Comments on: The Tabata Myth

By: Methuselah - Train Now Live Later

Methuselah - Train Now Live Later — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:27:25 +0000

Mark – I always DID understand that I needed to have my eyeballs popping out or I was not doing a real tabata. The myth, as you say, might be that it’s no better than other forms of circuit training. But because a part of me thinks it is, I am motivated to go through that pain (self-fulfilling prophecy?) Also, my view is that the sheer efficiency of tabata would permit it to be slightly LESS effective, and still be a real winner. I can be in and out of the gym in 15 minutes, showers included! For me, only a few exercises truly lend themselves to the protocol – rowing, cycling and running. It’s possible to do a mix of circuit-like exercises and get pretty wrecked, but not quite to the same extent as the rower. I did one this morning and thought I’d undergone trans-dimensional travel it hurt so much

p.s. of course I don’t do the steady state + 4 tabatas part of his experimental cell either!

By: markyoung

markyoung — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:18:51 +0000

Thanks Darren! Honestly, I don’t think that there is any doubt that this protocol burns calories. But claiming that it is in any way superior to other protocols is mere guesswork.

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 25 May 2010 05:05:31 +0000

Hey Mark

Cheers for debunking another misrepresented exercise protocol. It seems all too common for human performance research to be twisted to fit desired result (marketing demographic). I’ve read a pile of articles about the supposed fatloss benefits of the Tabata protocol – where are these guys getting their info from? It’s clear to me that more coaches and personal trainers need to research their recommendations more thoroughly.

Great work.

By: markyoung

markyoung — Sun, 23 May 2010 16:22:37 +0000

Hey Anthony,

You’re absolutely right. Oxygen uptake is measured by having the person breathe through a machine that is hooked up to a computer. It usually measures expired oxygen and carbon dioxide. This is dramatically better than the way this used to be done where all expired gasses were captured in something called a Douglas Bag to be analysed.

In any case, there are predictive equations and tests that can be used to estimate VO2 max, but anything done in a research lab will typically be done as described above because this is the most accurate method.

Glad you liked the article!

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sun, 23 May 2010 01:34:35 +0000

Thanks for the article Mark. I left a comment at Mike Robertson’s site.

I have read through the Tabata Myth several times and gone back and re-read some of the Tabata article at Tmuscle to get a better understand.

I have just one question I hope you can help me out with. You wrote:

VO2 Max is determined (in this case) by having the person ride the ergometer while measuring their oxygen uptake and gradually increasing the wattage until the person’s oxygen uptake no longer continues to rise.

My question is: how is the oxygen uptake measured? Is this the situation you see when people are breathing into a mask connected to a computer? Is there another way to determine it – tables?

I actually learnt quite a lot from from this article. Again thank you very much for your clear expression.

All the best

Anthony