The Trouble with Tabata

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.

Strength Rules the World

Training for improved work capacity without a well-developed strength base is a waste of time!

I would imagine that statement has sent shivers down the spines of the jogging community – but its true. Strength training is the most effective way to increase your work capacity. If your one and only goal is to become more effective at moving yourself/sub maximal/maximal loads better, then strength training will contribute much more to your goal achievement than training for endurance.

It sounds crazy to some of you, but hear me out!

The reason should be obvious to see (I hope). Let’s look at it from a real mans point of view. Loading bricks up flights of stairs is a pretty good example of “work”. To me I would imagine that carrying a 40kg block of bricks up a flight of stairs would be the norm for any labourer. 100 trips may well be a days work. If you can power clean 40kg (which I hope you can), then lifting 40kg of bricks isn’t going to be as tough for you, as it would be for some paleo-eating marathon runner who doesn’t lift weights and can only clean 20kg.

His 4 minute mile is irrelevant because lugging 40kg of bricks up a flight of stairs is only an endurance task to a guy that is strong enough to actually perform the work.

So how would one get better at carrying bricks up flights of stairs (when I say that I actually mean “how would you increase work capacity” but god damn it....I’m trying to make a point)? I would bet my last pennies that the skinny marathon runner would go away and run 5 miles per day. Why? Because when he performed the task his heart rate spiked and the next day he was fooked! However, running 5 miles a day would be a great example of avoiding the issue!

The best and ultimately correct way to adapt your body to carrying multiple loads all over the place would be to spend more time getting your squat, press’s and deadlift max’s up.

The most important thing to understand is that “strength is the most general of all athletic adaptations. All the other physical components such as power, endurance, balance, and co-ordination depend on the production of force within the physical environment” (Jim Wendler). Basically, if your strength improves, all the other components will.

For a guy who isn’t very strong, spending time improving his strength will be much more beneficial to improving his work capacity than spending time on the other derivative components. This point is especially true when you realise that improving your strength does not take that long. I guarantee that any athlete you train will tell you that strength training has the biggest positive impact on their other abilities.

When looking at the “huffing and puffing” aspect, strength training can actually improve VO2 Max values [in untrained populations]. Not a lot I'll grant you that, but it does have a slight improvement. For the novice lifters out there, strength training improves that aspect of fitness as efficiently as the millions of conditioning programs that are floating around out there on the web.

Before you “strength and conditioning specialists” out there start slating me, remember that we are talking about skinny marathon runners that do near to no strength training at all. I agree that past a certain point of strength development, some heavy sled pushing on a regular basis is beneficial.

Another point to look at is the difference between a STRENGTH adaptation and a CONDITIONING adaptation.

A man’s strength improves quickly at first, but will soon plateau and ultimately can be developed for years and years – strength training is “a long term adaptation because it requires the construction of new tissue and the restructuring of tissue already in place” (Cal Dietz). Strength training does not disappear after a layoff. Once a dude gets strong, he’s always stronger than he was before, even if he stops his training. This is because the long term adaptations have raised his baseline strength.

However....conditioning develops rapidly but goes away just as quickly. As I would imagine most of you have realised at some point in your training life. You can run 4 miles a day for four weeks and get into pretty good shape. But rest up a couple of weeks and....woops....your back to square one. “A conditioning adaptation changes the metabolic environment in the cells without the need for the large scale tissue remodelling necessary for a strength adaptation” (Cal Dietz...again). Conditioning is like a lap dance – it comes on quickly, it can be maintained (as long as you pay/work hard), but if you neglect it for just a second it (she) will disappear.

 

Why neglect conditioning if it comes on quickly and is easy to maintain? Because if you're weak as piss you definitely don’t need it as much as you need to be strong. And as we all know...time is money gentlemen.

Doing loads of “CV” work, or busting your gut by doing “Met-Cons” every bloody day will have a disgusting effect on your strength gains, where as getting stronger will improve your work capacity all by its self. Strength training is like a faithful wife....she’s going to be there for a long time, and she will get better if you treat her kindly. You can go away with the lads for 2 weeks...come back...and she’ll be at the door greeting you with a cool alcoholic drink of your choice (no brand promotion on this blog!).

 

The programs that are thrown around the internet to make guys strong and fit are merely allowing them to become good at running away from things.

If you’re not strong....getting stronger IS getting fitter. Geeting stronger IS getting more conditioned. If you’re a novice, don’t weaken your program by doing loads of sweaty work until you need to.

But hey...that’s my opinion.

Stay STRONG!

E

Training 100% EVERYDAY - Good or bad?

A bit of food for thought...

There's always been a dark, grey, angry cloud hanging over the principles of training at 100% everyday in the gym.

Are you going to overtrain?

Read this quote by renouned Olympic Lifting coach John Broz:

If you got a job as a garbage man and had to pick up heavy cans all day long, the first day would probably be very difficult, possibly almost impossible for some to complete. So what do you do, take three days off and possibly lose your job?

No, you'd take your sore, beaten self to work the next day. You'd mope around and be fatigued, much less energetic than the previous day, but you'd make yourself get through it. Then you'd get home, soak in the tub, take aspirin, etc. The next day would be even worse.

But eventually you'd be running down the street tossing cans around and joking with your coworkers. How did this happen? You forced your body to adapt to the job at hand! If you can't' squat and lift heavy every day you're not overtrained, you're undertrained! Could a random person off the street come to the gym with you and do your exact workout? Probably not, because they're undertrained. Same goes with most lifters when compared to elite athletes.

Take it or leave it. The info is there for you to make your own mind up.

Stay Strong

E