Get Your Best Cardio Results with the Tabata Protocol

What if I told you that you could get all the fat burning benefits of an hour long cardio session in just 4 minutes? What’s the downside? You have to exercise harder and more intensely than you ever have before. Are you up for it? Then let’s explore this method, which is called the Tabata.

The Tabata workout is named after Izumi Tabata, a former researcher at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Japan. Tabata’s research focused on a high intensity interval training program that had been created and implemented by the coach for the Japanese speed skaters. The Tabata program developed for the speed skaters centered on a maximum sprint effort that lasted 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of resting. The trainer had the athletes repeat this set 6-8 times for a period consisting of 4 minutes.

Now this may sound easy on paper, but once you sprint all out for 20 seconds and have almost no time to rest, you get winded very easily. It’s not uncommon to feel nauseous after completing a high intensity interval training workout. Needless to say, this routine was used with world class athletes. Speed skaters are some of the world’s finest athletes, and many on the Japanese speed skating team had to stop after 6 intervals for the first few times. When I’ve used this system, I’ve found that I can go all out for the first 4-6 intervals, but that I drop off off for the final 2-4 intervals. While I still gave those last 2-4 intervals my maximum effort, the effort given in the first 2-4 intervals was more intense because I hadn’t grown tired yet at that point.

You can apply this routine to a workout on the elliptical machine or the treadmill, where many people believe it takes a minimum of 20 minutes to begin burning fat. How could this simple 4 minute routine possibly be one of the best fat burning workouts? It works by giving you what is called an “after burn effect”, which is when your body continues to burn calories, sometimes even for hours after your workout is complete, due to the intensive intervals in the routine. Your body is able to do this because all of the carbs get burned out during the workout, so all your body has left to burn afterward is fat. Studies have also discovered that aerobic and anaerobic capacities were increased using the Tabata protocol, while moderate intensity cardio exercises only showed increases aerobically.

You can apply the Tabata protocol’s high-intensity workout to just about any type of exercise that you like to use. I prefer to employ the Tabata protocol with cardio exercises, but it can also be used with strengthening or bodyweight exercises. Do as many reps as you can in 20 seconds. Take a brief 10 second rest and begin again. Go light if you’re using weights because this requires a grueling effort.

The Tabata Protocol itself should only take 4 minutes total, however it is still important to remember to begin with a warm-up period and end with a cool-down period. I will usually warm up for about 4 or 5 minutes before I begin. After I finish the Tabata protocol, I take a 1 – 2 minute cool down, which lets me gather my second wind and get rehydrated. That’s about a 10 minute total cardio workout. It is kind of hard to restrict myself to just a 10 minute workout, so I will usually add a bit of steady state cardio in following the Tabata protocol. Tabata reduces glycogen levels and releases fatty acids. Steady state cardio can burn those fatty acids and take advantage of your body’s low glycogen levels to really burn off fat. This is how the Tabata protocol produces the best cardio program that you’ve ever tried.