The One-Minute Workout

The Tabata Classic

In the 1990s, the head coach of the Japanese speed skating team, Irisawa Koichi, had his athletes employ a brief but intense workout that featured short bursts of high-intensity exercise followed by even shorter rest periods. A coach on the team, Izumi Tabata, was the first to analyze the workout’s effect, lending his name to a protocol that helped kick off the interval-training movement. Many personal trainers still love the format today. Note that Tabata’s study used exercise bikes, although virtually any activity that significantly elevates the heart rate can be used.

Peak Intensity • 9

Duration • 9 minutes

The Evidence • Tabata’s 1996 paper compared what’s now known as the Tabata protocol with moderate-intensity endurance training. The endurance group performed 5 days of endurance testing per week for 6 weeks, while the sprint group conducted the interval protocol four times a week, plus one 30-minute steady-state workout per week at a moderate pace. After 6 weeks, the aerobic capacity of the endurance group hadn’t improved at all. But the sprint group, which had conducted hard exercise for a little less than 11 minutes per week, had improved its aerobic capacity by 14.6 percent—making Tabata’s study one of the first to show how potent sprints could be as a tool to improve aerobic capacity.

Who Should Do It? • Tabata originally conducted the study with athletic college-age phys ed students, most of whom were on varsity teams for such sports as soccer, basketball, and swimming. With recovery periods that are shorter than the sprint periods, and near-maximal effort, Tabatas are tough. Most people who perform Tabata-style workouts consider themselves hard-core athletes.

THE WORKOUT

Warm up at an easy pace for about 3 minutes.
Sprint for 20 seconds at intensity 9—not quite all-out.
Rest for 10 seconds.
Repeat the 20-seconds-on, 10-seconds-off cycle for a total of 8 sprints.
Cool down with some light activity for 2 minutes, for a total workout duration of 9 minutes.

A VARIATION

It’s easy to include resistance training within the Tabata protocol. In 2012 my colleagues at Queen’s University and the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus created one of the most elegant ways to meld time-efficient intervals with resistance training. They based it on the Tabata format but replaced the sprints with resistance-training exercises—with remarkable results.

Recreationally active female university students conducted the protocol, although the benefits would apply to healthy men and women of all ages. With 4 minutes a day of intense exercise, the subjects improved aerobic fitness as much as a comparison group did conducting vigorous-intensity endurance exercise for 30 minutes per day. In addition, the test subjects increased the number of leg extensions they could do by 40 percent, the number of push-ups by 135 percent, and the number of sit-ups by 64 percent, among other measures. The takeaway? A Tabata bodyweight protocol is a potent way to simultaneously boost aerobic capacity and muscle strength. Here’s how to do it:

Each training day, begin with a 3-minute warm-up of your chosen exercise by performing light versions at a slow pace.
On Day 1, complete as many burpees as you can in 20 seconds. To complete a burpee, begin in a standing position. Squat down, place your hands on the floor with your palms down, and kick both legs out behind you so that you end in a plank position. Return to a squat position, and leap up into the air as high as you can while raising both arms above your head. To increase the difficulty, perform a push-up from the plank position.
Rest for 10 seconds.
Perform the exercise for 20 seconds, trying to complete as many reps as possible. Cycle through the 20-seconds-on, 10-seconds-off format until you’ve completed 8 bursts of the exercise.
Cool down for 2 minutes, for a total workout duration of 9 minutes.
On subsequent training days, perform the 20-second-on, 10-second-off cycle for 8 repetitions with the following exercises, concentrating on just one exercise per day: mountain climbers, jumping jacks, or squat-thrusts.
To perform a mountain climber, start in the plank position. Staying in the plank, bring one leg forward so the knee approaches the chest. Return to the regular plank. Then bring the other knee forward so the knee approaches the chest. Repeat.
To perform a jumping jack, begin standing up straight with your hands at your sides. Jump and land with your legs set slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and your arms raised above your head so that the fingertips nearly touch. Do a second jump to return to the standing position, with your arms hanging by your sides. Repeat.
To perform a squat-and-thrust, begin standing straight with your hands at your sides. Squat down until your hands are flat on the ground. Kick your legs out behind you so that you end in a plank position. Bring in both legs at the same time to return to a squat, and stand up with your arms at your side. Repeat. Note that the study subjects used 5-pound dumbbells, but in the interests of simplicity we’ve dispensed with the equipment. To increase the difficulty of the squat-and-thrust, incorporate a push-up when planking.
Eager for more variety? Rather than doing one exercise per day, consider changing things up so that you’re alternating circuit-style between all four exercises within the protocol on the same day.