Tabata: Fit in 4 minutes

Tabata: Fit in 4 minutes

You may not believe that you can get fit with just 4 minutes of exercise, but this high-intensity interval training claims to do just that!

Endorsed by Professor Izumi Tabata, the regime involves working at your maximum possible intensity for 20 seconds and resting for 10 seconds for a full 4 minutes – so it isn’t for the faint hearted! 

The idea of interval training is to improve your anaerobic and aerobic fitness by pushing your body to its boundaries. It might leave you feeling exhausted at first, but after around six weeks you will start to see some amazing results.

The idea of this method is to burn fat fast and increase your overall fitness by slowly building endurance. This does mean you can ease into Tabata and gradually increase the intensity as your body gets used to it. The best method is to do intense sprints or full on bursts on a stationary bike as these will really get your heart rate up to that target zone during the high intensity periods. Using a heart rate monitor can help you keep track of your session.

Even better, the Tabata exercise has recently been found to burn 150 extra calories during the 12 hours after your workout, due to the post-exercise oxygen consumption, so your hard work just keeps on giving.

Don’t forget to warm up and warm down before you start your Tabata training and ease into it gently or you will have some very sore muscles in the morning!