What about Tabata?

[Wilmey]

There's this Tabata routine I heard about last week (--> testosterone nation website). It's supposed to totally drain you, and make you close to vomiting within 4 minutes. Of course, I had to try it out for myself. Did some Tabata jumping jacks, and later I tried to do as many back-kicks/dwit chagi's as possible.

But was it gruelling? No. Did I feel my blood rushing for hours afterwards? No. Did I get so activated that I got close to hurling? No. I remember doing push-ups during kickboxing class n a fashion that I now, in retrospect, call Tabata sets. But my muscles got drained before all the rest even got the chance to get pumped.

It's not that I have masochist tendencies (well, maybe), but did I do something wrong? Or is all this talk about the Tabata just crap? Any of you ever tried Tabata sets?

[General Miaow]

I love Tabata intervals. As you know, they increase anaerobic and aerobic capacity without catabolising muscle. They're actually the only specific cardio work I do these days.

A lot of people jusst don't get nauseated by heavy exercise. I am one. No matter how hard I work or how drained I feel, I never get a twinge of sickness. So don't think that for something to be hard, it must make you nauseous.

Anyway, what you did wrong was probably not going at it hard enough. Try dumbbell snatches or something harder than jumping jacks. Also, there's no rule that you can only do one Tabata intewrval per training session. I sometimes do five or six, with breaks in between.

[Wilmey]

So, which Tabata routine makes your blood boil most?

[General Miaow]

I use various exercises, but sandbag snatches would be my answer. Tabata tricking would be... interesting.

[falcon3608]

After reading it, it seems like guerilla cardio implemented into weight lifting.

[chicanerous]

If you want to be a masochist, you need to use an exercise that is taxing on your body with the tabata intervals. Jumping jacks is one of the easiest activities known to man and will never make you feel even close to puking.

Try doing tabata squats or sprinting or Miaow's sandbang snatches.

[zachwr3]

After reading it, it seems like guerilla cardio implemented into weight lifting.

you got it backwards, guerilla cardio is modeled after tabata

[Wilmey]

If you want to be a masochist, you need to use an exercise that is taxing on your body with the tabata intervals. Jumping jacks is one of the easiest activities known to man and will never make you feel even close to puking.

Try doing tabata squats or sprinting or Miaow's sandbang snatches.

Taxing in what way? I mean: like with push-ups, my arms and pecs just don't want to work for me anymore before I feel pumped. So I can tell push-ups doesn't get the maximum benefit out of a Tabata exercise for me. How do I tell stuff like that beforehand if I want to experiment on the exercises? Any rule of thumb you're willing to share would be much appreciated...

[chicanerous]

Taxing in what way? I mean: like with push-ups, my arms and pecs just don't want to work for me anymore before I feel pumped. So I can tell push-ups doesn't get the maximum benefit out of a Tabata exercise for me. How do I tell stuff like that beforehand if I want to experiment on the exercises? Any rule of thumb you're willing to share would be much appreciated...
Taxing on the respiratory system. Push-ups or curls, for example, you can do to your heart's content without elevating your heart-rate significantly and gasping for breath. Squats, snatches, or sprinting on the other hand create a huge oxygen debt in the body and leave you gasping for air by virtue of the large number of muscles that are used in the movements as well as the amount of power you can put into them.

Tabata was first developed as a method of cardiovascular conditioning and thrives on this fact. It does not work with isolation or weak compounds. You must use heavy strong compound movements or activities to maximize its effectiveness.

I'm not sure which article you read at T-Nation, but this is a good one: http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=04-046-training

[Wilmey]

Dang. Gonna have some fun soon. :wicked:

[zachwr3]

some other good things you can do it with are burpees, williams, and heavybag punchouts (using straight punches only)

[General Miaow]

Burpees are fun, but they have a silly name, which puts them a step above jumping jacks, which look silly, feel silly and have been shown in studies to create "a vague feeling of confyooooooozion" (http://www.stadion.com/column_stretch12.html). What are williams?

[tyciol]

Which T-Nation Tabata article is being described? I've heard the word before but I really don't know much about it... *reads the stadion thing* They should put this on wiki...

[General Miaow]

I don't know if this (http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=58EA749DA2379F4ED154DE632E 04A00D.ba13?id=490160) is what's being referred to, but it's a must-read anyway.

[zachwr3]

everyone refers to a william as being "a burpee without standing up". so my interpretation (im not sure if its a "real" william, but its a good exercise anyway) is to start in a full squat, jump to the bottom of a pushup position, from the bottom of the pushup explode your whole body off the ground and land back in a squat. when i do them i just go back and forth between a full squat and the bottom of the pushup


by the way miaow, youre the first person ive ever seen refer to burpees as being fun

[Wilmey]

Y'all know the first part of a roundhouse/turning kick a.k.a. yeop chagi, right? Ya know, the part where you lift your back leg's knee up to hip level whilst turning your side slightly towards the opponent? Let's say you're standing on your left leg, while your right knee and hip are pointing towards your opponent. Make sure your lower right leg's horizontal. Now, from this position, hop to the mirror image of that position, so that you're standing on your right leg and your left knee is pointing towards your opponent. You have to raise your hind leg immediately, before your front leg touches the ground. Do it fast! Flicker like a strobe light! Left-right-left!

Okay, you're likely to already know the drill I just told you. Though it's quite challenging to perform correctly and swiftly as a Tabata routine.

[Tsumaru]

Sweet, haven't come across this before. Sounds fun though. Me gonna try it tomorrow, prolly with thrusters as described in that article. =D

[Sicamon]

H.I.I.T Training does seperate the men from the boys.

Try doing tuck jumps as a non weighted excercise.

If you don't think you puke from maxxing out your anaerobic system, then train harder :shocked:

[chicanerous]

H.I.I.T Training does seperate the men from the boys.
Tabata is not HIIT, though both are forms of interval training. HIIT and Tabata have their own differing and unique protocols, though the words "high intensity interval" could also describe the Tabata method.

[geoff]

There's this Tabata routine I heard about last week (--> testosterone nation website). It's supposed to totally drain you, and make you close to vomiting within 4 minutes. Of course, I had to try it out for myself. Did some Tabata jumping jacks, and later I tried to do as many back-kicks/dwit chagi's as possible.

But was it gruelling? No. Did I feel my blood rushing for hours afterwards? No. Did I get so activated that I got close to hurling? No. I remember doing push-ups during kickboxing class n a fashion that I now, in retrospect, call Tabata sets. But my muscles got drained before all the rest even got the chance to get pumped.

It's not that I have masochist tendencies (well, maybe), but did I do something wrong? Or is all this talk about the Tabata just crap? Any of you ever tried Tabata sets?:tongue:

haha what did you do jumping jacks for? tabata intervals should be done with intense exercice, of course you won't feel drained by doing a light warmup exercice!
I've been doing tabata for a while, and at first it did make me want to puke.
I do sets of 4 minutes, at first I could only do one (I was out of shape), but the next time I did 2 and now I do 4 (4 x (8 x (20+10)) ), with breaks of 1 and 2 minutes between each.
The idea is that you must do the hardest routine you can, while giving you as little rest as possible, and it's great because by using 20/10 intervals you can ajust what you do infinitely.
As for the exercices, I suggest burpees (see http://www.warriorforce.com/articles/burpeeclip.htm) until you can't do them anymore, then switch to chin ups, and you can do jumping pushups, jumping squats, one-legged squats, situps, and/or heavy punching bag (burst mode).

After that you should feel a bit more drained than with jumping jacks...:juji:

[Wilmey]

haha what did you do jumping jacks for?

AAARGH!!! SHUDDUP SHUDDUP SHUDDUP!!! :ogre: I did jumping jacks AND back kicks in two consecutive Tabata sessions, all right!? And I really tried to jump as high as I could and squat down into a pooping position. Edit: I don't know how you call that exercise.