Why We're Fans of This 4-Minute Workout That's Efficient and as Energizing as a Cup of Coffee
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Loading... - Flavia Donato
- 22 Jul 2022
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It’s easy to pass four minutes of your time doing absolutely nothing. You can look at the clouds, ponder the meaning of life, count your freckles, let your mind wander. Those are all fantastic uses of a few free minutes since, generally speaking, we don’t spend enough time doing nothing. But four minutes is also all you need to get in a kick-ass workout if you’re doing Tabata, a form of high-intensity interval training or HIIT.
In addition to being an incredibly efficient form of exercise, this type of quick HIIT workout can instantly energize your system the way a cup of coffee would. Like all high-intensity strength and cardio, the benefits of Tabata include boosting your mood, lowering your blood sugar, improving your cognitive health, and more.
So why does Tabata get its own special name? Where did the name come from in the first place? And how does it differ from other types of HIIT? It’s kind of like how a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t a square. The distinction is all in the details.
So, what is Tabata?
As previously mentioned, Tabata is a type of high-intensity interval training, meaning you’re all-out effort during each exercise, then trying to let your heart rate recover as much as possible during the rest period.
Specifically, Tabata involves performing eight rounds of 20-second work intervals with 10 seconds of rest in between, for a total of four minutes. Often trainers will stack Tabata workouts to make a longer sweat session, with 20 minutes (40 rounds) being a common duration to do this type of exercise. But if you’ve ever tried it yourself, you know that you’ll feel recharged and worked after just four minutes.
“Tabata is considered shorter-duration, high-intensity training,” she says. It’s work-to-rest ratio is always 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. Interval durations can vary during general HIIT workouts, with anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds of work being common and rest periods normally lasting from 10 seconds to two minutes, depending.
What are the benefits of a Tabata workout?
Efficiency is the main gain with Tabata. “In addition to all the other benefits of HIIT like increased endurance and strength, the primary benefit of Tabata is to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time. Read More...
