Personal Fitness News and Information

2001 A Pain Odyssey:
Created in a Japanese sports lab, this high-intensity interval method will burn bodyfat while it builds muscle

Muscle & Fitness, April, 2009
by Jim Stoppani, Joe Wuebben

In the gym, your days of resting longer than you're actually lifting are history. Doing a set that lasts 20-30 seconds, then taking a 1-2-minute breather before another half-minute set? No more. Gone. Sayonara.

Your sets and rest periods are about to flip, and you'll be lifting for twice as long as you break. Here's what's in store: Short rest periods and high-rep sets performed at such an intensity that you'll use roughly half your normal weight. You'll burn bodyfat, your muscles will grow, you'll get an aerobic workout, and you'll increase strength and power. But it all comes at a price, and the only currency accepted is pain. It's a program as unique as its name: Tabata.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

For the weightlifter, the measurables boil down to sets, reps and the amount of weight used. How many sets did I do? How many reps per set? And most important, how heavy did I go? But sometimes, when your results have hit a plateau, you need to think outside the box. Inside the box is this: Do a set of 8-10 reps, rest a minute, do another set of 8-10 reps, rest a minute. Repeat indefinitely. Not that anything is inherently wrong with this style of training, unless you've been doing it for years, not to mention decades.

Tabata Interval Training is so far out of the three-sets-of-10-reps box it doesn't even speak the same language. Using Tabata means alternating 20 seconds of exercise with 10 seconds of rest, nonstop, for eight sets. Unlike the high-intensity interval training we typically prescribe for cardio, but similar in its fat-burning effectiveness, this style of training can be adapted to any exercise: dumbbell presses, barbell rows, jumping rope, rowing, push-ups, you name it. And in true M & F fashion, we've designed a Tabata Interval Training program that's so effective, yet so grueling, that you'll thank us while you're hating us (or maybe a day or two later).

The results will be well worth the pain. The extremely short rest periods and seemingly constant reps in a Tabata program are perfect for melting away bodyfat. Yet despite the light weight you'll be using--50%-75% of what you'd use for a typical set of 8-12 reps, depending on the exercise--Tabata will take your muscle growth to new heights.

THE SCIENCE OF TABATA

Tabata Intervals were named after the Japanese scientist who first designed them: Izumi Tabata, PhD. As the story goes, Dr. T was looking for a method of gym training that would give the Japanese national speed-skating team an edge on the ice. He discovered that when his athletes performed eight cycles of 20-second high-intensity bouts followed by 10 seconds of rest, they increased both their aerobic (endurance) capacity and anaerobic (quick power) output--two things speed skaters need to be successful, but which typically don't go hand in hand. In other words, training one usually means the other is taking a back seat.