Tabata Workout:
The Fastest Way to Getting
Fit & Lean
By Dr. Chelsea Axe, DC, CSCS
Fitness Expert & Trainer
The No. 1 reason (okay, after simply not wanting to) for not working out? Time, or lack thereof. With our fast-paced, always connected,never-enough-time-to-do-anything lifestyles, making time to get that workout in may seem like a Herculean task. In fact, it often requires exercise hacks because putting on workout clothes and getting to a place to get that sweat on … just takes too much time.
So even if it was on your to-do list to start the day, it might not last long. Wait … there is hope! Actually even better than hope, there is scientific evidence that suggests you can radically increase your overall levels of fitness in just minutes a day doing the Tabata workout.
The Tabata workout is a form of high-intensity training, or HIIT workouts, that uses a :20 on/:10 off ‘protocol.’ What that means is that for 20 seconds you perform an activity at a high level of intensity, followed by 10 seconds of rest, for a total of 8 rounds.
Can the Tabata protocol be the answer we’ve been waiting for? If we want to oversimplify it, the answer is a resounding, “YES”! However, as you will see, like most things in life, it’s a little more complicated than that.
One of the biggest obstacles to efficacy is the unfortunate truth that regardless of the proliferation of Tabata classes and workouts, you are most likely NOT performing the actual Tabata protocol.
The History of Tabata
Back in 1996, Dr. Izumi Tabata published the groundbreaking study that would be the basis for the Tabata training method. (1) It was through his collaboration with the Japanese Olympic Speed Skating team that he initially began to study the effects of short bursts of extremely high-intensity exercise on athletes. The skating team’s head coach, Irisawa Koichi, actually designed the workout.
Originally completed on a cycling ergometer (a stationary bike with an ergometer that measures the amount of work that’s performed) the format was 20 seconds of high-intensity work, followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated for 8 rounds, giving it it a total time of 4 minutes. Koichi wanted Tabata to analyze the effectiveness of this method.
The test looked at two groups of amateur athletic males in their mid-20s. The first group performed familiar, steady-state training on the ergometer, maintaining a moderate intensity of about 70 percent of their VO2 max. Pretty similar to what you may do at the gym when you’re jogging on the treadmill. It’s work, but it’s sustainable.
The second group pedaled at maximal effort for 20 seconds and were then given 10 seconds of rest. This cycle was repeated for four minutes or what would essentially be 8 rounds. The term
Both of the groups did this for 6 weeks, 5 times a week. The group of moderate-intensity participants worked a total of 5 hours, while the high-intensity subjects topped out at just 20 minutes (sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?)
The research concluded that the 4-minute Tabata workout had the same effects on aerobic performance improvement as the 60 minutes of moderate-intensity workout. In addition to that, the Tabata group also experienced a 28 percent improvement in their anaerobic capacity as well. The long-duration group did not get that benefit. Not only is Tabata a much shorter workout, but it offers two benefits in one.