Stationary Bike Workouts – Tabata Interval Training

Are you sick and tired of boring bike workouts? Did you know that there is a more effective and much more efficient way to exercise on exercise bikes? I’m talking about doing bike cardio as an interval training routine.

In particular, I want to discuss the Tabata protocol. This is an interval routine devised by the head coach of the Japanese national speed skating team, Izumi Tabata. Tabata was a researcher at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports of Japan. He developed the routine to be in 20 and 10 second intervals of intense exercise and then rest respectively.

So to do this as a stationary bike exercise, you would pedal as hard and fast as you can for about 20 seconds and then lightly pedal for the next ten seconds. You really only need about five minutes of this to wear yourself out. Add in a few minutes of warm up and a few more of cool down and you’ll be in and out of the gym in 15 minutes!

Interval training is known to greatly improve your metabolic rate, not just during your workout, but for many hours afterward. In fact, if you do this exercise, take a short break, and then do moderate cardio for about 20-30 minutes, you’ll be a calorie burner.

Whether you do Tabata interval training as stationary bike exercises or some other exercise, you will actually burn calories and therefore lose fat. Not to mention the vast improvement in her aerobic fitness. Exercises using the Tabata Protocol are very intense workouts, don’t be fooled by their short duration.