Triathlon - Maffetone training?

I have heard about something called maffetone training, supposedly you run at a lot slower pace and it actually helps you become faster. Not sure exactly how that works, but I've heard that certain triathletes swear by it so if anyone knows more I'd sure love to hear about it.

Also, if you know about maffetone training, does it work in cycling as well?:)

he has a book on that very subject, should be easy to find at amazon. the basic idea is that you train at a target heart rate, based on your age and fitness level. Over time you should see yourself improve. When you stop improving, use intervals to jack up your speed. Or something like that.

also, if you google Mark Allen and Maffetone, you should find an article he wrote explaining the method and how he used it.

btw, his method for determining your training heart rate is interesting. I think its 180 minus your age, and adjusted from there by your gender, fitness level, etc. so if you are 50, and have been training for an hour a day for several years, your training hr would be 180 - 50 = 130.

I don't know much about this method that you are talking about but I do know how our D1 cross country team trains. We use a lot of heart rate training in the sense that you find your max heart rate, then you find your anarobic thresh hold heart rate. With these numbers you can set the pace that you should be working at most of the time. We do a lot of training where you run at your anarobic thresh hold pace (which is basically the pace that you can hold for an hour but by the end of the hour you would not be able to go further) The advantages of this type of training is it trains your body to get rid of lactic acid at a more rapid rate. I'm starting to realize this might not make too much sense, but I have a really good article on the subject that my coach e-mailed me if you would like. It's full of technical jargon, but makes a lot of sense. Let me know if you'd like me to forward it to you. Take care.

Article sounds interesting... you should post it up here ;) or start a new thread on the subject. Either way, I'd like to read it.

On the subject at hand. I remember reading an article in Triathlete Magazine about Mark Allen several years ago. Maybe 1995 or 1996. It said something about him starting this Maffetone program with running 5-miles on the track at a HR of 155. He averaged something like 7:30-min./mile pace. After several weeks of training under his program, he tested himself again with the 5-mile run on the track at 155-HR and did something like a 5:00-min./mile pace. Wish I still had my old Triathlete Magazines. I also remember him mentioning how his whole philosophy of training, nutrition and such was completely different (for the time anyway).

I actually didn't realize this was from a tri website. So some of you may have read this already, but here is the article I was talking about.

http://www.teamsheeper.com/teams/tstrisfpeninsula/library/run.php

Hope this is interesting to some. Take care!

Hey, thanks for all the replies and insight on this, read the article and am going to get the book. Very interesting stuff, and I'm going to give it a try and see how this works and I'll let you know the results yay or nay of all this. Best wishes!

Maffetone isn't without his quirks. In one of his books he talks about carbohydrate intolerance. He advocates going on an Atkins diet (he doesn't call it that) for two weeks for those with carb intolerance! He devotes maybe 2 pages to it. Not much explanation is given.