The Maffetone Method: The Holistic, Low-Stress, No-Pain Way to Exceptional Fitness: The Holistic, Low-stress, No-pain Way to Exceptional Fitness

"Not what I expected from this book. Interested by Maffetone's approach to low intensity training, I was looking for a book to explain the physilogical basis, and then go ahead and get me started. In a way this book met my aims (hence the three stars), but the way it did it was in some ways disconcerting.

To start with the positive, the essence of the book is that you find your maximum active heart level by subtracting your age from 180, and then adding or substracting up to 5 beats to compensate for your existing level of fitness. This is your upper heart rate limit, and then 10 beats below this is your minimum. You then train exclusively at this level for months. That's it. Whether or not this is a good thing, you decide, but that advice, in a nutshell, is the core of the book for instructional purposes.

The rest of the book is evangelical in tone, stressing the superiority of aerobic exercise, to the extent that anerobic exercise is bad in pretty much every way. He defines anaerobic exercise as any exercise where your body uses sugar stores as energy instead of fat (so this would, for example cover a spinning class, not just lifting weights or sprinting).

To me this seemed very outdated now, when I think most sports scientists recognise the benefits of some cross training or weight training are well known. It's not just mafferone's theory I have a problem with, it's the way he keeps going on (and on) about it for the other 150 pages of his book. He also has two quizes to find out if you have "aerobic deficiency syndrome" (no, I've never heard of it either) and are carb intolerent. Both quizes seem to have the same, very vague symptoms (eg "do you get fatigued?" "are you storing more body fat?") and don't strike me as being particularly persuasive.

There's some other stuff in there about diet (vaguely Atkins-style) and getting the correct shoes, but unless you are interested in becoming a priest of the high church of aerobics and converting the unbelievers, I'd stay away. I've just started reading Mittleman's book "slow burn" and have been much more impressed with that. "
~ Written on 2008-01-31

"P.Maffetone creates an air of simplicity around fitness training and health in general. He incorporates a wide range of factors affecting performance and the level of detail is perfect to use as a base for further reading but provides sufficient knowledge for any athlete to easily attain greater fitness and enjoy a healthier life. After reading the book several times I am still amazed by the breadth of subjects covered.

The best aspect of the Maffetone method is that the training and life changes are easily incorporated into a normal persons life with work and family commitments. The attainment of a good aerobic Base is fundamental to improved fitness and is stressed in every fitness text (book/magazine/web site) that I have read, and yet I know several tri-athletes who have spent insufficient time building a base and they show no imrpovement year on year. By following a pattern of monthly 'MAF' tests I have documented evidence of dramatic improvements in basic fitness as well as recording a plateau which would not have been obvious without measured testing. Needless to say my race performance has improved dramatically too, and without any Anaerobic training aside from three sprint Triathlons during 2001.

I found Philip Maffetone's advice to be sensible, educated, practical, easily understood and applied and best of all, when applied it works, with no pain.

No pain all gain, the holy grail for aspiring athletes and frustrated experienced ones alike."
~ Written on 2001-10-31