Tabata Protocol

I'm a big fan of the Tabata protocol i think it really helps my fitness goals but what is it, whats it good for and how should it be used.

Firstly what is a Tabata workout well here goes a full Tabata work out takes 14 minuets. first you should warm up at a low intensity for 10 minuets so that your muscles are warm and ready to perform at maximum effort.  Then you have your 8 sets of 20 second burst of activity at 170% of your VO2 max (you probably won't know this figure as it take lab tests to determine) with rest periods of 10 seconds between these this will take 4 minuets.  Now if you have performed a true Tabata workout then you shouldn't be able to in any way complete another round you should be completely exhausted and this is what people don't tend to understand just how hard you have to work to achieve 170% VO2 max.

Now how should you use the Tabata protocol during the study the group used this protocol 4 times a week and also did a 30 minuet steady state workout once a week.  So despite what some people say you shouldn't do Tabata workouts exclusively you should maybe use them twice a week as part of your training program .

Based on the results from the study it would appear that Tabata training can help improve performance but after about 3 weeks the benefits start to wear off and trainees can experience a plateau and it might be better for them to switch to a different type of exercise.

So by all means use Tabata training but don't think its the miracle to all your training needs like everything the most important thing when training is to have variety.