As an old high school classmate of Mark’s, I can tell you he was fast BEFORE he perfected the training techniques he discussed. In 9th grade (15) he put almost an entire 440 oval into the next fastest runner during our annual Presidents Physical fitness tests. That guy was the captain of the cross country team! And Mark was a swimmer in those days! I can also add that he was as easy to like then as today.
Yeah, you can roughly double your performance through training. At what level you start matters a lot. And then it takes discipline because first wins are so easy.
Dr. Ernst Van Aaken taught this kind of training. Low intensity done "by feel". Van Aaken first published his pure endurance training ideas in 1947. Van Aaken Method (1976) is a pretty good book on it. Van Aaken was way, way ahead of his time.
Thank you Mark.👏 You have been my biggest inspiration into triathlon since I started in 1989. Now 55 years old and still enjoy training. A way of life like you. Thanks for all you have done for me and many others.🥰
Mark Allen replies to the comments on the videos he posts on his channel. He’s a very thoughtful and kind person. That got him onto my list of ‘celebrity’ people whom I want to shake hands personally if the opportunity arises.
Such a great interview - Yes its instructiver to hear Mark Allen speak about his training that brougjt consistancy.and how to reach peak performance over a period of 15 years
My grandfather was a good surgeon and he taught at the University when he could ,,,,,overworking your heart ,,,,,the muscle grows, but the valves don’t was explained to my dad to me. Ultra endurance athletes need to know that there’s only so many beats in the lifespan of your heart so use them wisely, pushing it daily especially when you get into your 40s is a huge mistake. It’s ok to be older and at 50 it’s time to always just have fun. Thanks Mark for saying the magic word FUN !
Mark, Scott and Dave were who I paid attention to back in the days when i was experimenting with Triathlon. I did a couple of charity races just to see if I could complete them. I'm 68 now and still love to train just to see what I can do. My problem has always been doing too much but being retired has allowed me to continue to experiment and try to improve. The use of heartrate and HRV has been greatly beneficial to me to keep from doing too much and maintain fitness.
Lifelong jogger now living in Grannyland-the 10% male portion of same. Never ran a race in my life but always ran. I’m 79 this year and still all original parts. Been increasing my cycling for about 4 years and now try to get 50K per day with a longggg climb about once a week. At first I hated climbing-now I kinda like it. Done right, with proper low gearing it’s a lot like long distance swimming-just not so boring. Lots to see. Cycling on the cheap, is not easy but I haunt the 2nd hands for everything. What the dilettante 39-year-olds buy for 2 or 3 thousand-I get for 1 or 2 HUNDRED. just seasoned with a thick layer of dust for ten or twenty years. The secret is “just spin the damned pedals-that’s why they have LOW GEARS on the bike. At first I tried to keep up with the young studs-bad idea. They’re dumb and strong and they will be sore the next day and lay off for a week afterwards. Probably go to a spa and get a massage for more $$ than I spent on my bike. Don’t worry about heart rate and interval training-Mother Nature makes hills and flat stretches that will test you AND rest you. And for God’s Sake-don’t buy an idiotic electric bike and delude yourself into thinking you’re getting a workout. You’re not getting cardio-you’re GETTING A RIDE. Life isn’t always a race, mostly it’s just being stubborn enough not to care what others think.
I have been using Maffetones methods as well for running long distance and it is a great way to not get injured. However there is a very special case for elite athletes in specifically the triathletes. They can do their running at very low heart rates, to clock a lot of miles, while getting their intervals and hight heart rate training from swimming and cycling training, without putting as much load on muscles and joints. If you asked a pure marathon runner to ONLY do low heart rate training, and no intervals or speed work what so ever, he wouldnt be even close to competing in the majors.
11 minutes in and wow, this is hitting the mark about how hard you train, your heart rate, aerobic/anaerobic and that longevity piece. I'm just over sixty and my resting is 35 beats a minute (I know bradycardia right, but no, I told my doctor when I was fifty what he can do with his pace maker - I know my body and I've cross trained for decades without gym membership). Anyhow, got my total hip replacement three years ago but broke the local age high jump record for 60+ a few months ago. I'm a runner, but my training got derailed, do I just took it easy and also broke the discus record and set the 2000m steeplechase record. Point - you can enjoy longevity if you are smart and don't burn yourself out. Mix it up, try new things, and have fun. Boxing, dancing, just enjoy it and go for the long haul. If age takes you through injuries, just do the rehab religiously and you are back in the game. Back to the video.
Awesome Interview and such accurate insight into Aerobic Metabolism & Fat Burning. Type I muscle fibres prefer to burn fatty acids over glycogen which peak at approx 75% heartrate reserve (karvonen). Type IIa takes over at around the 75% h.r.r. (80% of true max). Zone 2 in modern times is set at 65-75%. For myself this is 144-160bpm. True max 199. This is why Dr Phil.M mentions in a video if you have an unusually high true max heartrate then use 80% of true max (159bpm for me) as the ceiling. Awesome Interview thanks so much to you both for adding valuable content here on the web 🎉😊 .
I think you are saying your max HR for zone 2 is 159 ? I have a high normal HR as well and my zone 2 currently is about 145-150 max. Interesting seeing info from other high HR athletes.
I’m sure he did his intervals too. He trained in a way that he was fully recovered to smash hard sessions by going easy in-between. If you have all the time in the world to train, that’s how you train.
@@veganpotterthevegan As a runner, correct. As a cyclist, it’s how I trained last year, averaging 25 hours a week with my endurance mostly being high Z1. This year, it’s been about 16 hours, so the intensity of my endurance has gone up with more Z2, LT1 and some Z3 to make it pyramidal. Recovering enough to do twice or on occasion 3 x a week HIT and/or threshold is the key.
@benfinesilver2250 it's true for biking as much as running. Of course, high volume cyclists ride ~35hrs a week. Also, your results from cutting volume(like anyones) will be skewed by historical training efforts.
@@veganpotterthevegan Agreed. Mixing up your training isn’t just about micro cycles and macro cycles. Yearly endurance training can and should have a purpose with a view to achieving a new peak. There is no shortcut to raising your aerobic capacity. The optimal way is to plug away with insane volume to build a base of both endurance and efficiency over a very long time, whilst giving yourself stimulus at the other end of the scale too. After a few years, you’ll get close to maximizing your gains from such an approach and it’s worth adding more general intensity. Keeping your body guessing, whilst maintaining consistency and taking recovery weeks every 3-6 weeks (depends how you feel and how hard you’ve been pushing) is how you succeed long term. Learning to know when the onset of your functional over-reaching occurs and then dropping intensity, length and number of sessions to achieve super compensation and recover hormonal profile, is the key to long term continual improvement. Too many athletes don’t plug in rest or even an off season. That’s why they burn out and can’t sustain high volumes/intesity/high training loads.
With all the training you do you still wont get anywhere to elite mate. Dream on. We all know you time but not everyone has time. I can guarantee you you wont be where you are without the volume.
It is a very long (many years) process to reach one’s top most level of physical performance. Keeping it healthy and with an every day « grin » on ur face and mood about going out for training is the fundamental key, indeed.
Revelatory info on the heart issues. I’m 67 and had a brief AFib episode a month ago and many athletes our age are finding out the reality of many years of hard training. In college we ran every long workout at 6:00 to 6:30 pace, constant fatigue. I learned later from better runners to slow the heck down. I improved. These days I’m a 6:00 triathlete and being smarter.
Great interview! Once you get past Mark's gray hair, look how young his skin looks! Could that be a byproduct of the years of low heart rate training, possibly from lower sustained cortisol levels? He did mention two of his contemporaries have had open heart surgery. Sorry just a thought. Thanks again!
A long time ago I read an interview with a running coach who likened his athletes doing too much hard training as watching a bad horror movie. He knew what was going to happen to these athletes, especially after a couple of years. I guess it is hard to avoid thinking "if I go just a little harder, I can cut out a lot of this silly base building stuff".
This is very interesting in deed and something i had in the back of my head for a while. Once a had a huge endurance gain in a soccer season from one quite easy long run. It seemed to combine all the short bursts and running actions on a string and crop the fruits.
@@Kernoe Thanks for sharing. Dr. Phil Maffetone says that anaerobic exercise compromises aerobic performance and should be done only AFTER the base building period. But doing it (also) BEFORE the base building period and then start the it with a higher VO2max, sounds like something we definitely should try.
INIGO SAN MILLAN is the man! Look him up! By the way, the terms aerobic and anaerobic we now know are absolutely not accurate. It’s ALL “with oxygen” unless you’re doing the most intense intervals of 10 to a maximum of about 30 seconds.
That’s for sure. Inigo San Millan has definitely popularized it, but he’s spent the last 30 years doing the scientific research. To figure out what’s going on and why it works.
@@markmetternich7629I don’t think he popularise it. If pogajar never win people will never know. But in sports science these zones have been around. It’s you gullible people who gets on the bandwagon without using critical thinking skills. If you know you know.
I read somewhere once the average triathlete generates about 10 pounds in mass worth of free radicals per year...just imagine the oxidative damage done if you don't do something to offset that like recovery
17:04. Would it also be correct to leave the anaerobic high intensity stuff AFTER the base building period and position the high intensity training closer to competitions?
Of course, that is the general recommendation. However, doing some anaerobic high intensity training, in order to get your VO2max up, before starting the base training period is what is the novelty here.
Mark, I have a question that I have always wanted to ask you. I tried the Maffetone low HR method and was one of those types you mentioned where I lost patience with it. My issue was I could never train (especially on the bike) at Z2 because of the terain. I lived in Marin County, CA and mpst bike rides had hills. How did you do that, living in Boulder with every bike ride except multiple reservoir loops being hilly.? I would think even in San Diego unless you only ride up and down PCH it would be impossible to keep the majority of the ride at a low HR. Maybe today with the lower gears, but not back in the day with only higher gear ratios than availabe today.
I used to do triathlons back in the day, and was overtrained quite often.....I am now 67, and I find myself in this groove where I walk a ton of steps a day and on most days I swim a mile in about 40 minutes......I feel better now than at almost any point in my life. Oh yea, I eat super clean, love to cook, and I also drink a pint of homemade beet kvass everyday. Last night I woke up to morning wood starting at 11:30 pm almost non-stop until 0430 hrs, and at the point it was so uncomfortable I just got the hell up. Horrible problems to have at any age, let alone 67!!!!!!!! I'll take that!
The physiological discussion is not correct as to fueling, carbohydrates, and fat. No protein burning occurs until there is no body fat remaining, as in you are actually starving to death. See Tim Knoakes presentation on athletes and burning fat at high intensity.
How do you calculate max heart rate with several ways suggested? And what percentage do you train at? How often do you train and do you take supplements ?
Do this: Get a chest strap HR monitor. Get on the treadmill and do a 1-2 mile easy run warm up. Do any other dynamics that you would normally do before a speed session. Then run 5 minutes with your starting speed at what you would consider 85% and increase by .2 mph every minute. After 5 minutes you should increase by .4 mph every minute. Once you reach a speed where you consider it “100%”, start increasing the incline by .5% every minute until you can run no more. Really really push it. Once you are done, see where your HR is. I leave my phone app open so I can see my HR at all times to motivate me to try to go faster. Whatever that number is, go with it and then break down all the zones based on that max HR number.
I believe that Phil wrote "Everybody is an Athlete" back in the day, and was a big proponent of nose breathing, at almost any zone......huge contribution back then, and even now.
I will have to disagree that the Adkins / Keto diet is not good for performance. I have run 79 Ultra Marathons and I’m on an Adkins diet. I feel great and I’m at my lowest or perfect Ultra running weight. I never bonk or suffer from low blood sugar during my ultras because I do take in carbohydrates and than immediately after the run I go back to protein.
You are not elite athlete though. Most average punters like you should be fine in keto. The problem with weekend warriors think they are pros. Train and fuel accordingly thats it
Jesus, you are taking in CARBS DURING your RACES! What are you talking about? Can you run at a threshold pace o slightly below it without consuming carbs at all? Of course, not! So running competitively/doing HIIT training is impossible without fueling on carbs. But you can run slow for hours without eating much if your HR is low. No surprise here, so what are you trying to say!?
@@jacklauren9359 Nonsense, your body is no different. Diet has got to be balanced. All macronutrients are vital for our bodies. And the more active you are the more balanced your diet has got to be.
@@ithinkthereforeitalk935don’t be delusional mate. Elite athletes need carbs for performance. Stop talking out of your ego. Educate yourself in high performance sport and not just weekend warriors doing ultras or ultra man. The problem with your kind is you think you’re a badass when in reality if you try harder sport instead of one direction then you wouldn’t be able to do it! Humble yourself.
very interesting talk. One myth though i totally have to clear and still i find it a pity if people speak about stuff they have NO experience with. 19:03 keto diet and slow muscle breakdown for sugar. rubbish! absolut rubbish! as bart kay would say. I am keto since years which makes me run without an asthma inhaler and although i do faster sessions as well especially faster long runs i only gained muscle and lost fat. It is clearly visible and my scale which is a bit more advanced even shows 2,5kg muscle gain over that period. Maybe this is based on some short term study in the transitioning phase from eating huge amounts of carbs to switching to fats, i do not know where this opinion comes from, because claims are being without citing anything i could refer to.
I’m on a keto diet to get blood sugar under control. It’s easy and settled to normal values within hours. I believe I read somewhere that your body uses gluconeogenesis to get the “carbs” it requires. Then again, I’m just a runner and don’t know much about this.
@@georgepoth2299 gluconeogenesis is in the end creating glucose through multiple metabolic pathways. So it can be done from fat, from protein from your food intake, from protein turnover that is happening naturally all the time to use old amino acid structures, metabolites out of the cori cycle and there is even a hypothesis of better uptake from lactate for glucose recycle during the activity in a low carb state. It is that important because we need glucose for muscle contraction and evolution found a way to provide it without breaking our muscles down, we would be gone by now, before the agrarian revolution 10.000 years ago even started to provide us with more than the occasional carbohydrate. If one is healthy enough and deals well with carbs it is fine, they can eat them, make fat out of it and use that as well. But for people having issues health wise this myth has to stop. Maybe sometimes i have a bit more carbs after a heavy workout some fruits or whatever but that's it and probably not even necessary.
A keto diet is great. But if you are talking about performance on running distances no longer than the marathon distance, then you will need your carbs in order to be competitive at the highest level. For ultra running, where you are nearly exclusively running below the aerobic threshold, the story is different.
@@davidosolo Most guys around here are age groupers, not high performers, I would guess. I'm 57, so I'm definitely not "at the highest level" anymore, but I can still do a 3:45 marathon on keto, and my last 10k was 49:12.
@@georgepoth2299 Fair enough. But I suspect that especially you could improve your race performance if you would do some carb loading before and during your races. According to Zach Bitter, the moment you switch from ketosis to carb intake, the carbs are like "rocket fuel”. Then again, you are right: if you are feeling good following the ketosis diet and also achieve some pretty nice race results in general and especially within your age group, as you seem to do, then why even bother?!
@@terraflow__bryanburdo4547I can't find the reaction that needs carbs to burn fat, but the process that can make glucose from fat or protein is well known: gluconeogenesis I agree that it is possible to burn fat without carbs because otherwise people would starve really fast with no food once the carbs run out, no matter how much fat they have.
Nice interview, but Alan clearly does not understand gluconeogenesis. There are tons of athletes that can do high end VO2 max work without the use of exogenous carbohydrate. He states that you need carbohydrate to start the fat burning process, this is false. Your body doesn’t need carbohydrate, your body requires glucose, which can be produced internally. Undoubtedly he is a great athlete, but he is simply incorrect on how the metabolic pathways actually work. One thing that people don’t understand about fat adaptation is it is a process of up regulation that usually requires six months to a year to fully achieve. He wrongly states that when you are in ketosis, your body breaks down proteins to convert to glucose. This is incorrect, the glucose that is derived from “fat burning“ comes predominantly from medium chain, triglycerides, i.e. fat molecules, specifically the glycerol backbones. Your body can breakdown protein into glucose, but it will only do this when there is no available fat
The problem (aside from all of the long-term negative health consequences of keto diets) is that in ketosis, your VO2 max generates relatively less energy than when you're metabolizing carbohydrates. This is why a lot of athletes do their long training sessions in a fasted state, because it puts a greater stimulus on the aerobic system at a lower intensity of movement compared to when burning carbohydrates. It takes more oxygen to per calorie to metabolize fatty acids for energy, so if you're able to respire a certain volume of O2 per minute, that represents a potential amount of aerobic work done by your body per minute. If the energy source is fatty acids because you're in ketosis and have few carbs available, then your max work potential per unit time is lower than if you were metabolizing carbs for energy. Now if your body is "fully adapted," simply meaning you have as many enzymes for fatty acid metabolism as you're ever going to get, you might be able to perform at a pretty high level. But it will still be at a lower level than you could have performed if you were burning carbohydrates instead.
For weekend warriors they are fine with keto they need those extra weight to lose. For elite its different story. Just ask any delusional weekend warrior who copies pro 😊
@@jacklauren9359 No, for everyone who runs at least 3-4 times a week (30 - 70 k a week) carbs are a necessity, especially if you want to get faster over time/ wanna be relatively competitive in your local races. Or doing any kind of speed work that primarily burns carbs. And btw, elite runners are not really working harder than you are during their runs, their heart rate may be even slower than yours. They simply are well-trained individuals and can run twice as fast at the same HR. The problem is some people copy their training and running volume without having the same level of fitness (your 50 k a week might actually be as hard as their 120-160k weekly load.). What you are saying is prob true only for obese people whose running is walking actually in terms of intensity. They may benefit from a diet like that. But if they get in decent shape and decide to continue running they will have eventually to change their diet and reintroduce carbs into their dietary plan.
Glad to see Phil Maffetone getting some credit for a change. He was way ahead of his time!
Fantastic interview. Thanks for the opportunity to meet Mark Allen who is so intelligent but unassuming.
Agreed great in depth and relaxed convo….. great interview giving space for conversation
As an old high school classmate of Mark’s, I can tell you he was fast BEFORE he perfected the training techniques he discussed. In 9th grade (15) he put almost an entire 440 oval into the next fastest runner during our annual Presidents Physical fitness tests. That guy was the captain of the cross country team! And Mark was a swimmer in those days! I can also add that he was as easy to like then as today.
Thank you for this perspective -- I always wondered what his performance was like in his high school days.
It's no wonder, in order to be elite you have to have good genetics to start with. You can't just train your way to the top.
@@GTE_ChannelYeah, some guys aim to high considering that their genes (bodytype) aren't optimal for athletics/top endurance sport etc
Yeah, you can roughly double your performance through training. At what level you start matters a lot. And then it takes discipline because first wins are so easy.
Dr. Ernst Van Aaken taught this kind of training.
Low intensity done "by feel".
Van Aaken first published his pure endurance training ideas in 1947.
Van Aaken Method (1976) is a pretty good book on it.
Van Aaken was way, way ahead of his time.
you should get inigo san milan on to talk about zone 2 and zone 5 (how he trains tadej pogacar). lots of crossover, but deeper research.
ABSOLUTELY
Thanks for staying true to your approach all these years Mark!
Thank you -- this is so refreshing compared to the usual Peter Attia hyperventilated tone -- even when Peter suggests zone 2.
Thank you Mark.👏
You have been my biggest inspiration into triathlon since I started in 1989.
Now 55 years old and still enjoy training. A way of life like you.
Thanks for all you have done for me and many others.🥰
Mark Allen replies to the comments on the videos he posts on his channel. He’s a very thoughtful and kind person.
That got him onto my list of ‘celebrity’ people whom I want to shake hands personally if the opportunity arises.
Such a great interview - Yes its instructiver to hear Mark Allen speak about his training that brougjt consistancy.and how to reach peak performance over a period of 15 years
My grandfather was a good surgeon and he taught at the University when he could ,,,,,overworking your heart ,,,,,the muscle grows, but the valves don’t was explained to my dad to me. Ultra endurance athletes need to know that there’s only so many beats in the lifespan of your heart so use them wisely, pushing it daily especially when you get into your 40s is a huge mistake. It’s ok to be older and at 50 it’s time to always just have fun. Thanks Mark for saying the magic word FUN !
Mark, Scott and Dave were who I paid attention to back in the days when i was experimenting with Triathlon. I did a couple of charity races just to see if I could complete them. I'm 68 now and still love to train just to see what I can do. My problem has always been doing too much but being retired has allowed me to continue to experiment and try to improve. The use of heartrate and HRV has been greatly beneficial to me to keep from doing too much and maintain fitness.
What's your take on HRV. Is it something that can be improved a lot by changing lifestyle, way of training?
@@Vivungisport I think it is a good point of reference.
Love and respect Mark Allen!
This information is gold
Great discussion!!!👏👏👏 Thank you!
What an interview. Thank you Mark for sharing. Brilliant
Super job Mark! I thoroughly enjoyed this interview! 🎉❤🎉❤🎉❤
Lifelong jogger now living in Grannyland-the 10% male portion of same. Never ran a race in my life but always ran.
I’m 79 this year and still all original parts. Been increasing my cycling for about 4 years and now try to get 50K per day with a longggg climb about once a week.
At first I hated climbing-now I kinda like it. Done right, with proper low gearing it’s a lot like long distance swimming-just not so boring. Lots to see.
Cycling on the cheap, is not easy but I haunt the 2nd hands for everything. What the dilettante 39-year-olds buy for 2 or 3 thousand-I get for 1 or 2 HUNDRED. just seasoned with a thick layer of dust for ten or twenty years.
The secret is “just spin the damned pedals-that’s why they have LOW GEARS on the bike.
At first I tried to keep up with the young studs-bad idea. They’re dumb and strong and they will be sore the next day and lay off for a week afterwards. Probably go to a spa and get a massage for more $$ than I spent on my bike.
Don’t worry about heart rate and interval training-Mother Nature makes hills and flat stretches that will test you AND rest you.
And for God’s Sake-don’t buy an idiotic electric bike and delude yourself into thinking you’re getting a workout.
You’re not getting cardio-you’re GETTING A RIDE.
Life isn’t always a race, mostly it’s just being stubborn enough not to care what others think.
An interview I have been waiting for. Thank you very much. Mark Allen is the most important person why I chose to go with the MAF.
great video!!!
Beyond the gray hair, he's still the same Mark Allen from decades ago. He looks at the peak of his health.
Great thank you !!
I have been using Maffetones methods as well for running long distance and it is a great way to not get injured. However there is a very special case for elite athletes in specifically the triathletes. They can do their running at very low heart rates, to clock a lot of miles, while getting their intervals and hight heart rate training from swimming and cycling training, without putting as much load on muscles and joints. If you asked a pure marathon runner to ONLY do low heart rate training, and no intervals or speed work what so ever, he wouldnt be even close to competing in the majors.
11 minutes in and wow, this is hitting the mark about how hard you train, your heart rate, aerobic/anaerobic and that longevity piece. I'm just over sixty and my resting is 35 beats a minute (I know bradycardia right, but no, I told my doctor when I was fifty what he can do with his pace maker - I know my body and I've cross trained for decades without gym membership). Anyhow, got my total hip replacement three years ago but broke the local age high jump record for 60+ a few months ago. I'm a runner, but my training got derailed, do I just took it easy and also broke the discus record and set the 2000m steeplechase record. Point - you can enjoy longevity if you are smart and don't burn yourself out. Mix it up, try new things, and have fun. Boxing, dancing, just enjoy it and go for the long haul. If age takes you through injuries, just do the rehab religiously and you are back in the game. Back to the video.
Awesome Interview and such accurate insight into Aerobic Metabolism & Fat Burning. Type I muscle fibres prefer to burn fatty acids over glycogen which peak at approx 75% heartrate reserve (karvonen). Type IIa takes over at around the 75% h.r.r. (80% of true max). Zone 2 in modern times is set at 65-75%. For myself this is 144-160bpm. True max 199. This is why Dr Phil.M mentions in a video if you have an unusually high true max heartrate then use 80% of true max (159bpm for me) as the ceiling.
Awesome Interview thanks so much to you both for adding valuable content here on the web 🎉😊 .
I think you are saying your max HR for zone 2 is 159 ? I have a high normal HR as well and my zone 2 currently is about 145-150 max. Interesting seeing info from other high HR athletes.
@@BMinus0593 my true max is 199. My lt2 is 181. My z2 "maf" technically is 159bpm yes. Marathon race hr is about 172bpm. Cheers
@@zacsborntorunrunningadvent3441 👍 thanks
Amazing insights...thank you!
so glad youtube recommended this video,
I’m sure he did his intervals too. He trained in a way that he was fully recovered to smash hard sessions by going easy in-between. If you have all the time in the world to train, that’s how you train.
The research shows this is largely ideal for people that train 12-15hrs a week too.
@@veganpotterthevegan As a runner, correct. As a cyclist, it’s how I trained last year, averaging 25 hours a week with my endurance mostly being high Z1. This year, it’s been about 16 hours, so the intensity of my endurance has gone up with more Z2, LT1 and some Z3 to make it pyramidal. Recovering enough to do twice or on occasion 3 x a week HIT and/or threshold is the key.
@benfinesilver2250 it's true for biking as much as running. Of course, high volume cyclists ride ~35hrs a week. Also, your results from cutting volume(like anyones) will be skewed by historical training efforts.
@@veganpotterthevegan Agreed. Mixing up your training isn’t just about micro cycles and macro cycles. Yearly endurance training can and should have a purpose with a view to achieving a new peak. There is no shortcut to raising your aerobic capacity. The optimal way is to plug away with insane volume to build a base of both endurance and efficiency over a very long time, whilst giving yourself stimulus at the other end of the scale too. After a few years, you’ll get close to maximizing your gains from such an approach and it’s worth adding more general intensity. Keeping your body guessing, whilst maintaining consistency and taking recovery weeks every 3-6 weeks (depends how you feel and how hard you’ve been pushing) is how you succeed long term. Learning to know when the onset of your functional over-reaching occurs and then dropping intensity, length and number of sessions to achieve super compensation and recover hormonal profile, is the key to long term continual improvement. Too many athletes don’t plug in rest or even an off season. That’s why they burn out and can’t sustain high volumes/intesity/high training loads.
With all the training you do you still wont get anywhere to elite mate. Dream on. We all know you time but not everyone has time. I can guarantee you you wont be where you are without the volume.
It is a very long (many years) process to reach one’s top most level of physical performance. Keeping it healthy and with an every day « grin » on ur face and mood about going out for training is the fundamental key, indeed.
Revelatory info on the heart issues. I’m 67 and had a brief AFib episode a month ago and many athletes our age are finding out the reality of many years of hard training. In college we ran every long workout at 6:00 to 6:30 pace, constant fatigue. I learned later from better runners to slow the heck down. I improved. These days I’m a 6:00 triathlete and being smarter.
Great advice 👍👍
Great interview! Once you get past Mark's gray hair, look how young his skin looks! Could that be a byproduct of the years of low heart rate training, possibly from lower sustained cortisol levels? He did mention two of his contemporaries have had open heart surgery. Sorry just a thought. Thanks again!
Amazing athlete back in the day, but I consider Mark an even better coach.
Excellent and very informative interview! 51:30 51:30
A long time ago I read an interview with a running coach who likened his athletes doing too much hard training as watching a bad horror movie. He knew what was going to happen to these athletes, especially after a couple of years. I guess it is hard to avoid thinking "if I go just a little harder, I can cut out a lot of this silly base building stuff".
I do wonder how the modern triathletes will fair, the Brownlie boys spring to mind. Such an intense sport.
17:04 Very interesting insight: Doing some anaerobic stuff and get your VO2max up BEFORE starting the base building period.
This is very interesting in deed and something i had in the back of my head for a while. Once a had a huge endurance gain in a soccer season from one quite easy long run. It seemed to combine all the short bursts and running actions on a string and crop the fruits.
@@Kernoe Thanks for sharing. Dr. Phil Maffetone says that anaerobic exercise compromises aerobic performance and should be done only AFTER the base building period. But doing it (also) BEFORE the base building period and then start the it with a higher VO2max, sounds like something we definitely should try.
INIGO SAN MILLAN is the man! Look him up!
By the way, the terms aerobic and anaerobic we now know are absolutely not accurate. It’s ALL “with oxygen” unless you’re doing the most intense intervals of 10 to a maximum of about 30 seconds.
So "Zone 2" seems way much older than I thought.
That’s for sure. Inigo San Millan has definitely popularized it, but he’s spent the last 30 years doing the scientific research. To figure out what’s going on and why it works.
@@markmetternich7629I don’t think he popularise it. If pogajar never win people will never know. But in sports science these zones have been around. It’s you gullible people who gets on the bandwagon without using critical thinking skills. If you know you know.
I read somewhere once the average triathlete generates about 10 pounds in mass worth of free radicals per year...just imagine the oxidative damage done if you don't do something to offset that like recovery
Z2 3 times a week, one interval session and a group ride a week works. I went from averaging 16.4 mph at 128 HR to 20.2 mph at the same HR.
So you are almost twice as fast as Eliud Kipchoge when he ran under 2 hours at about 13 mph.
@@Nyelands I’m on a bike
@@melvano4014 Ah sorry 🙂
no human on the planet can run 16.4mph at 128bpm. That's a bit faster than the mile world record at a doodling heart rate.
The tortoise and the hair: slow and steady wins the race.
17:04. Would it also be correct to leave the anaerobic high intensity stuff AFTER the base building period and position the high intensity training closer to competitions?
Of course, that is the general recommendation. However, doing some anaerobic high intensity training, in order to get your VO2max up, before starting the base training period is what is the novelty here.
Mark, I have a question that I have always wanted to ask you. I tried the Maffetone low HR method and was one of those types you mentioned where I lost patience with it. My issue was I could never train (especially on the bike) at Z2 because of the terain. I lived in Marin County, CA and mpst bike rides had hills. How did you do that, living in Boulder with every bike ride except multiple reservoir loops being hilly.? I would think even in San Diego unless you only ride up and down PCH it would be impossible to keep the majority of the ride at a low HR. Maybe today with the lower gears, but not back in the day with only higher gear ratios than availabe today.
For people here....
How slow is your slow pace to stay on zone 2?
This comment is way ahead of it's time.
Age-based formulas are just averages. There's a lot of variation with people's max heart rate.
Most people are pretty close to average though 😉
And a lot are nowhere near @@jjjjames5824
Thanks heaps for the insights - Is there a period of adaption where you can only run aerobically or is it enough to do 80% aerobic and speed work?
I used to do triathlons back in the day, and was overtrained quite often.....I am now 67, and I find myself in this groove where I walk a ton of steps a day and on most days I swim a mile in about 40 minutes......I feel better now than at almost any point in my life. Oh yea, I eat super clean, love to cook, and I also drink a pint of homemade beet kvass everyday. Last night I woke up to morning wood starting at 11:30 pm almost non-stop until 0430 hrs, and at the point it was so uncomfortable I just got the hell up. Horrible problems to have at any age, let alone 67!!!!!!!! I'll take that!
Pritikin didn't say bagels and pasta! He was whole food, low saturated fat (lean cuts, skinless chicken)
Do you do any thing competitively now at 66 ? Or is everything just done casually ? What do you feel about people over 50 doing competitive sports ?
I hope J Skipper, Heather J and a lot of other top tri watch this video
What software is he working with?
See Dr John Douillard's book:
Body Mind Sport
ROB DE CASTELLA WAS ON THE PRITIKIN DIET
The physiological discussion is not correct as to fueling, carbohydrates, and fat. No protein burning occurs until there is no body fat remaining, as in you are actually starving to death. See Tim Knoakes presentation on athletes and burning fat at high intensity.
How do you calculate max heart rate with several ways suggested? And what percentage do you train at? How often do you train and do you take supplements ?
You can't calculate it. You can measure it. Or do a specific session and make an educated guess. My max is 14 beats higher than the 220-age
Do this:
Get a chest strap HR monitor. Get on the treadmill and do a 1-2 mile easy run warm up. Do any other dynamics that you would normally do before a speed session. Then run 5 minutes with your starting speed at what you would consider 85% and increase by .2 mph every minute. After 5 minutes you should increase by .4 mph every minute. Once you reach a speed where you consider it “100%”, start increasing the incline by .5% every minute until you can run no more. Really really push it. Once you are done, see where your HR is. I leave my phone app open so I can see my HR at all times to motivate me to try to go faster. Whatever that number is, go with it and then break down all the zones based on that max HR number.
@@quengmingmeow Thank you for this information.
what s the name of that app that takes in account many factors?
Google
Can this lower heart rate work with mountain bikes?
Sure. Why not?
I believe that Phil wrote "Everybody is an Athlete" back in the day, and was a big proponent of nose breathing, at almost any zone......huge contribution back then, and even now.
I will have to disagree that the Adkins / Keto diet is not good for performance. I have run 79 Ultra Marathons and I’m on an Adkins diet. I feel great and I’m at my lowest or perfect Ultra running weight. I never bonk or suffer from low blood sugar during my ultras because I do take in carbohydrates and than immediately after the run I go back to protein.
It's generally bad for most pro athletes. There are always exceptions. How many pro athletes are on an Adkins diet?
You are not elite athlete though. Most average punters like you should be fine in keto. The problem with weekend warriors think they are pros. Train and fuel accordingly thats it
Jesus, you are taking in CARBS DURING your RACES! What are you talking about? Can you run at a threshold pace o slightly below it without consuming carbs at all? Of course, not! So running competitively/doing HIIT training is impossible without fueling on carbs. But you can run slow for hours without eating much if your HR is low. No surprise here, so what are you trying to say!?
@@jacklauren9359 Nonsense, your body is no different. Diet has got to be balanced. All macronutrients are vital for our bodies. And the more active you are the more balanced your diet has got to be.
@@ithinkthereforeitalk935don’t be delusional mate. Elite athletes need carbs for performance. Stop talking out of your ego. Educate yourself in high performance sport and not just weekend warriors doing ultras or ultra man. The problem with your kind is you think you’re a badass when in reality if you try harder sport instead of one direction then you wouldn’t be able to do it! Humble yourself.
very interesting talk. One myth though i totally have to clear and still i find it a pity if people speak about stuff they have NO experience with. 19:03 keto diet and slow muscle breakdown for sugar. rubbish! absolut rubbish! as bart kay would say. I am keto since years which makes me run without an asthma inhaler and although i do faster sessions as well especially faster long runs i only gained muscle and lost fat. It is clearly visible and my scale which is a bit more advanced even shows 2,5kg muscle gain over that period.
Maybe this is based on some short term study in the transitioning phase from eating huge amounts of carbs to switching to fats, i do not know where this opinion comes from, because claims are being without citing anything i could refer to.
I’m on a keto diet to get blood sugar under control. It’s easy and settled to normal values within hours. I believe I read somewhere that your body uses gluconeogenesis to get the “carbs” it requires. Then again, I’m just a runner and don’t know much about this.
@@georgepoth2299 gluconeogenesis is in the end creating glucose through multiple metabolic pathways. So it can be done from fat, from protein from your food intake, from protein turnover that is happening naturally all the time to use old amino acid structures, metabolites out of the cori cycle and there is even a hypothesis of better uptake from lactate for glucose recycle during the activity in a low carb state.
It is that important because we need glucose for muscle contraction and evolution found a way to provide it without breaking our muscles down, we would be gone by now, before the agrarian revolution 10.000 years ago even started to provide us with more than the occasional carbohydrate.
If one is healthy enough and deals well with carbs it is fine, they can eat them, make fat out of it and use that as well.
But for people having issues health wise this myth has to stop.
Maybe sometimes i have a bit more carbs after a heavy workout some fruits or whatever but that's it and probably not even necessary.
A keto diet is great. But if you are talking about performance on running distances no longer than the marathon distance, then you will need your carbs in order to be competitive at the highest level. For ultra running, where you are nearly exclusively running below the aerobic threshold, the story is different.
@@davidosolo Most guys around here are age groupers, not high performers, I would guess. I'm 57, so I'm definitely not "at the highest level" anymore, but I can still do a 3:45 marathon on keto, and my last 10k was 49:12.
@@georgepoth2299 Fair enough. But I suspect that especially you could improve your race performance if you would do some carb loading before and during your races. According to Zach Bitter, the moment you switch from ketosis to carb intake, the carbs are like "rocket fuel”.
Then again, you are right: if you are feeling good following the ketosis diet and also achieve some pretty nice race results in general and especially within your age group, as you seem to do, then why even bother?!
You do not need carbs to burn fat, you don't use protein to make carbs to use fat..check the guy who did 5 marathons fasted.....
Lol, nobody said you can't run a marathon fasted. All the best marathon runners fuel w/ lots of sugars.
Not True, you need carbs to burn fat, sorry.
@@relaxwithbogo5579You do not need dietary carbs at all to burn fat.
He said your body will break itself down to supply carbs if there are none in the diet @@terraflow__bryanburdo4547
@@terraflow__bryanburdo4547I can't find the reaction that needs carbs to burn fat, but the process that can make glucose from fat or protein is well known: gluconeogenesis
I agree that it is possible to burn fat without carbs because otherwise people would starve really fast with no food once the carbs run out, no matter how much fat they have.
I hope Gustav Iden watches this episode.
Those team are on the juice thats why 😂 if you know you know
Nice interview, but Alan clearly does not understand gluconeogenesis. There are tons of athletes that can do high end VO2 max work without the use of exogenous carbohydrate. He states that you need carbohydrate to start the fat burning process, this is false. Your body doesn’t need carbohydrate, your body requires glucose, which can be produced internally. Undoubtedly he is a great athlete, but he is simply incorrect on how the metabolic pathways actually work. One thing that people don’t understand about fat adaptation is it is a process of up regulation that usually requires six months to a year to fully achieve. He wrongly states that when you are in ketosis, your body breaks down proteins to convert to glucose. This is incorrect, the glucose that is derived from “fat burning“ comes predominantly from medium chain, triglycerides, i.e. fat molecules, specifically the glycerol backbones. Your body can breakdown protein into glucose, but it will only do this when there is no available fat
Drivel.
@@Chris-xv2gm ?
The problem (aside from all of the long-term negative health consequences of keto diets) is that in ketosis, your VO2 max generates relatively less energy than when you're metabolizing carbohydrates. This is why a lot of athletes do their long training sessions in a fasted state, because it puts a greater stimulus on the aerobic system at a lower intensity of movement compared to when burning carbohydrates. It takes more oxygen to per calorie to metabolize fatty acids for energy, so if you're able to respire a certain volume of O2 per minute, that represents a potential amount of aerobic work done by your body per minute. If the energy source is fatty acids because you're in ketosis and have few carbs available, then your max work potential per unit time is lower than if you were metabolizing carbs for energy.
Now if your body is "fully adapted," simply meaning you have as many enzymes for fatty acid metabolism as you're ever going to get, you might be able to perform at a pretty high level. But it will still be at a lower level than you could have performed if you were burning carbohydrates instead.
You won't reach your full potential in ketosis you need carbs to optimise high intensity work
@@dickieblench5001 define the Krebs cycle and what a calorie is and I might consider your advice
Bible says Moderation in All things
Carbs > Fat for performance goals always. Check NCBI and ask any runner 🫡
For weekend warriors they are fine with keto they need those extra weight to lose. For elite its different story. Just ask any delusional weekend warrior who copies pro 😊
@@jacklauren9359 losing weight is only about energy balance CICO
@@jacklauren9359 No, for everyone who runs at least 3-4 times a week (30 - 70 k a week) carbs are a necessity, especially if you want to get faster over time/ wanna be relatively competitive in your local races. Or doing any kind of speed work that primarily burns carbs.
And btw, elite runners are not really working harder than you are during their runs, their heart rate may be even slower than yours. They simply are well-trained individuals and can run twice as fast at the same HR. The problem is some people copy their training and running volume without having the same level of fitness (your 50 k a week might actually be as hard as their 120-160k weekly load.).
What you are saying is prob true only for obese people whose running is walking actually in terms of intensity. They may benefit from a diet like that. But if they get in decent shape and decide to continue running they will have eventually to change their diet and reintroduce carbs into their dietary plan.
When you are a skinny 25 year old on heavy "supplements" ....