UP YOUR GAME: Fitter, faster – quicker
June 15, 2019 • 1 min read
Fit in just four minutes. But it will hurt.
Dr Izumi Tabata’s training protocol – 20 seconds of all-out effort followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeat eight times – was first tested on university students in the early 1990s. “They were dead,” said Tabata at the time, surveying students lying prostrate on the gym floor.
His experiment was inspired by Japanese speed skating team coach Irisawa Koichi, whose training regime required skaters to perform short bursts of brutally hard exercise.
Intrigued by the apparent cardiovascular gains from high-intensity training, Tabata studied two groups. One group exercised at a moderate intensity for 60 minutes, five days a week, while the second group performed 20-second bursts of all-out effort followed by a 10-second rest between each burst, repeated eight times – a total of four minutes.
VO2 max (maximal oxygen uptake) testing showed the high-intensity training had a greater impact on both aerobic and anaerobic systems, suggesting that working out in four-minute high-intensity intervals is more beneficial than working out for 60 minutes at a moderate pace.
Not enough time to exercise? Four minutes is all you need to get fitter.