Tabata Tuesday

Happy Election Day! Did you get out there and vote? I decided to make an attempt before work and lucked out with no lines and was in and out within 10 minutes. I felt a sense of accomplishment as I was walking back to my car.

via my Instagram 

I loved yesterday's ladder sets as part of Best Body Bootcamp. I chose challenging weights and I felt strong as I completed each ladder set. It was a great workout and my muscles felt fatigued.

This morning I woke up not feeling like doing intervals on the elliptical (I try to alternate with my "running" days). I remembered that my gym offers a 30 minute Tabata class that I have taken before, and opted to do that instead.

What's Tabata you ask? It's a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) session that consists of a warm up period of exercise, followed by 6-10 repetitions of high intensity exercise, separated by medium intensity exercise, and ending with a cool down exercise (source).

From my experience, this typically includes 4-6 rounds of 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds or rest for 4-6 rounds, totally about 2-4 minutes of work. For some reasons those 20 seconds always feel minutes longer than the 10 seconds of rest...but I guess that means you are pushing yourself, right?!

Here are a couple of rounds that we did today:
Warm-Up Round
20 seconds of push up planks - plans in push up position, squeeze and release shoulder blades
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of lunges with our without weights (I opted without since I did Workout A yesterday)
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of push ups
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of lunges
10 seconds of rest
repeat 4x

Killer Butt Round (I'm calling it this because this round was painful)
20 seconds Burpees without the push up
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of wall squats
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of plank jacks
10 seconds of rest
repeat 4x

Tabata has some really great benefits. It's short, sweet, but painful. It also has some other benefits such as (source):
- Increasing both the aerobic and anaerobic body system
- Works to help fire up your metabolism during the workout and have a higher affect after as well - helping to burn fat!
- Helps to improve mental toughness. We can all do anything for 20-30 seconds, right? :)

One of my favorite blogger's, Gina, also has posted some really great Tabata workouts on her blog. Definitely ones you can do at home, in a hotel room, or at the gym. Check them out!

Not going to lie, I definitely felt like I was overworking my lower body in some of the rounds. This class seemed to be more focused on that than I was hoping as I did some lower body exercises yesterday too. So tonight, the foam roller and I have a big date.

Happy Tabata Tuesday...and Election Day!