Ask any athlete, doctor, gym rat or weekend warrior and they’ll tell you, you’ve gotta do cardio. Forget relying on the clunky, old iron weights. You want to burn fat? Cardio. Want to increase your endurance? Cardio. Want to keep your heart from exploding at age 45? Cardio. Don’t want to end up the poster boy for erectile dysfunction? Cardio.
It seems cardio is the magic bullet for whatever ails you. The problem is doing cardio sucks. Everyone hates doing it, and no one appears to be getting substantial results from spending hours on a treadmill or logging serious mileage on a bike. That beer gut you’ve been hauling around since freshman year? Apparently it’s cardio resistant.
Cardio: You’re Doing it Wrong: That’s probably because studies show those hours and miles may be a complete waste of time. Researchers have found that keeping your heart rate up at a steady pace for 30, 60, 90 minutes at a time, doesn’t do much good for overall health and fitness. What’s more effective? High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT. That’s where you elevate your heart rate for a short period of time, followed by a short rest to recover and get your pulse down.
Do this for several rounds and you’ll not only be completely gassed, but you’ll be training your heart to ramp up and then calm down more quickly and efficiently, which researchers claim is better for overall cardio health. It also puts the spurs to your metabolism, and keeps it amped up long after your 15-30 minute HIIT session is over, resulting in more rapid fat burn.
A study published in the Journal of Physiology in 2006, found that just 2.5 hours of HIIT a week produced similar positive muscle changes and exercise performance as 10.5 hours of sustained endurance training. That’s 8 hours you can spend not sweating on a treadmill and still get the same results. (As long as you don’t spend those saved hours on a bar stool or at a Krispy Kreme.)
So it looks like less is more. And better for time-crunched guys who don’t have an hour or more every day to sweat off the pounds. But can you slash that 15-30 minutes of HIIT down to just 4 minutes per session and still get benefits? Tabata proponents say yes you can.
Tabata is a form of HIIT developed in the mid-90’s by Professor Izumi Tabata, who was working with the Japanese Olympic speed skating team. The team’s coach wanted to Tabata to analyze the effectiveness of a training technique he was trying, using short bursts of intense effort followed by a short rest.
Tabata discovered exercising full out for just 20 seconds, followed by a short 10 second rest—and doing this for 8 rounds, for a total of only 4 minutes—offered a truly intense workout.
He also found that doing this 4 days per week, with a single day of sustained cardio training, produced similar benefits of doing 5 days of sustained cardio training, in a fraction of the time. Hence the popularity with those of us who don’t have the time (or desire) to put in 10+ hours sweating on a treadmill every week.
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Getting Started: You don’t need much for a Tabata workout—just a timer, an exercise, and a place to train. You can do intervals of sprints, do jumping jacks, use a stationary bike, jump rope, even do push ups. As long as you can put balls-out effort into it, you can use it.
To keep time, there are a number of Tabata timer apps available that count out your eight 20/10 rounds so you can focus on the task at hand, without looking at a watch.
Does it Work? We gave Tabata a try, and we’re drinking the Kool-Aid. Izumi Tabata wasn’t kidding when he said it was enough to make a fit person exhausted. Sprinting for 20 seconds may not sound like much, but when you’re doing it 8 times, as hard as you can, with only a (super) short break in between, you’re huffing like you’ve just finished a stage of the Ironman.
Our first go was on a stationary bike, and by round 3 we were already wishing for the sweet, sweet release of death. By the end of round 8 we could barely stand, clothes drenched, heart racing, gasping for air. Most intense 4 minutes of training we’ve experienced. But the upside was being able to say “Later, bitches!” to the old-school fools sweating it out for an hour, while we were already down at the smoothie bar chatting up the yoga girls.
Bottom Line: We think Tabata worked for us. After doing it several times a week over a few weeks, it got easier and easier, pounds were shed, and resting heart rates dropped. We felt, dare we say, fit. Plus, there’s the whole you-don’t-have-to-waste-hours-sweating thing. So we’ll take short and effective, over long and questionable any day.
Just make sure to consult your doctor first. We don’t want to be responsible for one of your coronary artery rupturing while you try to Tabata away years of punishing your body with triple bacon cheese burgers.
