Question about Tabata training

jdelot

There was thread about Tabata a few days ago, so I looked into and it sounded interesting. I tried it today after doing about 20 minutes on the treadmill. I guess my question is, is there more to it than the 4 minutes? I mean, you couldn't just do the 4 minutes and call it good for the day, right? I'm not looking for a magic pill or anything, I'm just trying to understand the best way to implement Tabata into my routine.

caveats

There are some ladies in the 2k+ group who were talking about it recently, so I looked into it as well. No, there is nothing more to it than those 4 minutes, but the key is to absolutely go flat out 100% effort on the 20 seconds. You're trying to stress your body purposefully and efficiently, whereas pounding on an elliptical/treadmill at an elevated heart rate might equate to only 75% effort on your body, for example, because you're trying to last LONGER -- for endurance.

Hopefully someone with more experience in this will chime in, but that is my understanding. I'm starting to incorporate this into my regular week as well.