A great workout in 4 minutes

Scott Schwab:

If you have never heard the name TABATA, you should look it up and become familiar. A workout that has only been around since 1996 is starting to get some notice with big results. The workout steamed from a Izumi Tabata, who was a trainer for the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo. He worked with the speed skating team and came up with a workout that you could do in 4 minutes. To good to be true? Try it out for yourself and give us your feedback.

The goal is to choose exercises that you can do anywhere and better yet, use your weight as the tool for resistance. You can increase the difficulty by adding weight, but your own weight will do the trick.

It is a fat burning, Muscle-building workout that you are in complete control of. You must be accurate and disciplined with a stop watch, but the reps are not what you are counting. The goal is to do as many as possible within the time frame, but quality is much better then quantity in this situation.

Here is the deal:

You choose 4 exercises and do each exercise for 1 minute or chose 1 exercise and do for 4 minutes. This is interval training at its best so it is important to sticking to the intervals. The first way is to do eight 20 second sets with 10 seconds of rest in between each set. If choosing 4 exercises you will do 16 minutes(each of the 4 exercises for 4 minutes). When choosing 1 exercise just work straight through until you are done. You can judge how you feel after the first 4 minutes. Now truly do any of us have an excuse not to do something?

Exercises:

SQUAT JUMP-

stand shoulder width apart with hands behind your head. Bend knees to sitting position and explode into an even jump with hands positioned behind the head.

BODY-WEIGHT SQUAT-

With both hands at shoulder level pointed straight out(like a mummy), and legs shoulder width apart, you will bend knees until you are in the sitting position with arms continually forward. It is not the speed, make sure the bending of the knees is slow and returning to the starting position is slow as well. Abs must be contracted for this to work most effectively.

THRUSTER-

Legs are slightly wider then shoulder width length. This can be done with light dumbbells that almost rest on the shoulders. As you bend knees into the squatting position, stand quickly to the starting position, weights still on shoulders and then when you are standing straight up extend weights into the sky as high as you are able to into the sky.

BURPEE-

Stand tall with good posture. Quickly bend down with knees a couple of inches from the chest with hands touching the ground, simultaneously kick feet out into the push up position and hold for a count of one. Go back backwards through the positions until you are standing tall with good posture.

Benefits:

Glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, core muscles, shoulder, and chest