Press one and it is loaded
- Tabata Timer8 × 0:20 / 0:10LoadedSeven to eight sets of twenty seconds with ten of rest between them, handed over whole by the 1996 paper.Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
- HIIT Timer8 × 0:40 / 0:20Forty hard and twenty easy, eight times over: a gym circuit format for near-maximal work, with time to reach the next station.
- EMOM Timer10 × 1:00A cue once a minute and no scheduled recovery, so you earn your rest by finishing the repetitions early.CrossFit
- Rest Timer1 × 2:00Two minutes of rest, started as you rack the bar: the top of the ACSM range for muscle growth and the NSCA floor for big lifts.American College of Sports Medicine · National Strength and Conditioning Association
- Plank Timer3 × 0:30 / 0:30Three holds of thirty seconds with thirty between them, the front plank in the USA Gymnastics exercise progression sheet.USA Gymnastics
- CrossFit Timer1 × 20:00One twenty minute clock with no rounds and no rest inside it, the length the published benchmark Cindy is scored over.CrossFit
- Stretching Timer10 × 0:30 / 0:10Thirty second holds taken twice a muscle group, which is the sixty seconds the ACSM position stand asks for.American College of Sports Medicine
What six weeks of Tabata did in the original study
In 1996 Izumi Tabata’s lab in Japan put seven people on exercise bikes five days a week for six weeks. Four days a week they rode seven or eight efforts of 20 seconds at about 170% of VO2max, with 10 seconds of rest between. The fifth day was 30 minutes of steady riding and four of the same efforts. Their VO2max, the ceiling of aerobic fitness, went up by 7 ml/kg/min. Their anaerobic capacity, your power for short, hard bursts, went up by 28%. A second group rode steadily for an hour a day. Their VO2max rose too, from 53 to 58, but their anaerobic capacity did not change.
A 2019 review of 30 studies concluded that variations of the protocol seem to raise aerobic fitness about as much as steady endurance training, in less time. Only five of those studies said they used the original. The review found nothing to back up Tabata as a way to lose weight.
Tabata is for people who already train and can go to their limit. Anyone with a heart condition, or who has not trained hard before, should check with a doctor before trying Tabata. If hard intervals are new to you, start with the beginner session below.
The protocol
20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest, 8 rounds. The paper says seven to eight, and this timer opens on eight.
About 4 minutes. Strictly 3:50, since nothing follows the last round.
The study’s effort was about 170% of VO2max, and its riders were spent by the seventh or eighth effort. The last rounds should be a fight.
The short rest is the point. In a 1997 study from the same lab, 20/10 pushed both the aerobic and the anaerobic system close to their limits. Efforts of 30 seconds with 2 minutes of rest did not.
This timer rings a bell as each round starts and ends, warns ten seconds before each round ends, has a fullscreen key, and keeps the screen awake where the browser allows; it is free and needs no account. Keep this tab in front, because a browser may pause the sound of a tab you cannot see.
Sessions to try
These are our suggestions. Where one follows a published source, that source is cited under it.
- Beginner
20 seconds on, 20 off, 6 rounds, on a bike or with fast step-ups. The extra rest makes it something other than Tabata, and that is fine while you learn the effort.
- Classic
8 rounds of 20/10 on a bike, a rower or an air bike. This is as close as you can get to the original.
- Bodyweight
8 rounds of 20/10, alternating squat jumps and mountain climbers.
- Two blocks
Two blocks of 8 rounds with 2 minutes between them. In Edit intervals, open Sets and set breaks, then set Sets to 2 and Rest between sets to 2:00.
Warm up for 5 to 10 minutes first.
Common mistakes
Pacing it like ordinary cardio. If round 8 feels like round 1, you held back.
Picking technical lifts. Snatches and heavy kettlebell work fall apart when you are exhausted, so choose simple movements.
Stacking block after block. The original was one block. If you can repeat it straight away at the same effort, the first one was too easy.
Medicine & Science in Sports & ExerciseTabata et al., 1996, Med Sci Sports Exerc 28(10):1327 to 1330, PMID 8897392Medicine & Science in Sports & ExerciseTabata et al., 1997, Med Sci Sports Exerc 29(3):390 to 395, PMID 9139179
Skipping the warm-up. Hard efforts on cold muscles are how people get hurt.
Questions
Is Tabata always 4 minutes?
The work itself takes 3:50. A timer shows 4:00 when it adds 10 seconds to get ready, as this one does, or a rest after the last round.
Can I do Tabata every day?
The study ran five days a week for six weeks, in a lab. Two or three sessions a week is a sensible start, and that figure is ours.
How is Tabata different from HIIT?
Tabata is one interval protocol: 20/10, seven or eight rounds, at about 170% of VO2max, a pace above the one where your oxygen uptake peaks. HIIT is the whole family. The HIIT timer in the list above opens on 40 seconds of work and 20 of rest.
Six palettes, and a phase keeps its meaning in all of them
The same four grounds, drawn six ways. Each is solved so that get ready, work, rest and done stay apart, and so the clock stays readable from across a gym. Pick one and the whole page turns with it; this browser remembers the choice.
The app
The same clock, in your pocket
Bursta is being finished for phones. Android comes first and iPhone after it. It is the timer you have above, built as an app: the same reading of the wall clock every frame, so a locked screen, a phone call or a backgrounded app does not make it drift.
It keeps sounding with the screen off
The bell lands with the phone locked in your bag and your music still playing. A page in a tab cannot do that.
Your own workouts, and a record of them
A builder, a library you name and reorder, a history that fills itself in, and a calendar with repeats and reminders.
Made to be read while you are breathing hard
Six palettes, five text sizes, and the phase in the colour of the whole screen. English and Ukrainian.
Soon on Google PlaySoon on the App Store
