Just a follow-up for my post a couple of months ago.
Over the past 15 weeks:
Rode an average of 6 hours per week. 3 weeks less than 4 hours, 3 weeks more than 8 hours
96% of time HR <148 bpm (MAF 180-age, my max HR is 189).
MAF-ish results for 1 hour - Apr: 169 W @ 143 bpm (93 rpm), Jul: 209 W @ 133 bpm (96 rpm)
3 ramp tests - Apr: 276, Jun 292, Jul: 299
My resting heart rate has gone from 50ish to low 40s.
The FTP jump according to the ramp test was really big which might indicate just how immature my aerobic system is. Nonetheless, pretty big improvements on a time investment equivalent to SSBMV; much less consistency/strcture and way more energy than any time I’ve been following a TR plan.
The only group ride I did in this period, I set all-time power records from 11 mins to 3 hours. That’s probably more a reflection of how few longer duration efforts I’ve done outside a CX race though. Despite logging weeks without any exercise due to a big crash, I’m back to where I was this time last year (end of the CX season) with respect to ramp test performance - a bigger engine and smaller turbo.
Had anybody done a Trainer road TB series using Maffetone’s (180-Age +- applicable modifiers) as limit rather than power?
For cycling I run pretty high HR/Watts and would like to see if I can bring it down a bit. Would also like to run some early morning fasted training rides for a Base series.
Everyone is different, but for me a MAF HR on the bike is usually closer to Sweet Spot effort than Endurance/Tempo so doing a Traditional Base plan based on MAF wouldn’t line up well (I did see good results adhering to the power limits of Traditional Base this past winter though!).
Thanks for doing the merge…I’ve been using the search function earlier in week to find related posts but didn’t see any subjective posts from experiencing a hybrid TB & MAF series. Having been out of training or off/on, and now having the time to build some really deep Base (A-races now moved to mid-2021) it seems like it might be a worthy venture for next 12 weeks, then rolling over to an SSB series.
Agreed. But at age 55 that MAF equation doesn’t give me much wiggle room, and in my SSB workouts earlier this year I didn’t spend much time below 125…even during the last minute on rests between intervals,
The MAF equation does seem to me a little simplistic for determining an accurate target HR for individuals, but I’m willing to give it a go as well as a TB series which I haven’t tried. Experimenting is half the fun!!
One thing I did with the TB plans in the context of my overall triathlon plan was to mix up the workouts from LV/MV/HV depending on what made sense in terms of available time to train and where the workout landed in the week–probably most useful in the first block when the TB workouts are the same all week long, but can be useful for the other blocks as well.
That usually means that you are pretty fit. Maffetone says that once you get to that point you can ride at an even lower HR and then do MAF HR intervals - like 3 x 10 minute during your ride or whatever works without exhausting you. He’s not super specific about it in his book.
I did MAF without even knowing it. After reading about polarized training, I decided to use Seiler’s suggestion of 65% of HRmax. I’m 54 with a maxHR of 177 so that worked out to 115bpm which was kind of slow - actually really really slow when I first started. So I compromised and used 120bpm as my long slow ride HR.
When I started doing these 2-3 hour rides @ 120bpm, it was tough because it was like 12-14mph and I was used to riding 18mph+.
I did a base block of this kind of riding starting at 8 hours per week and adding an hour per week. I topped out around 13 hours per week. After 7 weeks of this I was flying. I was breaking every PR on Strava. FTP went up 20 points. I was still doing my Saturday group ride as my one day of intensity.
After this base work I was no longer 12mph slow at 120bpm. I was going more like 17-18 at that low HR. On group rides every intensity was at a lower HR which made the whole ride a lot easier.
A year after this I got the MAF book because I was curious. My MAF HR is 126bpm. At 126bpm I’m definite doing tempo.
My suggestion - do a good 6-8 week base block and enjoy the results. Once you get that base fitness going, the hard stuff feels a lot more doable.
Technically not MAF if you include “intensity”, more like Seiler’s Polarized theory. And I agree, I did 8 weeks of POL and have been smashing PRs the last couple of weeks. When I did strict MAF, however, I got healthier but not faster.
Over on various MAF Facebook pages everyone new to the method is constantly complaining how slow they have to go in order to keep in the MAF range. In reality Maffetone himself says the formula for it is a proxy for Fat Max intensity as measured by HR. If you really know what your Fat Max HR is then that should be your ceiling.
Ive been reading and cant find an explanation…
So MAF HR is the absolute max HR i should be training, or its the HR of my easy runs?
my max HR is about 200. And i use 145 as my easy baseline which is very close to the MAF I should be using (180 - 41 + 5)
I’ve been doing MAF on my outrigger canoe 1-3 x week (4-10 mile paddles), and while I haven’t been consistent with paddling week-to-week, when I am out I keep HR<125 (My MAF number) and during 2nd half of session I’m always impressed at how much power I can put down while HR remains low…if I started at that power, HR would jump to 150+ and stay there for entire session…so there is definitely something to this. Am looking forward to trying in on the bike under a TB program!
I’m no expert but probably yes. One problem with tracking progress with HR.is heat. If I took s baseline test now 32degrees as I type then I would get seemingly stellar progress after 6 weeks as the temperature drops
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