Among the multitude of workouts that are available to people out there, there are a few
that stand above the rest as innovative and effective routines. CrossFit was one of the
first in a crop of brand new workouts that took the fitness world by surprise and created
an entirely new niche. As time has marched on, more people have been asking for
workouts that challenge and excite them. This demand grew, and a new high intensity
interval training was developed. One of the most popular workouts in this group is called
Tabata.
Tabata History
Scientist Izumi Tabata and a group of his peers studied two groups of athletes and
documented their aerobic and anaerobic progress over a fixed period of time. After
observing the differences between one group performing at moderate levels of intensity,
and another group performing at high intensity intervals they discovered that they
second group was already performing quite a bit better after only 6 weeks. This second
group became the scientific foundation on which the Tabata method was built.
How It Works
Today, Tabata is quickly becoming one of the most well-known workouts in the high
intensity interval training category. It uses eight rounds of high intensity sets in a timed
interval of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, to achieve fast and pleasing results.
Whichever movement or exercise you choose, to be properly done Tabata style, you
must do that one exercise and go as hard as you can for the designated intervals for an
entire 4 minutes. This is far more challenging than it sounds and that intensity will take
you out of the game for a bit afterwards. In fact, itís even been said of Tabata, that if
youíre not completely exhausted after youíre done, then you didnít do it hard enough.
Important benefits
Essentially, one of the biggest benefits of the Tabata workout, is that you donít need to
dedicate a lot of time to get your fitness in a day. Since the workout only take a total of 4
minutes, you have your entire day ahead of you. To keep things interesting, it would be
very easy to switch things up and make sure that you have something different to focus
on each day. You can even do a Tabata workout along with a short normal intensity
workout and achieve extreme results.
Try out Tabata when you want a short, intense workout that burns a lot of fat and
calories.