What are Tabatas?

Hey everyone. Today I will be doing fitness post on Tabatas. What are Tabatas you ask? Well, Tabata training was discovered by a Japanese scientist named Dr. Izumi Tabata who worked for the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo. Dr Tabata used two different groups of athletes and had them train at different intensities. The 1st group trained at a moderate intensity and the 2nd group trained at a high intensity. The workouts were broken up as such:

Moderate Intense Athletes: Worked out 5 days a week for a total of 6 weeks. Each workout lasted one hour.
High Intensity Athletes: Worked out 4 days a week for 6 weeks. Each workout lasted four minutes and 20 seconds with a 10 second rest in between each set.

Results:
Moderate Intense Athletes: Increased their aerobic (cardiovascular) but showed little or no improvement in their anaerobic system (strength).
High Intensity Athletes: Showed much higher increases in their aerobic system compared to the Moderate Intense Athletes, and they increased their anaerobic (strength) system by 28%.
According to Dr Tabata's tests, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), has a much better impact on both the aerobic and anaerobic system when compared to medium intensity training.

Not bad...you get much better results when training at high intensity for much shorter time periods. The only drawback...you have to work as hard as you can for 4 minutes. Here is the proper Tabata workout:
If you have never done Tabatas before, choose an exercise that requires only your body weight. Some examples include Burpees, Body-weight Squats, Push-ups or Mountain Climbers. Lets use Burpees for this example. You start by doing Burpees for 20 seconds, then rest for 10 seconds. That is 1 set. Repeat for 8 rounds. Each set you have to do as many Burpees as you can for 20 seconds. It sounds easier than it is.

There are plenty of free apps that you can download on your phone that will keep the count for you. Just search "Tabata Timer." Once you get the hang of performing Tabatas, you can increase the difficulty by doing 2-3 different Tabata exercises. You can also try adding Kettle-bells. A great Kettle-bell Tabata exercise is Kettle-bell Swings. You perform as many reps as you can in the 20 second time limit. Tabatas will get your heart rate pumping in no time.

Let me know how it goes. I wouldn't do Tabatas every workout. Start out just doing Tabatas 1 to 2 times per week. You can alternate days. One day will be a high intensity interval training day, and the next day can be a moderate exercise day. They are tough, but effective. Good luck and let me know what Tabata exercises you like to do. Until next time...take care.

Here is a link that I used for reference: https://www.active.com/fitness/articles/what-is-tabata-training