It's Only 4 Minutes, How Bad Can It Be?

Dr Tabata is a guy who did studies proving that short intense periods of exercise did more for your metabolism, effectively increasing the amount of fat you would burn, than if you did longer periods of aerobic activity. The study also showed a 28% increase in anaerobic capacity and 14% increase in VO2 Max.. Tabata interval sessions are typically 8 rounds of an exercise in 20:10 format done at a super high intensity, about 170% of VO2 max. This is essentially 20 seconds of work at maximum effort (like an all-out sprint) followed by 10 seconds of rest. Repeat 8x. In my workout yesterday I put in a Tabata interval of jump rope double unders using a new weighted jump rope that Bobby Hinds of Lifeline sent me. If there's anything that puts you at maximum effort in a hurry it's jump rope doubles. I had never done doubles in this format before, but I have done doubles intervals before where I would try to do 50 doubles, rest 30 seconds, do 50 more, rest 30 seconds, and so on until I had 500 doubles. I could get about the first 5 rounds before the :30 second rest was turning into something a little longer. I think my best time for this is 500 doubles in about 11 minutes. These doubles workouts are also some of the most agonizing I've ever done. Yesterday was no different. To make this workout effective, you need to be able to do continuous doubles without missing, or at least only missing occasionally in order to keep your effort at max. I was getting around 30 doubles in every 20 second interval. I was alternating between doing forwards doubles for one round and then backwards doubles for the next round. After the 2nd round, the 10 second rest wasn't nearly enough, and by the 4th round I was so oxygen starved that I didn't think I'd be able to continue. The thing about choosing an exercise like this for Tabata intervals, is that you can't modify your effort. In order to do doubles, you need to jump high and fast and keep the rope cranking the whole time. When you're using a weighted jump rope it takes the effort to another level of brutality. If you're doing another exercise like sprinting or doing pushups or squats, it's possible to decrease your effort level as you fatigue or run out of oxygen because you have control over how fast or hard you can go. With doubles, you don't really have that luxury. I got through all 8 rounds, missing a couple times in the 6th round and once at the end of another round which only lost me a few seconds total. I got about 240 doubles in just under 4 minutes.. This was easily one of the most painful things I've ever done in the gym.....

Sticking with the "4 minute" theme, I followed this up with 2x 4:00 minute sets of Long Cycle (Clean and Press) with double 16kg kettlebells with a 2:00 minute rest between sets.. This was pretty tough, but not what I would consider awful (like the Tabata doubles). I got about 50 reps in the first 4 minutes and about 40 reps in the second 4 minutes. I'm working towards being able to do longer sets with heavier weights. Eventually, I'd like to be able to at least do a 10 minute set with double 24kgs. 

I followed this up with a set of 100 pistols, 50 on each leg, which took me about another 4 minutes..

Totals:

20 minutes

240 Double Unders

about 90 Clean and Press with dbl 16kgs

100 pistols

Later in the day I went to the Hockey Bag for a Bikram Yoga Session to try to loosen things up. At one point the instructor was telling us, as we were laying down on the foul smelling carpet, what an aerobic activity this Bikram stuff was.. As I was laying there with my heart rate at about 60 bpm I kind of laughed to myself at that one. It made me think how much more I would like Bikram Yoga if we could Tabata-ize it and turn it from a 90 minute session into a 4 minute session :)

Best,

kevin