Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Tabata Workout: What is it?

As you know I am a huge fan of shorter, high intensity interval training routines, rather than droning on and on a the gym on a treadmill, doing some sort of work out for an hour, etc. And I am a huge fan because I have had amazing results. I am talking my whole body shape has changed. I am wearing smaller sizes than I have in a very long time due to my increased muscle tone. I am honestly almost to my high school figure.  (I have already explained HIIT workouts in another blog post so check that out!)

There is a variation of HIIT exercises called Tabata. "Tabata" was created in Japan for training Olympians. The routine consists of doing one exercise for 20 seconds, resting for 10 and repeating this 8 times for a total of 4 minutes. Now I know that this sounds easy and really, who can get a good exercise benefit in 4 minutes...but it's true. Four minutes of Tabata actually has more benefits than 60 minutes of moderate exercise on a treadmill.Your resting metabolic rate increases greatly. Meaning you will burn more calories at rest between the first 24-48 hours than you will with 60 minutes of the treadmill. Now you of course can do multiple 4 minute rounds to include different exercises for different parts of your body. What I like about this is you can create your own routine. Say you want to do push ups, jump squats and reverse crunches. Do a four minute round of each exercise and you have a 12 minute almost full body work out in which you are burning massive calories. It is recommended to rest for a full minute between each 4 minute round to help lesson fatigue. The benefits to Tabata is that it increases aerobic and anaerobic rate, increases your endurance, creates leaner muscle tone, and increases your body fat loss percentage much more than what you can get from moderate cardio. It is important to keep in mind that this exercise style does push you to the point of exhaustion so it is not advised to do it everyday, but adding it in a few times per week will add great benefit to your physical health. They can also be very monotonous to do so you have to have will power to finish.

I found a great website that explains Tabata in much more depth:

www.tabatatraining.org

You can research for Tabata exercises on google and youtube and you will find all sorts of things. Or get creative and create your own! I challenge you to give this a try, especially if you are in a rut or plateau. This is a sure way to push your body and see changes.

Have a great night!
Stay Active
~Mandi 

Apparently a Spartan Race, Tough Mudder, and a Warrior Dash.. oh and publicly announcing that by the end of 2013, I'll be able to do at least 10 pull ups.. Lord help me!

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