I’ve been wanting to try Tabata training for a while but always balked at the idea of getting a good workout in only 4 minutes. Yesterday I stumbled upon this Self magazine article about a CrossFit-inspired Tabata style workout and decided to throw caution to the wind and try this format out. Here’s the idea behind Tabata:
- 20 seconds of high intensity exercise
- 10 seconds of rest
- 8 total 30 second “sets”
- 4 minutes total = 1 round
4 minutes of working out still sounds like tomfoolery to me, so I did five 4-minute rounds. And I was dying by the end of it (lots of tuck jumps). I’ve seen lots of different ways to format these rounds, including doing the same exercise for the entire 4 minutes, alternating between two exercises, and doing 4 different moves repeated twice for one round. Since I get bored easily, I used the last format to complete five rounds for a great total body workout.
I like to take a list of different exercises I can do to the gym with me so I don’t get stumped in the middle of a round. For this, I wrote down different strength and cardio moves that I wanted to mix into my Tabata training sessions. Yesterday I did two rounds from the cardio column to get my heart rate up and 3 rounds alternating strength and cardio moves. Mix and match theses exercises for 4 minutes of high intensity training that’s guaranteed to confuse your muscles and keep you on your toes.