Tabata training is an exercise regime where you do short bursts of intenese activity with a brief rest between. You would usually only spend about 5 minutes on any one exercise period.
Save Time, Burn Fat and Increase Metabolism
It is an excellent exercise for general fitness, the main advantages being:
- It is very time efficient - maximum 10 to 15 minutes with the warm up.
- It is an excellent fat burning exercise
- It trains your body to increase its metabolism as your mind has to anticipate these intense exercise periods
- It is a very good exercise for competitive sport preparation as it builds determination and focus
You choose the exercise that you wish to do and then do this for 20 seconds as hard as possible and then take a 10 second break. You repeat this up to a maximum of 10 times.
Select An Exercise Type
- Select an exercise that doesn't require any special equipment so you can do it anywhere, although rowing machines do exercise a lot of different muscles if you have access to one and a cycling machine because they are common but don't really cover all teh muscle sets so better in combination with another type of exercise.
- Choose more holistic exercises that work out as many muscles as possible
- Vary the exercise from day to day so that you work different muscles sets and relieve any potential boredom
Tabata Training Exercise Types
- Squats
- Sprints
- Dead lifts
- Rowing machine
- Mixed press-ups, skipping, squats etc.
- Cycling machine
You must always warm up properly as the exercise is very intense and there is a possibility of overstretchng a muscle. Always do some muscle stretches even if you do a 10 minute jog before you begin sprinting.
Tabata Training
- Warm up the muscles that you are going to use. You will need to spend 5 to 10 minutes on this especially if you have been sitting around, your circulation is poor or you are oustide and it is cold.
- 20 seconds of exercise as hard as possible
- 10 second break
- Repeat the exercises and breaks up to a maximum of 10 times
Interval Timing
You can time yourself with a stop watch or a more sophisticated digital watch taht allows to to set alarms at 10 second intervals.
However, it is very beneficial to count in your head using a calm voice. This mentally helps you to separate what is very intense physical activity with clear and concentrated thought.