With just 4 minutes a day with Tabata Interval Training your whole body can experience huge improvements in health and fitness. Tabata training is a very intense form of interval training.

Tabata Training is broken down into 4 minute intervals to maximize your workouts. Here is how it works:

· Sprint as hard as you can for 20 seconds

· Walk for 10 seconds

· Repeat 7 more times for a total of 8 sets.

· Total workout time: 4 minutes

Tabata Training can be done with a number of different exercises. The idea is to use an exercise that gets the whole body involved or at least the major muscle groups. Tabata Training can be done with Barbells, Dumbells, Kettlebells, Resistance Bands, or just Bodyweight exercises. You can also pair Tabata training with your favorite activity, such as cycling, to help improve endurance.

Tabata Training was developed by Izumi Tabata, at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan. They did a study on comparing the effects of moderate intensity endurance (aerobics) and high endurance intermittent training (tabata training intervals) on VO2 max and anaerobic capacity.

The results of the comparison were staggering. Subjects in the moderate-intensity exercise trial improved their VO₂ max by a healthy 9.5 percent, while their anaerobic capacity did not change at all. Subjects in the maximum-intensity intervals trial—despite exercising for only 20 minutes per week, compared to five hours per week for the other group—improved their VO₂max by 14 percent and their anaerobic capacity by a whopping 28 percent.

Since the study was published in 1998, coaches and athletes began to adapt the protocol to sports ranging from swimming to boxing. Virtually everyone who tried the Tabata protocol made the same report: It was excruciatingly painful, but it was effective.

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