'Your body's like a stick of dynamite; you can tap it with a pencil all day and you'll never make it explode. You hit it once with a hammer, BANG!
Get serious, do forty hard minutes, not an hour and a half of nonsense.'
Now, as an actor the guy might be a bit of an arse, and I'm beginning to think his knowledge of how explosives work isn't exactly fully comprehensive... But he is definitely on to something here.
Time is about the only thing in life you don't get back once it's gone and I don't think any of us are going to look back and say 'I'm glad I plodded along on that treadmill for an hour like a Dre beats sporting hamster.'
So what I'm going to do now, is show you how to absolute smash bodyfat, build muscle and increase your fitness in less time than it takes most people to lace up their nikes.
Enter Professor Izumi Tabata, Japanese fitness wizard.
In the 90's Tabata crunched the numbers with a group of Olympic figure skaters and developed a protocol that gave his team the same results as a separate group that trained for an hour five times per week, only training four days a week... For four minutes. I'm listening...
Tabata had discovered the sweet spot was working at a super high intensity for twenty seconds then resting for ten. Repeat this eight times for a total of four minutes, peel yourself off of the floor, and know that you've just achieved in a handful of minutes more than most vest toting gym rats do in an hour.
While this is golden alone, with a few modifications we can take it from better to best, to paraphrase Fight Club's Tyler Durden- when you start tabata club you're arse might be a wad of cookie dough, after few weeks... You'll be carved out of wood.
The Nitty Gritty.
Let's get down to business so we can get to the business of getting down. Perform these circuits several times a week to reap maximum benefits, but you'll start to see improvements in your fitness just tossing it in the mix once or twice. If you're already an established trainee and want to turn your beast mode dial all the way up to eleven, try throwing this in as finisher to your normal workouts.
Sequence one- The Gym Bod
20 seconds- push up with row (get into a press up position holding a pair of light to moderate dumbells. Complete a press up ensuring your chest touches the floor at the bottom of the rep, once you've returned to the top, row one of the dumbells up until it almost touches your body, lower and repeat the push-up/row combo with your other arm.)
10 seconds- REST, keep and eye on your watch or timer, be ready to go on the buzzer and come out swinging...
20 second- Squat and press- Take a weight and hold it across your chest (dumbells, a bar or a weight plate; anything you can squat with comfortably) squat down as far as you can (arse to grass is what we're aiming for here) and explode back up once your fully upright, use your shoulders and the momentum from your squat to press the weight over head. This is one rep, aim for 12-15. Don't hate me.
10 seconds rest- This is one round, repeat this for a total of four or eight minutes depending on your time constraints/ goals and you'll be 'acutely aware' of your lungs, heart and most probably... The location of your last meal.
Sequence Two- Home Schooled
Even if you can't make it to the gym you can still make a serious dent in your fitness goals by trying this sequence a few times a week.
20 seconds- squat with tuck jump- squat down as far as you can and explode back up into a jump, once you've got air, bring your knees up towards your chest into a 'tuck jump' position. All those trampoline lessons in school are finally paying off.
10 seconds- REST. Eyes on the timer, think 'coiled spring'
20 second- Press up with chest tap- don't sacrifice quality for quantity, your chest should touch the floor on every rep and your arms fully extended at the top. At the top of each rep left one arm off the floor and give your chest a light slap, alternate arms on each rep. Aim for 10-15.
10 seconds- REST
Repeat for eight minutes for some serious homemade fitness gains.
Is it tough? Yes. If it's not, you did it wrong. It's a definite case of risk versus reward. If you're willing to risk losing your lunch by going balls to the wall, the reward will be a leaner, faster, fitter physique in less than the run time of Bohemian Rhapsody.
If you can channel your inner spartan, dig in and leave nothing in the tank... Then a 300-esque physique is only 8 minutes away.
Peace out
AT
Great content as always AT, keep up the good work. There's a great tabata timer app for free also in the App Store so you can just set it and get your head in to the session.
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