G.5: What’s a Tabata?
Post 7 of 11 in a series on the intersection of data and fitness.
Click here for the rest of the series.
If you didn’t like my suggestion last week that just three minutes of work can make a marked improvement on your fitness, then you’re really not going to like just how much impact tabata can have with only 2:40.
Tabata isn’t a movement. It's a workout timing you can apply to anything. It’s eight simple rounds of :20 seconds maximum effort followed by :10 seconds of rest. The whole set takes just 4:00 total minutes, but you’re only actually working for 2:40 of it.
While it’s named after Japanese Professor Izumi Tabata, he cites Japanese speed skating coach Irisawa Koichi with the actual design. While the two were working together in the 1980s, Koichi asked Tabata to analyze the impact of the regimen of intense bursts of maximum effort. Tabata saw the short set was ‘…more than enough to make even a fit person exhausted’.
In a subsequent paper based on his studies, Tabata and his fellow authors found a tabata workout delivered greater improvement in VO2max over standard aerobic training.1
‘The main finding of this study was that 6 wk of aerobic training at 70% VO2max improved the VO2max by 5 ml·kg-1·min-1 in moderately trained young men but that the anaerobic capacity, as judged by the maximal accumulated oxygen deficit, did not change. The second finding is that 6 wk of training using high-intensity intermittent exhaustive exercise improved VO2max by 7 ml·kg-1·min-1 and the anaerobic capacity by 28%.’
Briefly, VO2Max is the maximum volume of oxygen your body can consume during physical exertion. This is your ‘aerobic capacity’ and is measured in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body mass x measure of time, or ‘ml/kg·min’. Higher scores are ‘better’ and generally indicate a greater level of fitness. Every MET (metabolic equivalent, set at 3.5 mL) has been associated with an 11% reduction in mortality. Non-athletes tend to have scores around 35-40 ml/kg·min, with distance athletes scoring 70 to 85. The highest recorded human score was Norwegian cyclist Oskar Svendsen with 97.5. Meanwhile, Alaskan huskies running in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race have scored as high as 240.
However, your VO2Max is different than your anaerobic capacity, which is the energy your body can produce when you exceed its ability to fuel your muscles with oxygen. Both are components of readiness, because sometimes combat demands will exceed your aerobic threshold. Your anerobic capacity will never be huge, but when you need it, you really need it.
This is ironically, the thing several critics of last week’s post claimed was missing from a regimen without long runs. People wanted to train for ‘down deep when it really sucks… the bad place where the quit lives.’ They complained a regimen without long runs wouldn’t find out if you’ll ‘…do the rucksack flop and rest/catch your breath or will you push on at the most important time’. But those tough times they are describing are exactly what anaerobic heart rates feel like.
Going back to Tabata and his team’s study, they found ‘cardio’ training improved VO2Max by about 1.5 MET but had zero impact on an individual’s anerobic capacity. Meanwhile, the ‘tabata’ group saw a 2 MET improvement in VO2Max AND a 28% anaerobic capacity improvement.
Outperforming aerobic performance is good, but four minutes of work for 28% improvement in anaerobic capacity is huge. If tabata technique took the same amount of time to train as cardio, those results would still make it a good RoI. But those gains were realized in repeated sessions of just four minutes of training each day, with a 30-min cardio session on the 5th day, followed by half-a tabata — just four rounds. Improved cardio? Check. Improved anerobic capacity? Check. Drastically shorter time invested? Check.
There is just one catch to tabata. If you want to realize the RoI, you need one key, non-negotiable ingredient: intensity. For their experiment, Tabata and his researchers used a ‘mechanically braked cycle ergometer’, which is a lot like an assault bike. You need to hit your anerobic intensity or tabata is just cardio for less time. That intensity is the key to getting both anerobic and aerobic gains. This is about finding failure, not confidently jogging along for some mile count. Tabata is gonna suck.
You can turn just about anything into a tabata. Just apply the timing of the sets. Take for example one of the few runs I do: ‘tabata sprints’. Eight rounds of running for twenty seconds flat out, with ten seconds rest between. You need to run with everything you have. I actually find stopping between sets to be a more punishing version, so I typically trot along for the brief respite before launching into the next round.
You’re going to see a drop off with each round, and that’s ok. That’s actually the point. I don’t think I’ve ever made it one whole kilometer. Getting over 950m feels like an accomplishment. But not only does this improve your ability to sprint flat out, over and over, but you’re also improving your five-mile time.
Getting in the Reps
The benefits of Tabata are incredible, but another great thing it does is kill the excuse, ‘I don’t have time to exercise’. When your fitness is no longer dependent on low RoI slogs up and down the pavement, it’s hard not to find the time to fit one in.
Fitness coach Dan John has the rule, ‘If it is important, do it everyday’, and tabata makes every day better. Tabata has been such an effective tool for me, I incorporate at least one every session.
Many of my tabatas are just simple yet brutal smokers like the tabata sprint I mentioned above. Tabata on a rower or an assault bike can be a spiritual experience, especially if you score it so your worst round is your final score. You crushed 13 calories on your first round, but only got 4 on your 8th? Congratulations, your score is a 4. Now work on bringing that baby up.
Tabata can be a great way to build up your muscle failure point. Tabata squats, which is just body-weight air squats, gets a solid burn in the quads while also getting your heart rate up. For an extra-spicy version, try ‘bottom-to-bottom’, where your :10 seconds rest is spent holding the bottom of a squat.
It’s ok if you can’t keep up the work for the full 20, just as long you keep making effort through it. As Arnold Schwarzenegger put it, ‘The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow’. I can’t get eight full rounds of tabata pull-ups. By the 4th round I’m coming off the bar, but that’s ok. Just shake it out and get back on for whatever time you have left. Bet you didn’t know pull-ups could be cardio. Welcome to tabata.
Tabata is also great for deliberate practice. If you have a movement you want to master, do one tabata of it a week. I’ve had tabata push-ups in my rolodex for years, but switched to the HRPU (hand release push-up) when I got word of the pending change coming with the ACFT. I got ready.
In another example, I was frustrated that I couldn’t consistently get BMUs (bar muscle ups) despite having all the strength and agility I needed. I added tabata BMUs to my fortnightly planning, and now rarely miss any. Similarly, I had no good excuse for being unable to do more than two consecutive double-unders, but for years I settled for bad excuses. Tabata dubs made me put the reps in and now I don’t need one. The whole army would have had no trouble knocking out one leg tuck if we spent six months doing a tabata leg tuck set each week.
How you score your tabatas can be flexible. If you want to build up how long you can sustain the movement, score it like I mentioned with the tabata row above: whatever your lowest round is, that’s your score. Alternatively, if you want to build up your total reps, score that. The key is finding a yardstick that always encourages that maximal output. There’s always room for improvement, so if you find your scoring approach isn’t helping you keep reaching for more, switch it up.
And of course you can add weights to make anything a little spicier. Kettlebells were designed to be cycled in just the way tabata benefits from. As I referenced above, two of the best resistance tabatas you can do are tabata row and tabata assault bike. But first, you might want to knock out a crash course on how to use them. Next week I’ll give you a couple pointers.
Tabata Hollow Rocks
As I briefly mentioned last week, army style sit-ups were not helping our fitness. A noticeable number of soldiers reported sit-ups were the cause of their injuries. While I never got hurt by them, the hip-flexor focused movement never really gave me much benefit. What interlocking my fingers behind my head did for me, I have zero clue.
If you have to do sit-ups, then do them like this: sit with your feet sole-to-sole butterfly style. Do not bother with anyone holding your feet, just lay on your back and gently tap the ground with both hands above your head. Then sit-up until you can gently tap the ground just below your feet. Repeat.
Or better yet, don’t do sit-ups at all. Our abs do some amazing things for our bodies, but that ‘getting out of bed’ motion generally comes up only once a day. Instead, the principal thing our abs do is keep our funky curved spines from exploding out our back, particularly when under a weight. Abdominals are about your core and stability.
I almost never bother doing planks, mostly because I find them so boring.2 Instead, I opt for possibly the simplest movement I know: hollow rocks. Push-ups are vastly more complicated. If you’ve never done hollow rocks though, it’s worth following that link to a description and video. Contracting your core is key. You should feel like a bowl rocking gently back and forth. If you feel like you’re bonking back and forth like an uneven cafe table, you’re not rounding your back right.
The first round probably won’t be too bad. But wow do hollow rocks sneak up on you. Soon you’ll feel like there’s a taught cord running down your stomach that’s threatening to snap. Get what you can, and if necessary, drop for two breaths before getting back at it for the time left in each :20 second round. Focus on the control over the reps and you’ll be surprised how quickly you’re doing all eight rounds without a breather.
Hollow rocks give me the core strength for leg tucks, planks, cleans, and squats, and in way less time invested than the 3:20 plank I do in the ACFT.
Tabata I, Nishimura K, Kouzaki M, Hirai Y, Ogita F, Miyachi M, Yamamoto K. Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and VO2max. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1996 Oct;28(10):1327-30. doi: 10.1097/00005768-199610000-00018. PMID: 8897392.
In my opinion, the switch from leg tucks to plank needs a relook. Three-and-a-half minutes of boredom isn’t just a waste of time, I’m not seeing the plank actually challenge people. At CCAP in 2023, there was a breadth of different colonels taking the ACFT with me. Only two of us even attempted a 300-pound deadlift. Many colonels opted for alternate events in lieu of the run. One candidate even had a below the knee amputation — mad respect when he pulled out his blade tip for the upstairs track run. Across that broad spectrum, every one of us maxed the plank.
Anyone who says only long exertions can get you to the suck has never pushed hard for less than 4 minutes.
Good add to the 'suck'stack, especially the tabata hollow rocks. This and your previous post were solid. I like the premise of high commitment, high payoff, less time....even as a reformed 'work harder, not smarter' pt kind of guy. Oh, and as for hollow rocks, a shoulder replacement and less range of motion is no excuse not to do it. It's ugly, but it's doable.