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Tabata

by thabo
(secunda,mpumalanga,south africa)

When you say "do as many reps as you can in the 20 seconds"does it also mean as fast as possible? I'm asking that because i was taught to do my reps slow and use to laugh at people doing them fast cause i thought they don't know what they are doing.

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Tabata

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starstarstarstarstar 		Heavy enough to hurt, light enough for good form
by: Greg

Just note - As fast as possible means as fast as you can with good form.

Slow reps are great for building muscle. They exercise control and balance and because you move slowly you actually pick a weight that you should be training at, because its more difficult not to cheat.

Tabata is different though, you are not trying to build muscle, you are trying to break through your anaerobic thresholds, so this means exhausting the muscle of its glycogen stores as fast as possible, in fact you only have 20 seconds to do it in. So explosive fast repetitions are needed.

When thinking about tabata, you want to pick a weight that is heavy enough to tire our your muscles quickly, but light enough to be able to do a lot of fast reps with good form, so it will be a lot less than you would use for weight lifting.
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star 		Free Weights??? Are you kidding???
by: Anonymous

I'm surprised at the lack of responsibility in this forum and on this website. I think it's pretty safe to say most people understand that weight training, especially with free weights should be done at a pace consistent with good form or risk the potential for injury. As such Tabata should NEVER be done with free weights. It doesn't make sense. To get through your aerobic energy reserve by doing free weights you'd have to be doing like 70 - 80 reps a minute. Tabata should only be done on cardio type equipment (rowers, bikes, ellipticals etc) where you can go as hard as possible for 20 seconds and then easy for 10. If you're trying to do something like bench press there is no way your form can be perfect at this speed and your going to hurt yourself.

Shame on you /www.intervaltraining.net.
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starstarstarstarstar 		free weights
by: Anonymous

I suppose everyone's allowed their own opinion but free weight exercises like front squat and push press are stock tabata exercises.

You shouldn't be aiming for 70 reps though, you would never have any form, rather aim at about 20 reps with decent weight and form.

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