Host Brad Kearns welcomes popular guest Dr. Phil Maffetone to the show for the third time. Dr. Maffetone brings along both his insightful commentary and his ultimate endurance wisdom about balancing stress and rest while emphasizing aerobically-paced training. In this conversation, Phil talks about his incredible new smartphone app—called the MAF App—that does an assortment of evaluations to help you track health, fitness, disease risk factors, and stress levels.

Brad also challenges Phil on his profound assertion that endurance athletes need not ever exceed 90 percent of their maximum heart rate. Phil explains that the additional stress of going up to a maximum level does not deliver a sufficient return on investment. A healthy athlete can dig deep on race day and give a respectable 100 percent effort. Phil details the metabolic and endocrine effects of the stress response, and how to guard against the overtraining syndrome. “The game is how to moderate stress while training hard enough to perform your best,” Phil explains. Phil mentions how, for tracking aerobic improvement, time trials and other performance trackers are inferior to using a sub-maximal MAF test on a regular basis. Enjoy another lovely and informative show with Dr. Maffetone!

Show Notes:

Selected Links from the Episode:

Phil Maffetone

Maffetone Music

MAFApp

1:59 (Book)