “I have the lungs but not the legs” dilemma. This means all my runs were basically HR Z1 (or even Z0). I always built towards a 40K mountain trail run.
I’m a big Mark Allen fan. This has influenced my running “style”. However, this winter was different. My pace Pace:HR improved much faster than in previous years. I did some analysis on my data and the picture is pretty clear. Pretty much alwas the same improvement in the previous years but this year much better.
What did I do differently? I included strides. Apart from these always Z1 running.
MAF works for runners because it prevents them to get injured. Running fast (and too much) increases the risk. However, running is all about building the motion appartus. Strides, short sprints stress the neuromuscular system without being really stressful overall.
Just my belief system now.
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And stride ups are almost identical to the efforts Olbrecht suggests to use intermittently to increase aerobic capacity. For me they also reinforce a good running form, my stride is more balanced l/r and usually faster with lower vertical oscillation.
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I did a 30 min free ride tonight, which started out as an easy MAF ride with a goal of around 330w. After a few mins I felt strong, so decided to keep the power up and push for 400w. It took almost 8 mins for my HR to leave Z2, which I was happy to see.
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Yes! Strides work. Especially in running as improving propulsion by hip extension and pelvic stability is king - as I think bioteknik also pointed out. But imho they work in cycling too.
In fact strides plus z1 to z2 were elemental when I chased a sub 1h20 half marathon some years ago. Was prevented by an injury, but from then on strides have been a very common tool for me. In Finland probably every competent running coach advocates them.
I just wanted to report that I actually got a Strava KOM @ MAF heart rate last week. I was totally surprised.
I already had this KOM so I beat my own time. I did have a tail wind but you pretty much always need favorable wind conditions to get a KOM. I previously got the KOM turning myself inside out at threshold.
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Any idea if MAF is the same as MAP(maximal aerobic power) ??? The cycling federation in my country trains athlete by doing MAP test of 6secs,30sec and 4min followed by training at a certain % of the test result rather than ftp.
MAF has nothing to do with MAP.
MAF is maximum aerobic function… and is based on heart rate and us way lower than MAP. There’s a tonne of info on it on here and on the web. Basically it’s training at a max HR of 180-your age. A long way from HR at MAP.
Having a solid base using MAF I started building in some SS. Then my partner got some time off work and I’ve been riding single track, putting in some effort to keep up, which has ended up close to an hour of tempo and 30 mins threshold HR (Strava). (And an hour or so z2)
I went out on my own yesterday and targeted a single track loop (moderate descent/ascent). My legs were not on full form, but I pushed through that “excuse”.
I did 5 laps continuously. The fastest was 3.43 (Qom) and the slowest 3.50. I was really pleased with the consistency as I was going as hard as I could from the start, so 7 seconds down by the 5th lap was better than I expected. Just got to do this on a grander scale for 12 hour pairs!! (If and when).
Personally, I find I have to add in VO2 max after MAF base, or I’m struggling to catch my breath, but it doesn’t have to be a massive amount. Just enough to trigger a reminder.
Sorry I’m more of a theme/ trend rather than data specific person.
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