There is a lot of information out there about tabata workouts. So many articles and videos tell you the best way to do this workout, but how do you know if they are telling the truth? Which one is going to work for your body type?
What if I told you that there was one specific type of tabata workout that would work for every single person who tried it? What if I told you that all you had to do was follow these steps, and you would see results faster than any other method out there?
Would you believe me?
Well, prepare yourself for some news: this is exactly what’s going on here. This article will walk you through the steps necessary for getting started with your own personal trainer: a specially designed program that will make sure that no matter what kind of person you are (or where in life), your body will get into shape fast!
Right here on Buy and Slay, you are privy to a litany of relevant information on tabata workout for fat loss at home, low impact tabata workout for beginners, 30 minute tabata workout for beginners, and so much more. Take out time to visit our catalog for more information on similar topics.
Best Tabata Workout For Weight Loss
Tabata training was originally developed to increase the performance ability of Olympic speed skaters. Within the study, the participants performed 4 days of tabata workouts and one day of steady state cardio. At the end of their 6-week training period, the participants experienced a 28% increase in their anaerobic capacity while also improving their VO2 max.
Focusing on one exercise for the entire 4-minute tabata workout has been found to be the most effective at training both the aerobic and anaerobic energy pathways.
This method of training could be the perfect means to combine strict aerobic training (steady-state cardio) and anaerobic training (power lifting, HIIT, and plyometric training).
What To Expect From A Tabata Workout
The tabata workouts I have for you below require mental focus, as you’ll be pushing through lactic acid and oxygen deprivation while performing each repetition with perfect form.
Expect to be challenged. You won’t be seeing any mat or ab routines, or static exercises here. Get ready for plyometrics, sprint intervals, and full-body movements.
And prepare for intensity, because higher intensity exercises are the staple of tabata. This doesn’t mean you’ll be using your biggest lifts or wearing a weighted vest, but instead performing basic full-body exercises at a high speed as perfectly as possible. Therefore, coordination and power are two key elements in doing Tabata the right way.
Tabata Workout Instructions
There are two ways that I recommend you tackle a tabata workout:
1. Choose 1 exercise for all tabata intervals that’s appropriate for your level of fitness, or that’s specific to your overall fitness goals, and complete all 8 intervals.
For example, Olympic Speed Skaters would perform the speed skater exercise since it’s the most sport-specific and will help them develop power in their glutes while increasing their endurance.
With this approach, using the exercises I have for you below, you have 12 solid tabata workouts you could do.
2. Choose 2 or more exercises to create a challenging full-body circuit. For example, you could select 4 exercises (such as jump rope, skater hops, lunge jumps, and burpees) and complete 2 rounds. With this approach, you really have an endless number of effective workouts you can create.
Tabata Exercises:
1. Ergonomic Rowing (or Stationary Upright Bike)
Instructions: Sit tall with your feet securely strapped in the footholds, holding the handlebar with an overhand grip. Bend your knees and lean slightly forward, reaching toward the anchor point of the chain. Then, push through your legs as you pull your arms towards your chest, leaning slightly back as your legs straighten. Find a smooth rhythm between bending your knees and straightening your arms, and then pushing through your legs as you pull the handlebars.
2. Jump Rope
Instructions: Holding the ends of the jump rope in each hand, start tall with the jump rope behind you. With a tall chest and tight core, swing the jump rope overhead and then jump over with both feet it so it passes under you. Land on the balls of your feet with soft knees, so you cushion the impact. Find a smooth rhythm, swinging the rope overhead and jumping over it. Ideally, you’ll only take a single hop to clear the rope. If you’re newer to jump rope, you can use a double-hop.
3. Medicine Ball Rainbow Slam
Instructions: Select a medicine ball weight that’s challenging, but allows you to perform the exercise with perfect form. Stand with your feet wider than your shoulders, holding the medicine ball at your chest. Circle the ball to the right and up, and then slam the ball into the ground in front of your left foot, pivoting both feet and turning your hips to the left. Catch the ball, then circle it left and up, pivoting your feet and hips to face right as you slam the ball in front of the right foot. Keep catching, pivoting, and slamming the ball from side-to-side in a continuous rhythm.
4. Speed Skaters
Instructions: Start in an athletic stance, with feet wider than your hips, knees slightly bent, hips back, and chest tall. Cross your right leg behind your left, and then drive off of your left leg to hop laterally to the right. Land on your right leg, letting your left leg naturally cross behind. Keep hopping laterally from side-to-side, swinging your arms like a speed skater to help you.
5. TRX Squat Jump
Instructions: Stand tall, with elbows bent at your sides, holding the handles of the TRX in each hand. The TRX should be taught. Keeping tension in the TRX, squat down, and then drive through your legs as you pull with your arms to jump off the ground. Land softly, immediately returning to the squat position, and then jump up again. Find a continuous rhythm with your squat jump, making sure to track your knees over your 2nd toe as you squat down and keeping your spine long the entire time.
6. TRX Atomic Push Up
Instructions: In this exercise, your feet are going to be in the stirrups of the TRX. After you’ve placed your feet, plant your hands on the ground and find a strong plank position, arms fully extended. Your feet should be directly underneath the TRX anchor, elevated off the ground. Keeping your shoulders packed, pull your knees to your chest. Then extend your legs as you do a push-up. Knees-to-chest, then push up. Keep going in a continuous rhythm, never breaking form.
7. Squat Jumps
Start standing with your feet wider than your hips. Lower down into a squat, then push strongly through your feet to jump into the air. Land softly with bent knees, rolling toe-ball-heel down your feet. Immediately jump back up. Use your arms to help you get some serious height. Find a continuous rhythm, jumping and then landing softly.
As you fatigue in your squat jumps, you can add some lateral hops between jumps to let your muscles recover. Just keep moving! Remember, performing exercises with perfect form is key to avoiding injury.
8. Lunge Jumps
Instructions: Stand with your right foot forward, left foot back in a tall lunge position. Lower into a lunge, bending both knees to 90 degrees. Push strongly through your feet, jumping into the air and switching your feet before you land. Your left foot should now be forward, and the right one should be back. Land softly until a lunge position, and immediately jump back into the air to switch your feet. Use your arms to help you get height.
When your legs start to burn and the lunge jumps get challenging, mix in some walking lunges.
9. Kettlebell Swing
Instructions: Stand about two feet behind the kettlebell and find a strong athletic position – feet wider than your hips, knees tracking over toes, hips back and down, chest tall, and shoulders packed. Grab the horns of the bell with both hands and tip the bell on its side. Now hike the bell back between your legs, then push through your feet and drive your hips to swing the bell up to chest-height. Stand tall at the top, squeezing your glutes and core. Let the bell fall and then follow it with your hips, “catching” it in the back position and swinging the bell back up.
The kettlebell swing should come from the power of your hips, not by pulling with your arms. This is also a hinge movement, and not a squat. If you’re not familiar with the kettlebell swing, I highly recommend that you learn proper form and technique from a certified personal trainer or kettlebell instructor before incorporating this exercise into your workout plan.
10. Weighted Backwards Jump Rope
Instructions: Using a weighted jump rope, start with the rope in front of your body. Swing the rope overhead and behind you, and then jump over it. Continuously swing the rope from front-to-back, jumping over it as it passes under you. Keep your core tight the entire time, and land softly.
11. Burpees
Instructions: Stand tall, then squat down to bring your hands to the floor. Jump your feet back into a plank position, lowering down into a push-up. Press out of the push-up, jump your feet to your hands, and then jump straight up into the air. Land softly in the squat position, and then repeat – jumping the feet back, performing a pushup, jumping forward, and then jumping up.
Make sure to track your knees over the middle of your foot whenever you squat. When you jump back to the plank position, land with soft joints but keep your shoulders packed and your core tight. This is an advanced move, so be mindful of your form, especially as you increase your speed.
Burpees are an exhausting full-body exercise. As the tabata sets get more challenging, add in some lateral hops between burpees so you keep moving while letting your body prepare for another perfectly executed burpee repetition.
12. TRX Single-Leg Burpees
Instructions: Start in a tabletop position and place your left foot in both TRX straps. Set your hands for a strong plank position with arms fully extended. Find plank with your right foot off of the ground. Step your right foot forward between your hands, then jump up into the air. Land softly on your right leg before bringing both hands back to the ground, extending the right leg back, and performing a push-up. Keep going! Right foot forward, jump up, land softly, hands down, leg back, and push-up.
Don’t expect to get too much air here! This move challenges your balance, coordination, core strength, and power. Be sure to execute each repetition with perfect form.
Tabata Training FAQ
Can I Do More Than One Exercise?
If you crave variety, you can perform tabatas with a different exercise on another day, or week (or for more advanced athletes, even within the same training session ).
Alternatively, you can follow the second option of mixing up the exercises you use during the workout.
How Often Should I Do This Workout?
Tabata intervals can be done several times per week, ideally as a part of a comprehensive training plan. These intervals can be used as metabolic finishers at the end of your strength workout, or on non-strength training days.
Is Tabata Training Appropriate For Me?
The list of Tabata workout exercises is ordered from beginning to advanced. If none of these exercises seem appropriate for your level of fitness or comfort right now, then you’re not ready for Tabata training quite yet.
Instead, focus on building a solid foundation of strength using 4-week minimum (12-16 weeks is preferable) strength training program that utilizes compound movements like squats, deadlifts, presses and pulls.
Can I perform Tabata sprints?
Sprinting is not a good go-to Tabata choice. Why? Because the eccentric forces you exert when decelerating your body after a sprinting interval are high. Complete rest is a crucial element of Tabata intervals, and the high eccentric force on the hamstrings, hips, core, shoulders, arms and ankles during deceleration from an all-out sprint is clearly not rest.
Can I change the work to rest ratio?
The most common interval time you’ll see for tabatas is 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. But this isn’t your only option. The more important factor is the duration of work compared to rest – your work-set should be twice as long as your rest-set.
• 4 min Tabata: 20s work, 10s rest, 8 sets
• 6 min Tabata: 30s work, 15s rest, 8 sets
• 8 min Tabata: 40s work, 20s rest, 8 sets
If you want to do tabata training, I recommend you keep the 2:1 work/rest ratio, but you can play around with the duration.
Try out one of these exercises in a tabata interval workout, and let me know what you think! I guarantee you’ll get an awesome workout.
Tabata Workout For Fat Loss At Home
One of the biggest misconceptions I see all the time is most think the more you exercise, the better the results.
(Insert emoji forehead slap here!)
When it comes to losing weight and reshaping your body as quickly as possible, exercise intensity, consistency and a healthy diet, matter MUCH more than how many hours of exercise you do.
I say this in almost every single blog post I share, choosing QUALITY over QUANTITY not only drives better results but it delivers much faster results!
While I strongly believe the best method of exercise is whatever you are most likely to stick with long term, different goals require different forms of exercise.
If fat loss, weight loss and kicking your metabolism into high gear in the least amount of time are your goals, then different variations of High Intensity Interval Training is by far the best approach.
Short workouts that deliver fast results are the wave of the future and this is why Tabata Workouts are some of my favorite!
What is the Tabata Workout Method?
Tabata training is one of the most popular types of High Intensity Interval Training Training (HIIT).
It was developed by a Japanese Scientist named Dr. Izumi Tabata in 1996 and has since gained a tremendous amout of attention for its ability to deliver fast results in such a short period of time.
In one study, when done correctly, one session of Tabata burned the same number of calories as a 60-minute jog!
I don’t know about you, but a couple four minute workouts compared to a 60 minute jog gets me much more motivated to workout!
The protocol for this type of HIIT training is 20 seconds of all out effort followed by 10 seconds of rest for eight rounds.
This a total of four minutes.
If you think this sounds too good to be true, give it a try and see for yourself!
Does Tabata Burn Belly Fat?
This is one of the most common questions I get about Tabata or HIIT workouts.
Myth: In order to get a flat tummy, you have have to focus on doing an obscene amount of core exercises.
Fact: In order to flatten your tummy, you must consistently eat in a caloric deficit, and lose enough total body fat in order to reveal that tight, toned tummy!
And Tabata is an excellent way to burn a lot of calories which is one element of burning belly fat!
What are the Benefits of Tabata?
- The workouts are more sustainable due to its less strict time requirements.
- The workouts are easily accessible and I believe everyone can find four minutes in their day!
- Improves athletic performance.
- Ramps up you metabolism to continue burning calories even after the workout is over.
What’s The Catch?
The only catch is you have to actually push yourself HARD!
If you think you are going as hard as you can, go harder.
Because this style of training isn’t meant to be a walk in the park, in my professional experience, many people don’t push themselves hard enough during the 20 second intervals in order to get the most out of the workouts.
The 20 second bursts are meant to be all out, as hard as you can go.
This kicks your metabolism into high gear and causes your body to burn more calories AFTER the workout is over in order to return to it’s natural resting state. (Also known as EPOC)
How Do I Implement Tabata Training Into My Workouts?
When it comes to exercise frequency, intensity and duration, what matters most is your own personal training level, age, ability and how quickly your body recovers from exercise.
The original Tabata Protocol was done four days per week for six weeks.
I would suggest starting with 2-3 sessions a week then adding from there but not exceeding 5 days.
If time allows, you can also sprinkle in lower intensity workouts throughout the week to add some variety to your routine and maintain workout consistency.
Keep in mind, any form of HIIT training can be very strenuous on the body and in order for the body to repair, it needs to rest.
We want those muscles to be able to repair so they can grow stronger!
It is also very important to use an interval timer to make sure you stay on target with your intervals.
I use an app on my phone called “Gymboss Timer” where you can create your own intervals or use the intervals provided.
What are The Best Exercises For Tabata Workouts?
Often times, people choose exercises that are too mellow or complicated to get the most out of the 20 second intervals.
To get the most from your Tabata workouts, you must choose exercises that are going to get your heart rate up enough to elicit what is called EPOC (Exercise Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption).
EPOC is basically the number of calories your body must continue burning AFTER the workout session is over in order to bring it back to it’s natural state.
The key to HIIT training is to get your body to continue burning calories and doing MORE work AFTER the workout session is over!
This is why choosing exercises that really kick your booty will deliver the best fat loss results.
9 Important Tips To Get The Most Out of Your Tabata Workouts
- Make sure you warm up for about 5-10 minutes. This helps bring some blood flow and oxygen to the muscles to prevent injure and prepare them to work hard. If I do Tabata along with another workout, I like to do it last when my body is warmed up.
- If you choose to do multiple Tabata workouts in one session, make sure you rest 1-2 minutes in between rounds.
- Choose full body exercises that work as many muscle groups as possible.
- Watch your form! Your body and muscles will quickly fatigue as you approach the last couple rounds. Make sure you focus on form to avoid injury.
- Go all out during the 20 second bursts. If you think you are going as hard as possible, go harder. If you don’t feel completly toasted after the four minutes, you did not go hard enough!
- Don’t slow down as you approach the end of the interval. Seriously, do not slow down!
- Focus on finding your breath during the 10 second rest interval.
- Be prepared to feel exhausted, sweaty and on fire!
- Remember, it’s only four minutes!
The Tabata Workout Format
20 seconds all out effort
10 seconds rest
Repeat eight times for a total of four minutes.
8 Fat Burning Tabata Exercises
Sprinting
Simple enough, right?
On your morning jog either solo or pushing a stroller, set your interval timer and add a round (or 2-3 if you are feeling ambitious and brave!) to your workout.
The extra push will help you burn some serious calories and even improve your athletic performance.
AKA help you to run faster and longer!
You can also do sprints on a stationary bike, row machine or elipitcal..
Burpees
1. Start in a standing position with feet shoulder width apart
2. Bend your knees to squat and place your hands on the floor in front of you.
3. Jump both feet back behind you into a plank position. Avoid arching your back and allowing your hips to sag.
4. Drop to do a push-up so that your chest actually touches the ground. You can also drop your knees to do a modified push-up.
5. Return to the plank position.
6. Jump or step your feet forward toward your hands and explosively jump straight up into the air.
Burpee Jump Lunge
Follow the same instructions for a burpee but instead of jumping straight up with both feet, you will do a jump lunge.
Jump Squats
1. Start standing with your feet shoulder-width apart.
2. Bend your knees and decend into a regular squat. Engage your core and explosively jump into the air.
3. When you land, lower your body into a squat position to complete one rep.
4. Make sure your focus on landing with your knees bent and as gently and quietly as possible to control the movement.
High Knees
Just like running in place except really focusing in hiking those knees up toward your chest!
1. Start by standing with your feet hip-width apart.
2. Lift up your right knee toward your chest and quickly switch between your right and left knees.
3. Continue the movement for the duration of the interval while also moving your arms as if you are sprinting or running in place.
Mountain Climbers
1. Begin in a plank position with your shoulders directly over your wrists.
2. Keep your shoulders relaxed, back flat and butt down (not popping up in the air)
3. Engage your core by zipping up your pelvis toward your ribcage and lift your right knee underneath your body toward your right elbow.
4. Return your right leg to the plank position and repeat with your left leg.
5. Continue switching back and forth as if you are running in place in the plank position.
6. Make sure to focus on keeping your shoulders and back relaxed.
Up Down Plank
1. Start in a full plank position.
2. Lower your left elbow to the mat and then your right elbow, coming into an elbow plank position.
3. Put your right hand back onto the mat and push yourself up and straighten your left arm.
4. Repeat the next rep by starting with the right hand down.
5. So it goes like this…..
-Rep one equals left arm down, right arm down, left arm up, right arm up.
-Rep two equals right arm down, left arm down, right arm up, left arm up.
Skater Hops
1. Start with most of your weight on your right foot and in a small squat.
2. Pushing off of your right foot, jump sideways to the left, landing slightly crouched onto your left leg.
3. Bring your right leg behind your left ankle without allowing it to touch the floor.
4. Repeat the movement by jumping off of your left foot sideways to the right.
5. Continue back and forth for the duration of the interval.
7 Tabata Style Workouts That Burn Serious Calories in Record Time
Give these 10 fat melting full body Tabata workouts a try for yourself!
Alternate back and forth between each exercise for a total of 8 rounds
Try more than one round for an extra challenge or combine several of the workouts to really push yourself!
