Who has tried TABATA?

I haven't tried it yet but I've been meaning to ever since getting my interval timer recently. I asked my personal trainer about it and he said it really does burn a lot more fat per calorie.

I've been thinking recently of starting up a interval training/Tabata support group, with a goal of doing it twice a week. Do you think you or other MFPers would be interested?

Bump for future reference.

Hoping some PTs or trainers with experience of doing Tabata properly might post as very interested.

That website and that video is a joke. Everyone these days considers Tabata to simply be 20s on and 10s off which is just ridiculous. The original Tabata had nothing to do with an elliptical or kettlebells or anything of the sort. The true Tabata is 20s sprints on the bike followed by 10s off for a period of 4 minutes and the only people that are able to get through that workout are elite athletes and I doubt if any of them would recommend even trying it or better yet wanting to do it again.

That's what I thought... I thought it originated from hard cycling drills, and being a cyclist I was interested.

I incorporate Tabata into my training plan throughout the year especially in the fall when racing cyclocross. I believe the original study done by Dr. Tabata was preformed on cyclist but Tabata got the idea from watching rowers train.

First thing first, it has a specific protocol. All out effort 20 secs followed by 10 sec repeat for 4 mins. Anything else its not Tabata. The reality, most people won't even finish the first few times they attempt, they'll pop if you truly give an all out effort. The conclusions were powerfull:

After just 6 weeks of testing, Dr. Tabata noted a 28% increase in anaerobic capacity in his subjects, along with a 14% increase in their ability to consume oxygen (V02Max). These results were witnessed in already physically fit athletes. The conclusion was that just four minutes of Tabata interval training could do more to boost aerobic and anaerobic capacity than an hour of endurance exercise.

Someone mentioned 30 / 30's , a study done by Veronique Billat incorporate 30 / 30's with the "on" portion being done at vVo2max for runners and pVo2m for cyclist. This was a new form of training Vo2m as historically traditional Vo2m sets in cyclist were done at a lower intensity (110% of FTP) for up to 5 mins. With Billat, the "off" portion is just as important as the 'on' in cyclist they preferm the 'off' portion at 60% of FTP with the idea you don't want to recovery too mcuh as you need to reach maxiumum oxygen uptake during the on portion.

I've never really considered either method for strict weightless goals, it wouldn't be something I would consider really unless you just want to mix up a routine.

I would introduce both types of workouts in a Vo2m block for training though for performance gains. I use 30 / 30 at 125% / 60% all the way up to 2.5 / 2.5 at (120% / 60%) with my athletes that train with power. They hate it

Well, joke or no, I DO tabata protocol all the time, usually 1 day a week (the original), it's 14 minutes of hell. and yes, you must be in very good shape to complete it, and no, I don't wish how you feel after on my worst enemy. But DAMN is it good for your VO2 Max threshold.

While doing other exercise types are not the original protocol, I see no reason why it cannot be adapted to receive excellent results.

Dr. Tabata didn't do this in a vacuum, he chose bikes because they were easy to acquire and you could do high levels work on them to great effect, but nothing in his original research indicated that tabata must be performed via the bike. At least not that I recall, it's been well over 18 months since I read the original research he did.

The true Tabata is 20s sprints on the bike followed by 10s off for a period of 4 minutes and the only people that are able to get through that workout are elite athletes and I doubt if any of them would recommend even trying it or better yet wanting to do it again.

I get frustrated when people call Interval training HIIT and when people call any 20s/10s Tabata. I'd like to see one person on this site do the true tabata protocol and then come back here and advocate other people doing so.

So, how is this different from running JJ's in football practice?

(JJ's = sprinting out 40 yds & back, rest a few seconds, repeat 6 x or until you puke).

absolutely nothing. In fact, I encorporate something similar in my boot camps. My big finale is monsters (10,20,30 yard monsters), I.E. 120 sprint, rest, 120 yard sprint, rest, I do how ever many people look like they can handle. But I can only handle 6 or 7 before really look bad (and as a trainer, you never want to look bad in front of others doing the same thing as you), so I usually stop there.