The 180 Formula

My friends and I spend a lot of time talking about different approaches to training and nutrition that we've read about online or heard about on podcasts. However the "Phil Maffetone 180 Formula" has probably created more debate and discussion than pretty much anything else we've talked about (other contenders include barefoot running and Bulletproof Coffee, but more about those in other posts).

So, the 180 Formula (aka MAF training), could it actually be possible to train slower but get faster? It sounds counter-intuitive and it goes against everything you've ever been told about fitness training. No pain, no gain and all that. But the results speak for themselves, or at least they did in the case of Mark Allen (6 times Ironman champion in the early 90s) who was trained by Dr Phil Maffetone. So I decided to try it for myself and see what happened.

What is the 180 Formula?

If you want to get the full story about the 180 Formula you need to visit Phil Maffetone's website or buy one of his books. But the basic premise is that you should do the vast majority of your training at a sub-max heart-rate, specifically 180 minus your age. In fact according to Dr Maffetone 180 minus your age is the maximum heart rate you should train at. In practice you should train in a heart rate range between your 180 value and 10 beats below that. The idea behind the formula is that you should focus on training your aerobic system to improve your ability to run faster at a lower heart rate. This also allows you to rack up more miles without creating the stress on your body that is generated from frequent high intensity training.

Adjustments

The 180 formula also contains some adjustments to take into account your state of health when you begin the training. "If you are injured, have regressed in training or competition, get more than two colds or bouts of flu per year, have allergies or asthma, or if you have been inconsistent or are just getting back into training, subtract an additional 5". I decided to subtract 5 on the basis that I'd had a number of minor injury niggles in the preceding months, probably due to increased training volume around the marathon. This meant my maximum heart rate would be 180 - 39 (my age at the time) - 5 = 136 and my target training range would be between 126 and 136.

MAF Test

The other key aspect to Dr Maffetone's approach is that you should test frequently to monitor the progress you are making. i.e. are you getting faster at the same heart rate? There is some flexibility to how you perform the MAF test but the important thing is that you try to keep as many of the variables the same from test to test i.e. time of day, diet, weather etc. so you can be confident that the changes you are seeing can be attributed to your training. The test I used was a 1 mile flat loop near my house completed 5 times with a 30 second break between each one attempting to run as fast as I could whilst staying within my 10 beat range.

LSD

When you're not used to it LSD can be tough to take. Apologies for the terrible gag, but in this case LSD means Long Slow Distance. If you're used to training in zones 3 and 4 most of the time and you suddenly start training using the 180 formula it seems slow, painfully slow, especially if you subtract an additional 5 beats as I did. I always thought my "slow" training pace was around 8:30 min/mile pace, suddenly I was lucky if I could hit 10 minute miles if I wanted to remain in my target HR range. It's also tough on the ego. I run 10km with a group of friends every week and you have to let go of any competitive urges you might have if you want to keep your heart rate slow and steady.

Stats

The first two weeks of training at my MAF HR I did on the bike, as I was still recovering from a minor ankle injury. Three hours total training in week one, over six hours training in week two staying in my allocated MAF range. In week three I started to run and managed to complete my first 30 minute MAF run at 10 min/mile pace. I trained for about 5 hours in total that week (1 hour on the bike), by the Sunday my MAF pace had deteriorated to 11 minute mile pace. The following week I completed another 5 hours of training at MAF (2 hours bike/3 hours run). The following Monday after 4 weeks of MAF training I completed my first MAF test results below:

Nothing spectacular there, particularly when you consider that prior to getting injured I'd been running 10km at 7:30 pace and my average pace in the Manchester marathon that April had been 7:26 per mile.

The week of my MAF test I only managed 4 hours training but the following 3 weeks were pretty consistent. Week 6 I trained for 5h 40mins split equally between running and cycling. Weeks 7 and 8 I competed 6.5 hours of training (1 and 2 hours cycling respectively). In these weeks my running pace was hovering between 10:30 and 11:00 pace. I wasn't focusing on my pace too much during training but I certainly wasn't feeling any faster.

On the Monday of week 9 I performed a second MAF test, results below:

As you can see after 8 weeks of consistent training at 126-136 HR my pace over the same course at the same time of day had got worse. Not by much but it had got worse. At this point I decided to change something. Not just because the MAF test showed something was wrong but also because it didn't feel right. I felt like I was getting slower and weaker not faster and stronger. I spent one more week training at 126-136 then I decided to tweak the formula. Maybe I'd been too conservative in subtracting 5 beats at the start? I thought about adding 5 and trying another test in 4 weeks but 5 beats didn't seem like enough to have an impact so in the end I decided to add 10.

Adding 10
Dr Maffetone does give an adjustment of the 180 formula that allows you to add 5 "if you have been training for more than two years without any of the problems listed above, and have made progress in competition without injury". I didn't think this applied to me as I had experienced minor injuries on a pretty much consistent basis since taking up marathon running. However after training for 8 weeks and making no progress I wanted to make a more significant change so I decided to train from now on in a range of 136-146.

LT Test

On the Monday of week 1 of my new regime I decided to carry out a lactate threshold test as outlined by Joe Friel. Partly this was because I wanted to reference my LT against where my aerobic threshold was supposed to be, but partly I just wanted to "open the taps" after weeks of running slow. Joe Friel's 30 minute test for LT goes like this; you go as hard as you can for 30 mins such that you can maintain the same pace for the full 30 mins. Your average pace for the last 20 mins of the 30 is an approximation of your lactate threshold. I kept my pace pretty consistent throughout the test at 7:10 per mile and my average HR for the last 20 minutes was 190! This is pretty significant I think because based on the old 220 - age formula you would expect my max HR to be about 180. So to have a LT of 190 would seem to suggest that I'm some kind of outlier statistically. My max HR in this test was 196.

Back to MAF

The lactate threshold test gave me some reassurance that I should be able to train in a range of 136-146 and still be pretty comfortable. If I could sustain a HR of 180+ over a 30 minute period surely 30-40 beats below that would still be in the aerobic zone?

Stats

Week 1 of 136-146 I did 5.5 hours of running and 1.5 hours of cycling. Running pace was still hovering just below 10 minute / mile. On the Monday of week 2 I performed another MAF test in my new range, results as follows:

Due to other commitments (a stag do) I only managed 2.5 hours running that week with pace around 9.5-10 minute/mile. Week 3 was better, back up to 6.5 hours training (4.5 hours running, 2 hours cycling) and running pace seemed to be improving slightly with 3 out of 4 runs at or just below 9.5 min pace. Week 4 I trained for 6.5 hours (5 hours running, 1.5 hours cycling), pace continued to improve with 3 runs at around 9:10 pace. On the Sunday of week 4 I competed in the Stockport 10 mile race finished in 1h 11 mins which is an average pace of 7:08 per mile. This confirmed that all the slow training wasn't causing me to lose speed (over longer distances) this time was virtually identical to my time in the same race in 2012. The week after the race I only managed 4 hours training (2.5 run, 1.5 bike), two of the MAF runs were at 9:23 pace and one at 9 minute pace so things were continuing to go in the right direction. The following week (the week before Christmas) I carried out another MAF test at 136-146 and the results were as follows:

As you can see my times had improved significantly dropping by about 30 seconds per mile on each split and I achieved an average of around 8:30/mi pace. Finally we were getting somewhere. However at this point my MAF training experiment ended, the following week was Christmas and my training was a bit sporadic as you'd expect. After Christmas I started my training for the Manchester Marathon in April. Despite the improvements in pace at 136-146 I decided to follow a more traditional marathon training plan incorporating speed work sessions. Partly this was just down to feeling bored with the slow training and feeling like I needed a change of emphasis.

Conclusion

Does MAF training work? I would say based on my experiences that the answer is a qualified yes. I think the numbers show that once I found the right HR range I was steadily improving when training around 5-7 hours per week. I do think it's a worthwhile experiment for anyone who runs regularly, especially if you're feeling burnt out from training or you get injured a lot. Once you get your head around it training at a slower pace does become enjoyable. Letting go of having a specific target time or pace and just running makes you feel pretty zen.

I have my doubts about whether MAF training would be of benefit to anyone who has less than 5 hours per week to train. Dr Maffetone would disagree but I think you'll get more bang for your buck by throwing in some intensity if you can only manage say three sessions per week. And I think most keen runners will find it hard to stick to for more than a few months at a time. Eventually I really missed speed work and after three months I couldn't wait to get started on my marathon training plan and do a few fast park runs.

Finally I have to point out that Phil Maffetone's approach to training encompasses a lot more than just running using the 180 formula. He believes in a holistic approach to training which includes diet, running form, lifestyle, eliminating stress, I think Dr Maffetone would say that unless you buy into the whole approach you won't get the maximum results from applying the formula. If you want to find out more I suggest you buy one of his books.