Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

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I do not have an opportunity to workout outside and do more regular sprints, so I have been trying to do tabatas as a form of "sprints". I do not have a home-gym, just a little bit of floor and some dumbbells, I workout mostly heavily with bodyweight exercises.

I've been coming up by myself with exercises to do in the tabata system. Could you tell me if I am doing it right? Can it count as "sprint"? Do you have other ideas of movement that could be used during at-home tabatas?

I am generally doing five different tabata sets. Depending on day I might be doing the following: burpees, squats, skiers (fast jumping sideways from one leg to another simultaneously touching toes with opposing hand), "walking planks" (up and down from elbows up), jumping jacks (with small weight, like 3Ibs), shadow boxing, front kicks...

I am just trying to do them as fast as I can. Does it make sense? I hope I am not doing something counterproductive!

flag	asked Aug 16 2010 at 3:07 Yoannah_offca 5,301●5●22

CT · Answer 1 · 2010-08-16 13:33:43Z UTC

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This is a really good question, and one I've considered myself at many times, mainly when it's freezing outside or torrential rain. Firstly, I say what you're doing sounds pretty much there. Going back to the Tabata study, I think your workout needs to meet certain criteria:

it needs to be fast, to utilise fast twitch muscle fibres.
It needs to be all out effort.
For preferable bodily response, namely good HGH secretion, it should last about 20 seconds, with a minute or so rest between sets.

I think of the exercises you're doing, many could tick those boxes. The shadow boxing and kicks sound especially good. Also worth looking at some standard plyometrics for other ideas, as they're explosive, and you're toast pretty quickly on many exercises.

edited Aug 16 2010 at 13:33

answered Aug 16 2010 at 5:13

CT
2,766●1●7●15

	Thanks, that's what was my thinking as well, but not based on any "professional" article, I couldn't find much on it. I wait 2min between each tabata - can't do less ;-) There are some plyo movements in burpees, jumping jacks and skiers, I was thinking about doing more serious jumping, but one, that I dont' want to do too much stumping over my neighbors' heads, second - I probably wouldn't be able to finish a full 8 reps of tabata, not yet :) – Yoannah_offca Aug 16 2010 at 12:25
	I don't know about the "last 30 seconds with a minute of rest" part. I believe that the exact Tabata protocol is 20 seconds all out with 10 seconds of rest. Not to say that doing 1:2 all out/rest cycles is bad :) – JakeA Aug 16 2010 at 12:41
	I understood it as the rest between sets, so first 8x20s/10s set 60s rest (or 120s in my case) and another set of 8 repetitions of 20s on 10s exercises. But I might be wrong, of course. – Yoannah_offca Aug 16 2010 at 13:06
	JakeA - good point, I actually meant 20 seconds, not sure why I typed 30. It was at 6am. Edited my response for clarity. As to the rest, I find that you have to rest more than 10 seconds - no other reason. – CT Aug 16 2010 at 13:33
	I guess that's the difference between tabata and other HIITs, they differ in the approach to the rest after (full recovery, partial etc.). Tabata I think found out that 2:1 ratio was working best in his studies. Doesn't mean other systems don't work. – Yoannah_offca Aug 16 2010 at 14:09

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Sprints and tabata at home

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