Workout Wednesday: Tabata Intervals

It's late. And I want to go to bed. But I also really want to write this blog. So it'll be a quick one, I hope.

If you haven't already been introduced, I wanted you to meet Tabata. I met Tabata about two summers ago. I've seen it since on exercise blogs (including the one I use daily), and in my Fitness magazine.

Tabata is a great short workout, or a great addition to any existing workout you might do.

It's simple, really.

It's 4 minutes of exercises, with patterns of 20 seconds of work, and 10 seconds of rest.

Here's a video to explain it. Watching this was the first time I learned about it.



My favorite thing about these intervals is that you can switch the 20 seconds of work to any form of cardio. Jumping jacks, plank jacks, burpees, mountain climbers, high knees, butt kickers, skaters, jump rope, and the list goes on.

Today I did my three sets of exercises as prescribed at http://hiitmamas.blogspot.com/. But as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I tend to add cardio/running to these workouts if I need to. So before each set, I did a 4 minute Tabata round.

My workout looked like this:

20 sec jacks
10 sec rest
20 sec jacks
10 sec rest
all x 2 (2 minutes)
20 sec high knees
10 sec rest
20 sec high knees
10 sec rest
all x 2 (2 minutes)

21 thrusters and butterfly sit-ups, 15 thrusters and butterfly sit-ups, 9 thrusters and butterfly sit-ups

20 sec jump rope
10 sec rest
20 sec jump rope
10 sec rest
all x 2 (2 minutes)
20 sec butt kickers
10 sec rest
20 sec butt kickers
10 sec rest
all x 2 (2 minutes)

21 thrusters and butterfly sit-ups, 15 thrusters and butterfly sit-ups, 9 thrusters and butterfly sit-ups

20 sec mountain climbers
10 sec rest
20 sec mountain climbers
10 sec rest
all x 2 (2 minutes)
20 sec jumping oblique twists
10 sec rest
20 sec jumping oblique twists
10 sec rest
all x 2 (2 minutes)

21 thrusters and butterfly sit-ups, 15 thrusters and butterfly sit-ups, 9 thrusters and butterfly sit-ups

When all was said and done, I had 12 minutes of cardio, and 11:12 minutes of strength. So I finished up with 6 minutes on the stairmaster. It was a good workout. Most workouts are good, after all.

Here's a link to an arm workout I use as a backup from time to time. It uses Tabata on some days. (It refers to this as the fat blaster workout.)

Here's another workout from my notebook that uses Tabata between sets. (It refers to them as Cardio bursts.)

So there's Tabata. Great on its own if you're pressed for time, or great to add to any workout. Happy sweating!