A Latta Tabata

Heres a glam shot of me this morning after some spin tabatas that rocked my world. Please note this picture in no way does it any justice. I was dying. 

Recently there has been a lot of buzz around a not so new technique for cardio vascular exercise. Its called Tabatas. Some people think you have to kill yourself at the gym by doing hours of cardio. But alas! There is another way! Jump off of that elliptical trainer and use tabatas to tighten that rump! So what are tabatas and why are they so powerful? Well, this anaerobic training technique allows for you to cut your cardio duration without sacrificing the cardiovascular benefits! Tabatas are a part of high interval exercise or HIIE. You work as hard as you can from 15-45 seconds and then use a short time for recovery and do it again. In 1996 Izumi Tabata set out to prove that you could do interval training and achieve the same results as someone who did cardio activity for a longer duration. By pushing yourself at maximum effort and then taking a shorter recovery period, you could achieve the same results! The general rule is a 3:1 ratio. For example pushing as hard as possible for 30 seconds and recovery for 90. I have heard tabatas come up in a number of classes at my gym and my cousin Amanda just took a class dedicated solely to them! This morning I had the opportunity to do tabatas in my morning spin class. I literally never worked so hard in my life. We did 30 seconds of hard climbing with a maximum resistance followed by 10 measly seconds to recover. Repeat 8 times then do it again! It was literally the hardest thing I did all day and let me tell you, my heart was racing! I hate to admit this, but I almost threw up! Tabatas are no joke! If you are looking to trim down and torch calories, tabatas are the way to go! With growing popularity you may be able to find a class at your local gym, or you can always do it on your own while running or biking :)