Everyone at some point in their
training “life” has heard of, or used, Tabata. Over the past five years or so it
has become popular with Health Club PT’s and Strength Coaches, as it’s an easy way to make the client/athlete
feel like they are working/improving without putting any effort into the
sessions. Make somebody work as hard as they can for 20 seconds, rest 10
seconds, then repeat. Sounds worthwhile doesn’t it? Well, the majority of the
trainers conducting the sessions actually have NO idea what Tabata really is and I’d bet my bottom dollar
that they haven’t taken the time to read the study. In actual fact they’ve probably
bought Men’s Fitness that previous weekend, and have read about it being “the only
way to train” and decide that they need-not look any further.
Before I let you know my thoughts
on why Tabata is miss-used and miss-understood, lets look at the study that was
conducted by Inzumi Tabata (Godfather of Interval Training):
·
The study set out to compare both Anaerobic and
Aerobic adaptations when using interval training, and how it effects VO2 Max.
·
The study recruited 14 active (moderately
trained at best) male students.
·
All the workouts were conducted on a
mechanically braked bicycle ergometer.
·
The individuals were split into two test groups.
·
The first group (aerobic group) trained 5 days
per week. At 70% VO2 Max. Workouts lasted 60 minutes, at a cadence of 70 RPM. This
lasted for 6 weeks.
·
The second group (tabata group) trained 4 days
per week under the Tabata protocol. 7-8 sets of 20 seconds at 170% of VO2 Max with a 10 second
rest between intervals. On their fifth day of training the performed a steady
state workout lasting 30 minutes.
·
Group 1 found that there were no increases in
anaerobic capacity, but a significant increase in VO2 Max.
·
Group 2 found an increase in both anaerobic
capacity and VO2 Max. Although before you think I’ve contradicted my argument,
it is worth realising that the Tabata group started at lower conditioning level
than group 1, and ended up STAYING at a lower conditioning level.
·
On the graph above the white lined group is the
Aerobically trained individuals, and the black line is the Tabata group.
·
You can see that the Tabata group only really
made improvements for the first 3 weeks! Even though they continued to increase
the intensity of the intervals.
Now that I’ve given you the
outline of the study and very brief explanation of the results, I’ll let you
know MY opinions on why Tabata is miss-used and miss-understood.
Firstly let’s look at the most obvious
result. The lack of improvement in VO2 Max within the Tabata group. Although
they made increases in their VO2 Max, they still ended up with lover levels
than the Aerobically trained individuals (The whole reason for the study in the
first place was to see how interval training improved VO2 Max – and I guarantee
that if you asked a PT why Tabata training is “so good” they’d give you some BS
about huge improvements in VO2 Max). Any improvements that were found only
really occurred within the first 3 to 4 weeks. Which asks the question why certain
fitness movements are fixated on solely using interval styled training as their
methodology when for 49 weeks of year you won’t see any drastic improvements in
fitness levels. Would you want to bust your gut for the best part of a year and
get nothing back? Thought not.
Secondly lets look at the
equipment used. A bike. What’s the worst that’s going to happen on a bike. You
stop pedalling or you may drop your water bottle. However promoters of Tabata
seem to feel that using high skilled movements such as treadmill sprinting,
deadlifts, hang cleans, box jumps, and snatches are a safe way to perform the
intervals…..seriously?
Now biggest miss-understanding
with Tabata is the level of effort needed. If you refer back to an earlier
point I made – the intervals must be performed at 170% of VO2 Max! A well conditioned athlete may reach their
VO2 Max at 350 watts on a stationary bike. If they are lucky they may be able
to maintain that for 3 minutes. If you had a crazy conditioned athlete then you’d
be lucky to get 5 minutes at that level.
If you were to take that well-conditioned
athlete at workout 170% of their VO2 Max it would be a nasty 510 Watts. To put
that into perspective a Tour-De-France cyclist can maintain about 400 for an
hour. That’s crazy! The majority of people that have “used” Tabata wouldn’t have
got anywhere near their 170% at ANY of the workout.
If you’re crazy enough to feel
you could reach that level by using DB Lunges, Hang Cleans or Deadlifts then I guess
you’re more deluded than first thought….or as I would imagine the case to be,
you had no idea that 170% was the level required.
Lastly……. The lack of
understanding about overall performance seems to be the most common theme. PT’s
and strength coaches seem to overlook the fact that anaerobic capacity IS NOT
the only way to condition an athlete. In fact it’s definitely not the most
important aspect of performance. Having a strong aerobic base will help you recover
quicker, go for longer, and generally be a better athlete.
As I’ve always said….my opinions
are my opinions. If you don’t agree with me then that’s fine, I won’t be
offended. But what I will be offended by are stupid ideas, and uneducated
trainers. 20 seconds intervals using kettlebells or box jumps may be tough, but
it’s not Tabata.