Dispelling: Tabata calorie burn

I was recently horrified when I had to look up what a tabata was because someone on a fat loss forum told me 'it's the hardest exercise ever so I am burning 800 calories in 4 minutes'. The first link was from Shape so I clicked it. A magazine that is supposed to be helping people lose weight and visualize realistic fitness claimed that a single tabata (4 minutes of exercise) provided more fitness gains than a 60 minute run. In terms of calories, that would be about 700ish calories, perhaps more for an obese person.

At first blush, it actually looked like the person on the weight loss forum was right! And here I am struggling along with P90X at 600ish calories for an entire hour!

Sound too good to be true?



That's because it obviously is and a statement like “4 minutes of Tabata can get you better fitness gains than an entire hour of running on the treadmill” is far too simplified to be a fair comparison between the two activities.  

According to a study put together by the American Council on Exercise and the research team at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, a tabata actually realistically burns 15 calories per minute. That's 60 calories for a single 4 minute tabata, a far cry from that 700 calories someone might assume based on Shape's statements.

It's also supposed to be performed in 4 rounds of 4 minutes each, not just a single tabata at 4 minutes. The start of your exercise, when you're still warming your heart up, is not going to burn the same calories as the middle of your exercise. Going for the full 4 rounds is important to achieving that average of 15 calories per minute.

To make matters worse, the overweight or obese people who read about tabata's '4 minute miracle' calorie burn are the exact people that are not likely to actually be capable of exercising to a high intensity level for 4 minutes straight. Instead they will likely perform hard for a very, very short period of time then perform to a moderate level, at best, for the rest of it.

As someone who is trying to lose weight, I know I am not keeping up with the fitness instructors in the DVDs I use. I hope to one day, but right now it's important to just keep moving. Over the course of an hour, I'll keep up with them for part of it then keep walking or jogging in place for the rest of it. This works, I'm still burning calories and I have a realistic expectation of how many calories – ie. not as many as the instructor and students in the video.

If I were doing tabata? I'd have to do it the same way; I could not maintain that intensity. And that's not how tabata works. Instead I get walking in place for 2 minutes and high intensity for 2 minutes. That breaks down everything a tabata is supposed to be about. But it's exactly how unfit fat people exercise. The 4 minute miracle turns into an even bigger lie than it already was.

Does this mean tabata is bad?

Of course not! Tabata works for those who have a realistic understanding of what it is, how many calories they are actually burning and can achieve a sustained 20 minute high intensity movement. It can even work for people who can only perform high intensity for a tiny amount of time but keep moving at moderate or low levels for the rest; moving for 20 minutes is still good for overweight and obese people who don't move often, but they need to understand they are not burning the same calories as someone who is doing it exactly as intended.