Tabata Tricks anyone ?????

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stormywxs
stormywxs Posts: 254 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I’m new to the idea of Tabatas. Today I did tabatas on a treadmill, a stationary bike, with a kettle bell and with dumbells. I know tabata purest say if you do a tabata correctly one tabata will spend all you’ve got. However, I was quite pleased and spent at the end of the 16 minutes of tabata work today. I like the format of 4 sets and 4 exercises.

Here’s my question. Do any of you out there with tabata experiences have some favorite tabatas you’d like to share. I am game to try some different tabatas but short on ideas. Thanks in advance for your advice.

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  • nab22
    nab22 Posts: 168
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    Sorry, I'm not going to be any help, but your post made me look up tabata training and it sounds like I might have to try it! I usually do my own versions of interval training like sprint 400m, recover 1 minute, repeat x 12, but maybe I'll give this a go. Thanks!
  • Huffdogg
    Huffdogg Posts: 1,934 Member
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    I have been easing into it myself lately, only after doing a really extensive amount of research into it. Actual pure tabata is a four minute exercise. If done properly, you will be hard-pressed to do any more than that. Tabata purists will also tell you to stick with exercises that are either full-body or primarily leg-based cardio. Mountain climbers, speed skips, burpees, stationary bike, rowing machine, jump rope...

    I must confess I have cheated it a bit as I started off. I was doing a 20/10 rotation of speed squats, pull-ups, mountain climbers, push-ups. After doing it only twice I could see that I wasn't getting the intended cardio impact, due to the simple fact of the exercises I was using. Taking your example, I can't tell what kind of intervals you were doing or what specific exercises you were doing with the kettlebell or dumbell, but I can't imagine how you could get a real tabata workout with that cycle of activity.

    I intend to alter my routine to speed skips, mountain climbers, speed squats, and a fourth undetermined exercise. I need a heavier kettlebell to make kb swings really give me the impact I need, so I'm undecided right now. The important thing is to use exercises that can be done at absolute maximum intensity for the whole work interval.
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
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    I am a tabata protocol purist, having been using it for over 2 years now, I was in it before it became popular. I have tried applying the principles of tabata with other types of exercise, and they work to a point, but true tabata is done on a spin bike.

    that being said, a lot of people misunderstand the reason for tabata training completely and think it's to get a great burn in a short amount of time. Of course, it's not. Tabata was designed for one purpose, to drastically increase an endurance athlete's maximal oxygen capacity and muscle efficiency in an anaerobic environment, that's it. Tabata may induce a healthy burn for the 4 heavy minutes you're doing it.

    So, if you're in decent shape and looking to increase your level of maximal output time (time over the anaerobic threshold) then tabata's your game, do it 2 to 3 times a week with at least 1 day of rest in between. If you want to increase your endurance level, muscle strength, or calorie burn, there's far better ways to do that.

    A lot of people ask me, why do you do tabata? I tell them: "at the end of a road race, you know, when everyone's dragging and you're supposed to kick the last few hundred yards? Well that's when tabata really shows it's stuff, it'll help you run faster for longer during this type of anaerobic activity because it trains your muscles to perform better in an anaerobic environment" Other than that, there's no reason to subject yourself to the serious pain that true tabata protocol elicits.

    NOW

    I'm not saying HIIT training isn't valuable, the concept of rapidly raising and lowering your heart rate and effort levels for intervals is a valuable tool for people for both anaerobic training, endurance training, and calorie burn, but this isn't (strictly speaking) tabata protocol, it shares some commonalities, but they aren't the same. HIIT training's AWESOME, heck, I teach a boot camp and that's basically what it is (with some body weight resistance thrown in and core work as well), but it's not tabata, mainly because if I was training someone in tabata, they would have had to ask me to train them to be better at the end of an endurance event (like a hockey player, or a distance runner, or a swimmer, or a competitive cyclist or something)
  • pkgirrl
    pkgirrl Posts: 587
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    Fave "tabata" workout, although SHBoss has got me thinking I'm probably not using it for it's intended purpose, but thrust squats with 15lb dumbbells leaves me completely knackered, for at least a couple of days.

    http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/the_tabata_method;jsessionid=D953A8E292F7C39A13DFEBAA230593E4-mcd01.hydra
  • kdiamond
    kdiamond Posts: 3,329 Member
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    Do some online research for Crossfit, there are tons of workouts out there, some are "pure" Tabata style and some are similar...the whole idea of Crossfit is short, high intensity workouts that combine strength training and cardio. Its invigorating and challenging and I think makes all the difference in getting your body to that next level.
  • stormywxs
    stormywxs Posts: 254 Member
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    Fave "tabata" workout, although SHBoss has got me thinking I'm probably not using it for it's intended purpose, but thrust squats with 15lb dumbbells leaves me completely knackered, for at least a couple of days.

    Thanks pkgirll that's the kind of suggestions I was looking for. I know I'm not a tabata purest -i'm just lookin for tabata worthy exercises to work into a tabata type protocol. Some the exercises I've tried leave me less than "Knackered" (I think).:happy:
  • stormywxs
    stormywxs Posts: 254 Member
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    Do some online research for Crossfit, there are tons of workouts out there, some are "pure" Tabata style and some are similar...the whole idea of Crossfit is short, high intensity workouts that combine strength training and cardio. Its invigorating and challenging and I think makes all the difference in getting your body to that next level.

    Thanks kdiamond. I'm open for ideas to mix it up. I seem to get stuck in ruts and comfortable with routines. Going to check out crossfit right now.
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
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    stormy,

    I hope you didn't take my purism wrong. I don't mean to downplay what you are doing. It's a good idea, it's just not tabata. I aim to educate, that's all.

    What you're doing is great, and it has some wonderful benefits. The only reason I put it in is because the terminology is vital to understanding the benefits. I.E. tabata protocol, when used correctly, can be a fantastic tool to receive very specific results. Using the format commonly associated with the tabata protocol is still beneficial in other ways, but then it's not really tabata, it's HIIT training.

    That's all I'm saying.

    Put it this way, if I was having a conversation with another Personal Trainer, and I told him/her we were doing a 14 minute routine with 5 minute warm up, then 8 repetitions of 20 seconds at 100% Max intensity with a 10 second recovery, then a five minute cool down. They wouldn't call it tabata, they'd call it a HIIT training session, or maybe a high intensity cardio circuit. Only if we used spin bikes and the desired outcome was increased anaerobic leg capacity would we call it tabata protocol.

    I know this sounds like splitting hairs, but it's not, there's many many misunderstandings in the fitness community, and most of them come simply from a difference in interpretation of events, thus having the correct naming conventions for specific exercise types is important.

    regards,

    -Banks
  • stormywxs
    stormywxs Posts: 254 Member
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    stormy,

    I hope you didn't take my purism wrong. I don't mean to downplay what you are doing. It's a good idea, it's just not tabata. I aim to educate, that's all.

    -Banks

    No offense taken here. Didn't know I sounded so sensitive:blushing: I just really liked the idea of 20/10 work/rest bouts and doing 4 of them seemed about right. I just wanted to get the best bang for my buck and things like the kettle bell didn't quite do it for me. Thanks for the lesson on terminology though! It really was helpful as were most of your comments I've seen. Hey, I agree with most evrything except the Red Sox thing:laugh: Go Mariners

    Stormy
  • Huffdogg
    Huffdogg Posts: 1,934 Member
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    Actually, to be more perfectly accurate, Tabata's research primarily revealed that aerobic and anaerobic performance could be trained simultaneously. The research was done by studying speed skaters, and by using stationary bikes, but I've never seen anything that specifically states that the method is designed solely for improving anaerobic leg muscle performance.
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
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    Actually, to be more perfectly accurate, Tabata's research primarily revealed that aerobic and anaerobic performance could be trained simultaneously. The research was done by studying speed skaters, and by using stationary bikes, but I've never seen anything that specifically states that the method is designed solely for improving anaerobic leg muscle performance.

    the anaerobic work improves the muscles that are being worked anaerobically, by definition you can't anaerobically train muscles that you aren't working out with that anaerobic training (by that I mean, only the muscles being worked will deplete the oxygen levels enough to begin anaerobic respiration, thus triggering those muscles to increase their ability to work anaerobically in the future). The aerobic aspect of muscular performance is simply the ability to increase the efficiency the muscle can pull oxygen out of the blood supply, generally this happens via increasing the localized amount of mitochondria in the cells, this isn't system wide, it's localized, which is why someone could be very good at long distance running (or speed skating in the case of I. Tabata's research) but still be marginally effective at say, swimming or rowing, because those muscles haven't been trained to be more oxygen efficient. They may be strong, but strength alone won't increase a person's localized endurance capacity.
    While yes, you do increase your overall VO2 Max with tabata, the studies show that it doesn't increase much more than it would with any other type of endurance training (see my link below, 6 weeks of moderate training increased VO2 Max by 5.1 ml/kg/min and 6 weeks of tabata protocol increased VO2 max by 7 ml/kg/min; which is a minimal difference overall), what does increase is your ability to perform that action at PEAK level for longer periods. I.E. if you could before cycle at max speed for 20 seconds before tiring, maybe with some tabata work you could do it for 25 or 28 seconds. The reason why spin bikes were used was that the major muscle group they use in spinning is the same group as for speed skating (Quads, Gluts, and Hamstrings), thus Dr. Tabata hypothesized that he should be able to increase their end of race sprint capacity by a large percentage with this targeted work. He proved his theory correct subsequently with the trials.

    Here's a link to the abstract of the study, which goes over the basics

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8897392

    When I first read the study in it's entirety, I was quite confused at the results, but after I re-read it, it became much clearer.

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