Cardio sucks, but it’s undoubtedly vital to do to give yourself a truly high level of fitness. As a side note, I’ve never really felt that circuit weight training provided an effective resistance workout OR cardiovascular workout—but I don’t particularly enjoy monotonously plodding along for 30 or 45 minutes, or even an hour at a time, and I think most men don’t either (regardless of whether or not you believe the “liberals run, conservatives lift” dichotomy).
And then there’s doing stationary cardio such as ellipticals, treadmills, bikes, and the like. I personally find these to be even more soul crushing than standard cardio: they take all of the “fun” of locomotory cardio, but with the added sense of being a gerbil running on a wheel.
So what do you do if you have better things to be doing? As I’ve mentioned in the past, I have until very recently been recovering from a severely dislocated foot, and while forced to use cardio machines, I came across the solution: a fast, extremely intensive cardio training method that will leave you gassed in no more than twenty minutes: Tabata Interval Training.
What?
Tabata Interval Training is named after Dr. Izumi Tabata, sports medicine doctor most famously affiliated with the Japanese Olympic Speed Skating team. He designed a program of intensive interval training for his skaters, alternating between sprints and slow jog/rest periods in equal 30 second intervals to provide a brutal cardiovascular workout that quickly forces the trainee to reach VO2Max (maximum oxygen consumption capacity, aka the closest measure of cardiovascular exertion there is), and exhausts the glycogen stores of the muscles in no more than 20 minutes.
And I emphasize 20 minutes max: simply put, if you are not pouring sweat and utterly exhausted by that point in time, you’re doing it wrong, and need to increase the intensity of your exercise program. I myself can’t even do 20 minutes, I can only do around 13 minutes of this delightfully hellish regimen.
What Tabata Intervals Do For You
The trainee doing Tabata intervals will immediately notice results with this cardio program—most notably vastly increased cardio capacity in all respects—which is to say both in sprinting and moderate intensity sustained cardio. When I started doing this program, I couldn’t even break 10 minutes of intervals, and now that I’ve reached 13 minutes I’ve noticed that my stamina in jogging, swimming, and other sustained cardio activities is much greater than it was before.
Another immediately noticeable benefit to interval training is weight loss—the trainee will notice rapid weight loss alongside their increased endurance capacity. In fact, studies show that it is every bit as effective as regular cardio for increasing endurance and losing weight, but in a fraction of the time.
And lastly, forcing yourself to do just one more 30 second sprint will do wonders for your mental and/or willpower training.
How To Do It
So now you probably want to know how to do these intervals. And luckily, it’s pretty simple—all you need is a timer and some sort of cardio method. Any will do, as long as it is entirely based on your own muscular power. Running, jump rope, swimming, skating, elliptical machines, bicycling, stationary bikes, etc. I specify “your own muscular power” as a way to differentiate it from, say, a treadmill, which moves via programming the machine to go at a certain speed. You can’t do Tabatas on a treadmill, as the treadmill does not quickly and/or seamlessly change speeds.
Warm up a bit and then set the timer for 30 seconds. Do a slow, easy jogging pace until the 30 seconds are up. Then immediately start a sprint, emphasis necessary. Sprint as hard and as fast as you can. Sprint like your life was depending on it!
Maintain this sprinting pace for 30 seconds as well, and then repeat the cycle anew until you can’t anymore. If you can somehow set your timer to beep every 30 seconds, even better.
I must reiterate, you will not last for more than 20 minutes, and for your first time you likely won’t even make 10.
Even though I am now recovered, I still do Tabata intervals because I find that no other form of cardio exercise hits that trifecta of effectiveness, efficiency, and not being an endless slog. And if I, somebody who hates cardio enthusiastically does Tabata interval training, I don’t see what reason you have to not be doing this as well.
Read More: 5 Reasons Men Should Limit Their Cardio
I haven’t done serious cardio in years and decided to do this on a bicycle. I could only get up to 4 minutes, and felt like I was going to die afterwards.
Ha! Don’t die Roosh. But if you die can I get your login? I will take over your name, it will be a seamless transition.
Resume and beard photos available upon request.
thanks bro
You’ll have to go by the name ‘RooshV2’ hehe
Whether you are into cardio or not, Consider this: sitting is terrible for you and shortens your lifespan considerably. Do a google search and consider some of the points made regarding “sitting bad for your health.” At the very least, I recommend doing a lot of walking on top of your preferred workout or lack of. Personally I prefer lifting weights, long walks (on the beach ;)), occasional distance run/competition and hiking in beautiful places.
I don’t like to lose time at the gym, so I decided to give a try to this method…and I love it, despite the fact I can’t work out beyond the 6th round.
I enjoy playing pickup soccer and at the same time I am doing a lot of cardio while playing an entertaining sport and getting to know a lot of people.
haha!
that’s nothing
my system is
wake up and immediately sprint as fast as you can out the door for 1 minute
(30 seconds out and 30 seconds back)
then immediately jump back in bed with no warm-up or cool down.
Then pop a blood-pressure lowering med
(whether you need it or not)
and repeat one hour later.
That will really exercise your heart.
Why would I jump back in bed if I’m all sweaty from sprinting?
Cause that’s what dirty monkeys do.
Hey Larsen
This bears some relativity to Bill Philips system in Body for Life, which I have done with my ex if only to get her to drop 20lbs which she did, but more so with what I typically do today on my bike. Not to mention that, I will give this a try on my next jaunt of 20 mins or more.
One point, though, I go out 20 mins with a light load but will come back with 30 to 40 lbs added; groceries, books, etc. Should I max out on the outbound and just breeze on the return?
I am 61 and would like to get to 100 without committing exercise suicide.
kind of off topic, but after a long life of military abuse on my body, ive found i can run occasionally but prefer to save my ankles and knees from additional abuse and pain by using elliptical machines to get a serious low impact cardio workout. I do what i can cardio trainng to kee best functioning heart and lungs, but am very active otherwise outdoors. do what you can as you can. id love to give this articles stated training a shot though.
I run like hell for about 15 minutes, beat the crap out of a heavy bag, and then do a ton of crunches and aerobics. Works up a good sweat, and usually takes about 30 minutes.
Your bag work at around 10 minutes or less as you seem to put it is utterly ineffective and I’m sure you lack the technique to properly hit it in the first place, since you boast about beating the “crap out of it”. I also don’t like chumps who give fitness advice out of their ass, so sod off.
What the fuck is a ton of crunches and aerobics? For all I know it could be 10 crunches followed by you furiously masturbating
High intensity interval training or (HIIT). I have used a tight regimen of sprinting and slow jogging for about 6 months straight at 3x a week. I was a fat lard and lost close to 60 lbs. That’s about 10 lbs/month. With no supplements. I must admit that I also had a strict diet with rice as my only form of carbohydrates and keeping sugar to a minimum (1 can of Arizona green tea a day as a reward after a grueling workout). Now the toll this takes on your body is extreme and maintaing thia kind of training long term is akin to being a pro athlete without the money. Now, being older and smarter, I watch what I eat and balance it out with exercise. If I loafed at the gym during a week, I won’t have my bag of chips during the weekend and might punish myself with no beer for the next week. Life is balance and the more you keep it balanced the less effort you need to make it order to sustain said balance.
I just do max blast sprint 6 reps 3-4 times a week.
Try doing Tabata intervals with front squats:
https://www.t-nation.com/training/tabata-method
I use to do something similar to this, but somewhat less intensive: sprint up a slope (ca 20 seconds), jog down (ca 40 seconds). Never managed to finish more than eight cycles, really exhausting! Cannot even imaging doing 20.
Perfectly imitates skating in ice hockey , where you “sprint” forward on tbe rush and then use glide to recover .. rinse n repeat for 1 hr +
Nice correlation!
Try the burpee EMOM mile run:
(a) Distance = 1 mile
(b) every minute, on the minute (EMOM) interrupt your run with 5 burpees.
(c) The exercise starts with burpees
BURPEES!
Anyone have experience tower running? That is taking an elevator I the bottom of an apartment building and running up the steps to the top? Without putting your hands on the wall for balance.
One of my first apartments in China was in a 33 storey building- I’d do it three times, and the last 3 storeys on each lap would be frog hops to the top.
Anothrr home had a small mountain range five minutes from my place. It had big uneven stone steps winding around it to the top with plenty of long flat sections with pagodas for rest, you could definitely feel the oxygen getting thinner attempting that! If you ran up during sunrise, as you neared the top you’d see the sun melting the frost from the trees until you came to a grand pagoda with a beautiful view of the city and old boys practicing Taichi. An incredible exercise in willpower driving your legs up those mountain steps, heh.
Ok, Grasshopper, stop poking fun at the Yanks and get back to sweeping those steps. I want the whole mountain done by noon.
Wax on, wax off!