How a MAF based training should look like on a particular day

Everything in its simplest form looks beautiful and so is running. Today, work-out has been named so fascinating that we take more pride in saying than doing it. It was my tempo today, tomorrow I will be doing interval and day after that my coach has planned hill training for me. Aah! looks so pleasing, so impressive and so satisfying. If you are expecting any such fancy stuff in this article, then pls don’t read it!

Any run with MAF training is pretty simple. Its as simple as running is. Few minutes of warm-up followed by run at your MAF followed by few minutes of cool down. Typically it should look like following (Suggested by Phil Maffetone)

Now lets understand each part separately!

• ·       Warm-up
• ·       MAF run
• ·       Cool Down

Warm-up

Why warm-up is actually required? What are the benefits and how we should do it, are some of the questions which are expected to be answered here.

When body is at rest, much of the blood circulation is devoted to brain, nervous system, glands and intestine. As soon as you start work-out, muscles use oxygen and other nutrients and develop some byproducts which needs to be removed. This removal could be achieved by increase in blood flow towards it but as i said when we left home it was mostly directed towards brain and other physical system. Should we start abrupt running then? Wont it cause different bodily stress? 

So, what to do? Answer is “Warm-up”. Start slowly so that body becomes aware about the direction of blood circulation needs to be changed without stressing the whole system. In the whole process, only aerobic muscle fibers are recruited which are responsible for physical support to bones and joints, circulation and immune function. So, you get these as bonus when you warm-up! After an active warm-up you get a number of benefits like increased blood flow, greater mechanical efficiency( due to aerobic muscle recruitment) and improved neuromuscular activity.

Last question is how much? It usually takes 12 to 15 minutes but varies body to body. So, its always better to sense your own body that how much time it is demanding. For longer workouts (more than 90 minutes), increase your warm-up time for better efficiency. Remember work-out = Warm up + MAF run + Cool down. If you think only MAF run will serve, you are disturbing the complete physical and chemical system within you!

NOTE: No jumping and pumping required. You are free to do if your body feels good but research has not shown any benefit of it in endurance athletes.

MAF-run

This part is pretty simple. All you need to do is to calculate your MAF and run in the defined range. Suppose your MAF is 140, then your range is 130 to 140. Be disciplined in doing so. As soon as you go beyond this range, you activate your anaerobic or white muscle fiber which has energy only for 3 minutes or so ( You go beyond because you are using fat as fuel also with glycogen but as soon as it gets depleted you hit the great wall!). Train your aerobic system as better as you can in base phase of training. (In peak phase some anaerobic addition for shorter duration has shown great results but lets not focus on that for now).  

Cool-Down

Cool-down should be just in opposite order of warm-up. This is in contrast to our usual routine where we stop after a run and take some rest with stretching. The most important reason of doing cool-down is to start recovery. Slow descent in intensity prevents any stress to the system and helps remove blood lactate (even during aerobic workout). It should have same duration as that of warm-up for normal and longer work-out. My personal experience is to do some more walk after a long work-out. Active cool-down really helps.

Common questions:

1. What about stretching/yoga/Pilates/strength?

Ans: Stretching to improve flexibility too much is harmful. Flexibility is required to support the range of motion allowed by muscles around a joint. If it is too much it will allow joints to move too far causing injury or if it is too less, it will restrict too much range of motion and again causing injury. With better aerobic base, you already have greater flexibility. Yoga, pilates or other activities should be done with ease (not very hard or fast). Strength training is good only till it doesn’t hamper your run and it is actually supporting your run otherwise WWE champions could have won all the marathons!

2. When I start warm-up, I reach my MAF in few minutes. How to control it?

Ans: Considering your device is doing correct measurement, you have really weak aerobic base. Its good that it has been identified otherwise you could have been fit but not healthy. Build your aerobic base. If you could only walk in warm-up phase, just walk. Let your red muscle fiber gets activated and increase its fat burning ability. Help yourself with better food and peaceful mind to support your building aerobic system.

3. My cool down never gets started until I start walking. What to do?

Ans. Absolutely Nothing! Just walk. Many endurance runners do it deliberately to make their physiological system work in a certain way. You will pass this phase. Just reduce your refined carb intake. Eat good fat, good protein and drink lots of water. Reduce overall stress on body as well as mind

4. Today my HR went high very rapidly. What could be the reason?

Considering your measurement device is accurate, check the following:

a. Last night sleep

b. Any change in setup (Place, shoes etc)

c. Weather change?

d. Any stress on mind (Had a fight with your boss/husband/wife/kid ?)

e. Any change in food yesterday? Low water intake?

etc.

Idea is to check if by any chance, have you increased the overall load on your system?

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