Thanks Professor Tabata!

Note:  I've decided to save musings on the 2nd and 3rd precept of Yoshukai until tomorrow.  It's been a few days since I've talked about my exercise, and I thought I'd write an update today before hitting you with more numbers tomorrow.  Thanks for reading!

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) has yielded some amazing workouts in the past two weeks.  These short-burst sprints of exercise followed by less-instense recovery periods.  My favorite setup was developed by Izumi Tabata in 1996.  Originally, the exercise was used with Olympic speed-skaters to determine if a short HIIT workout could improve maximal aerobic capacity more efficiently than steady state training.  The results must have been surprising.  Although the group who did 5 days a week of steady state training had a higher maximal aerobic capacity, the skaters who trained Tabata 4 days a week started lower and gained more overall and showed benefits in anaerobic capacity as well.  Check out the efficiency:  5 hours vs. 16 minutes...and 16 minutes was more than effective.

Tabata training is fairly simple by concept.  There are 8 high-intensity intervals lasting 20 seconds with a 10 second rest period between each.  With this basic idea in mind, then ask what specific improvements you're looking for:  improving endurance, muscle endurance, size and strength while improving cardio?  The benefits are varied, so feel free to do what I'm doing...experiment!

My favorite Tabata set right now is with the heavy bag--or preferably a kicking shield when a training partner is around (I'm doing my daytime workouts solo, so the bag will do for now.  Any suggestions would be welcome!).  I alternate 20 second high-intensity punch-outs (read this as:  punch, punch, punch, and keep punching.) and quick low round kicks.  Thanks to Shihan-dai Josh McCullars for showing me this one!  After 3 days of this, I was feeling pretty amazing.  I'm also looking forward to seeing how this exercise combined with my others affects fight training.

Tabata tip:  You'll need a way to keep time, and I've found keeping an eye on a clock distracts from the intensity.  There are quite a few Tabata or HIIT apps available for those of you with smartboxes, and if that doesn't appeal, a quality HIIT timer will set up your Tabata sessions nicely!

Coming up in workouts:  Fight training starts tonight.  10 2-minute semi-knockdown rounds once a week until shodan testing.  I'm sure I'll have plenty to write about this aspect of the training.