The Endurance Handbook: How to Achieve Athletic Potential, Stay Healthy, and Get the Most Out of Your Body

by Philip Maffetone, Tawnee Prazak (Foreword)

Are you a triathlete, runner, cyclist, swimmer, cross-country skier, or other athlete seeking greater endurance? The Endurance Handbook teaches athletes how to stay healthy, achieve optimal athletic potential, and be injury-free for many productive years. Dr. Philip Maffetone’s approach to endurance offers a truly “individualized” outlook and unique system that he has refined over three decades of training and treating athletes, ranging from world champions to weekend warriors. Maffetone’s training and racing philosophy emphasizes building a strong aerobic base for increased fat burning, weight loss, sustained energy, and a healthy immune system. Good nutrition and stress reduction are also key to this common-sense, big-picture approach.Dr. Maffetone also dispels many of the commonly held myths that linger in participatory sports-and which adversely impact performance-and explains the “truths” about endurance, such need to train slower to race faster will enable your aerobic system to improve enduranceWhy expensive running shoes can actually cause foot and leg injuriesThe fact that refined carbohydrates actually reduce endurance energy and disrupt hormone balanceHow overtraining can be avoided in its earliest stagesAnd much more!If you are looking to increase your endurance and maximize your athletic potential, The Endurance Handbook is your one-stop guide to training and racing effectively.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports-books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team.In addition to books on popular team sports, we also publish books for a wide variety of athletes and sports enthusiasts, including books on running, cycling, horseback riding, swimming, tennis, martial arts, golf, camping, hiking, aviation, boating, and so much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Genres: Fitness, Sports, Health

326 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 2, 2015

Reviews

[Artas Bartas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm confident that Dr. Philip Maffetone is a great coach and my review is in no way meant to question his reputation. But as far as this book is concerned, he falls dramatically short of his promise to teach readers how to build up endurance. Once you strip away term definitions, scientific explanations, and random tidbits, all that is left is a couple of sensible guidelines that any running man or woman already knows. Eat healthy food. Don't overtrain. Walk barefoot now and then. The frustrating thing is that is all the advice the book has to offer.

There's no practical advice on how to structure your training, monitor your aerobic condition, or optimize your diet for the particular goal you work with. No mention of how to build up endurance in the long term and what to do to get into shape for an upcoming race. No handy tips for how to speed up recovery. Just some high-level discussion of a series of random topics loosely related to running.

Alas, what the book lacks in substance it makes up in length. The same basic advice is parroted again and again, and paragraphs are padded with placeholder sentences like "Whether running, biking, skiing, or performing other endurance training, measuring ones maximum aerobic function is easy to do." (I swear simply replacing the word 'exercise' with 'running, biking, skiing, or performing other endurance training' made this book 13% thicker).

In some places, Dr. Maffetone hints that his other book, The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing, contains more in-depth advice, but that just makes it all the more frustrating to wade through the idle chatter presented as professional advice. Oh, and don't even get me started on the concept of the 'water intoxication' that Dr. Maffetone brings up in the very last chapter of the book. The book editor apparently saw the kookiness of this idea, which explains why it's tucked away as an appendix, all the way at the end of the book.

Objectively speaking, the most valuable seven pages of the book are the two Appendices, where Dr. Maffetone explains how to use the 180 rule and determine the Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF) test. But then again, both of these Appendices could easily fit in a Wikipedia entry and do not warrant the waste of so much paper. So to summarize, the Endurance Handbook is the book for someone who has no intention of building up endurance.

[Gopi Krishnan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good sensible advice that can be followed, if you strip off the research references, this could've been a 10-20 page article more than a full blown book. Like some others have commented, he hasn't detailed out what MAF method is beyond monitoring the heartbeat. That said, whether it barefoot training, carb/sugar avoidance or posture/stance, what to do for your abs etc., there are some good useful tips.

[Michael Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Excellent concepts badly delivered. Real useful nuggets of information here but once a chapter it makes you feel like you bought the wrong book (...for more information read my other book...) and is about 100 pages too long thanks to waffle and reiteration of same points.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book starts off better than the previous one The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing[BBoET], acknowledging Dr. Ken Cooper and adopting the standard definitions for aerobic and anaerobic, as opposed to making up his own versions for no good reason. He also acknowledges lactate thresholds before rejecting them, as opposed to completely ignoring the concept as he did in the first book.

Unfortunately, things mostly go downhill from there. There is lots of unsubstantiated pontificating and some rather wacky advice. Large sections are copied verbatim from the previous book. He promotes a high-fat low-carb (Atkins/keto) diet, despite significant evidence that a high carb diet is both healthier and better for athletic performance.

He confusingly refers to running cadence (i.e. stride rate) as "tempo", which is typically used to designate a pace (i.e. min/mi).

Despite the numerous assertions and attempts at scientific language, there are no citations or references for anything. The studies he does mention date mostly from research conducted in the 70's and 80's, much of which have since been called into question, such as the benefits of low-carb/paleo diet, barefoot/minimalist shoes, and glycemic index.

If you are interested in the Maffetone Method, skip this one and stick with BBoET, there isn't enough new content to bother.

[Francesc Borrull · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm still reading this, not finished, but:
1. Section 2 is about nutrition. It promotes a ketogenic diet, which is absolutely not what the overwhelming science in sports nutrition recommends for endurance sports. At one point, he writes: "The body's need for carbohydrates is zero." This is alarming. Zero? Really? Fruits and vegetables are carbs, just FYI.
2. The book is very, very repetitive and beats around the bush too much without going into actionable specifics. This has been noted already by other reviewers. Recommending his other books for more specific details is an ethically questionable behavior from a writer that may be a hint for me NOT to finish reading the book.

Update #2. This is a really bad book. Mafetone may be a great coach, but his publisher should have advised him NOT to write this book, or he should have not published it. Period.
There are so many problems with the writing AND the content. Too many to refer to here. Here's one: "The problem of excess of abdominal fat is relatively easy to remedy. Avoid eating refined carbohydrates, including sugar." Well, it's NOT that simple. If it was, most people would cut to zero refined carbs from their diet and lose it all, but we know this doesn't happen like that. it is way more complicated.
At this point, I'm going to go through the book diagonally and be done with it.
I do NOT recommend it at all. By far, this is the worst book for runners I've ever read, and I've read quite a few.

Done: 1 star.

[Jeremy Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought The Endurance Handbook to get more detail about Dr. Maffetone’s training system. While he did explain it, it was lacking in any detail. He spent most of the book talking about things I just wasn’t interested in. Save yourself the time and money and just go to his blog. All of the info in this book is probably already there. The book was also riddled with mistakes (grammatical and mathematical) that should have been addressed with even casual proof reading.

All that said, I’m a big fan of the Maffetone Method and have had some success with the development of my aerobic system using his program.

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent in-depth info needed to become more healthy, provides life long habits for not just getting fitter, but doing while being healthy too. A must for an athlete wanting to live long healthily.

Excellent in-depth info needed to become more healthy, provides life long habits for not just getting fitter, but doing while being healthy too. A must for an athlete wanting to live long healthily.

[Mitesh Patel · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you ignore the typo errors and repetition of some mantras like give up sugar and junk food, run bare feet, eat eggs, this is such a great book. What I am a bit skeptical about though is that he links every malady that afflicts the body to sugar and fat metabolism. Now that may be true and I can vouch for it personally, it is still not completely true. Anyway, I have started training with his MAF method for a month and I may be seeing a tad bit improvement so let us see how far this goes.

[John Dzwonczyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great Advice, Somewhat Disconnected

If you’re reading this to get advice on diet and exercise, it seems to be great. I’m at the start of both programs recommended in this book and I can see changes after only a month. There are, however, a lot of digressions that detract from the book. I also agree that the environment is being ruined, but I didn’t pick up this book to learn about it after nine chapters about individual health. I have other books for that.

[Nigel Bradshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and challenging

I believe I have read with an open mind and it challenges what I have been doing

The book is challenging and argument is persuasive enough that I am willing and wanting to embark on these methods to see if I can realise these health benefits

The ultimate test of any hypothesis

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maximum aerobic function (MAF) training has long fascinated me, with its slower training for increased endurance. However, this book was rambling in areas I wasn’t very interested in, while being light on specific heart rate training information.

[Sherry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some good principles here, but they could have been taught in 1/4 of the length. This book was needlessly long, repetitive, and often condescending. Some of the advice is so extreme (don't eat junk food, ever), that it's just impractical. (Especially for a mom of four children.) The actual guide about endurance training is useful, and it's in the appendices at the back; just flip to those to get the main ideas and move on.

[Fabio Noronha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read for those seeking a holistic perspective to training.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not helpful

[Topherjaynes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing revolutionary but had some good framing for zone two training and how to build aerobic capacity before speed.

[W. Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strong on plan

Strong plan that apparently works. Weak on theory which is disappointing.
The entire book can be put on a couple of 3x5 cards though.

[Jack M · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt like high school kinesiology all over again. The overarching themes (cut out sugar / train slow, possibly barefoot) were known to me from reading prior reviews, and the rest of the book didn't contain any substantial information which could improve my running.

[Damien Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phil's ideas on nutrition and exercise ring true and I like them a lot. There are some really great ideas here but he tends to repeat himself throughout the book quite a lot. Sometimes I find he just went too technical for what I was looking for too. I could summarise his main points as: 1. Eat properly. That means eat a range of veg and protein and fruit and ditch the processed crap. No sugar. 2. Learn to exercise aerobically rather than anaerobically. ie train slower. There's more to it but that's the basics. I'm convinced enough to be about to give the slow running using a heart rate monitor a go for three months.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, here's the thing with this book the author is a genius but the book
Primal Endurance: Escape chronic cardio and carbohydrate dependency does a better job of sharing the ideas.