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Complete Cardio Part 4: Tabata & Cardioacceleration

Complete Cardio Part 4: Tabata & Cardioacceleration

This is HIIT cardio at its finest with these two highly effective conditioning and fat-burning techniques.

Written By Jim Stoppani, PhD

Updated August 31, 2019

Achieving significant results with any training routine, cardio or otherwise, requires a certain level of intensity. Nobody gets shredded by taking leisurely walks in the park. Staying in your comfort zone and “taking it easy” won’t cut it. That’s the whole premise behind HIIT cardio and two forms of HIIT that are particularly effective for boosting intensity are Tabata intervals and cardioacceleration.

Tabata
Tabata intervals are a method of HIIT that uses a 2:1 work-to-rest ratio in a very specific format: alternating 20 seconds of all-out max effort work with 10 seconds of rest for exactly four minutes, eight total intervals. That’s one round of Tabata. The point is not to fall into a specific heart-rate range, but rather to try and go as intense as possible, shooting for an RPE of about 9-10 on all work intervals.

Tabatas are named after the Japanese scientist who created them, Dr. Izumi Tabata. As the story goes, Tabata was looking for a better way to train his athletes on the Japanese speed-skating team. What he discovered was that when he had athletes perform eight cycles of 20-second high-intensity exercise intervals followed by 10 seconds of rest, they increased both their aerobic (endurance) and anaerobic (quick power) capacities – the two things that speed skaters need. In other words, whether you’re an endurance athlete like a cyclist or a power athlete like a weightlifter, Tabata offers you benefits because it trains both major metabolic pathways: those that provide endurance and those that provide explosive energy. That’s why so many athletes have taken to doing Tabata intervals. And of course, Tabata works very well for fat loss.

You have many options for how to work Tabatas into your program. You can choose anywhere from four to eight exercises and do them as a block of Tabatas for a total cardio workout time of 16-32 minutes. Or you can do one to two exercises Tabata style in between muscle groups. These are a couple ways I like to use them.

For example, if you trained chest, triceps and abs in one workout, you could start with Tabata jumping rope to warm up. Then, after finishing chest, do Tabata kettlebell swings followed by Tabata bench step-ups before training triceps. After triceps, you could do Tabata dumbbell cleans and Tabata jumping jacks before training abs. Then do two more Tabata-style exercises after abs for a total time of 28 minutes of Tabata HIIT.

A typical Tabata exercise would look like this, using kettlebell swings as an example:

Time                     Activity
20 seconds            Kettlebell swings
10 seconds            Rest
20 seconds            Kettlebell swings
10 seconds            Rest
20 seconds            Kettlebell swings
10 seconds            Rest
20 seconds            Kettlebell swings
10 seconds            Rest
20 seconds            Kettlebell swings
10 seconds            Rest
20 seconds            Kettlebell swings
10 seconds            Rest
20 seconds            Kettlebell swings
10 seconds            Rest
20 seconds            Kettlebell swings
10 seconds            Rest

Again, you can plug any number of different exercises into the Tabata format. Just remember, Tabatas are based on all-out intensity during the 20-second intervals. That’s why it only lasts four minutes. If a round of Tabatas feels easy, you're not going hard enough.

For more specific examples of how to incorporate Tabata intervals into a workout, check out my Super Shredded 8 program.

Cardioacceleration
Cardioacceleration refers to doing intervals of cardio (anywhere from 30-90 seconds) in between sets of lifting exercises. For example, on chest day, you would do one set of the bench press and then, instead of sitting on the bench and resting, you’d perform 30-90 seconds of high-intensity cardio. Then you’d do the next set of bench presses and continue in this manner throughout the entire workout.

Multiply those 30-90 seconds of cardio by the number of sets you complete in each workout and it adds up. If you train chest, triceps and abs and do 12 sets for chest, 9 sets for triceps and 9 sets for abs (30 total sets), and complete 60 seconds of cardio between each set, you’ve just completed 30 minutes of high-intensity cardio during your chest, triceps and abs workout. That means you don’t have to spend extra time doing cardio after the workout is over or on a separate day. You can go home knowing you’ve done your weight training and your cardio all in one fell swoop.

Cardioacceleration is based on a study by University of California-Santa Cruz researchers that reported in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research that trained subjects completing 30-60 seconds of cardio in between sets of weight training for over two months recovered better than those resting normally between sets. Not only does this method of HIIT allow for better recovery after workouts, but believe or not, it allows for greater recovery between sets as well.

It’s rather shocking at how well this technique works to aid recovery during a workout. In fact, in my programs it has helped thousands of men and women break PRs while getting leaner at the same time. Many people worry that doing cardio in between sets will decrease their strength on lifting exercises, but as I’ve found, once the body adapts to the cardioacceleration, it actually appears to enhance recovery between sets and strength.

Another nice thing about cardioacceleration is that you don’t have to use the treadmill or other typical form of cardio equipment. You can do the cardio interval right there at the station you’re training. For example, if you’re doing the bench press, you can do 30-90 seconds of bench steps-ups on the bench between sets. If you’re doing dumbbell flyes, then do dumbbell cleans for cardio right next to your bench. This way you don’t lose your spot in a busy gym.

Start off on the low end of the scale with 30 seconds of cardio in between sets. Over time, you can increase that by 15 seconds until you are up to doing 90 seconds of cardioacceleration in between sets.

A list of appropriate cardioacceleration exercises can be found in this article.

Only one more article remaining in my Complete Cardio series, and it's a killer (at least for your body fat stores!): Power HIIT.

Part 1 HIIT vs. Steady State

Part 2 HIIT Programming

Part 3 Frequency, Timing & Fasted Cardio

Part 5 Power HIIT

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