Tabata Training: The Science and History of HIIT

By Izumi Tabata

Tabata Training: The Science and History of HIIT provides evidence and mechanism(s) that explain the beneficial effects Tabata training has on diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and colon cancer. The book also includes coverage of maximal oxygen uptake as an essential parameter of both sport and health-oriented fitness for researchers and exercisers. HIIT was first prepared for young adults, but nowadays, evidence has been accumulated to prescribe it to adult men and women. For kids, several papers have reported beneficial effects of Tabata training on normal and obese pupils of elementary to high school students as well as for physical education classes.

Recent studies showed that not only improving sport performance, Tabata training contributes to good health outcomes in adults.

• Provides evidence accumulated in Dr. Tabata’s laboratory
• Contains viewpoints of applied physiology to basic biology
• Includes practical tips for the reader to apply Tabata training to their exercise routine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academic Press
• Release date: Jun 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9780323913034

Izumi Tabata

In 1983-1985, Dr. Tabata visited Oslo, Norway as a visiting scientist during his PhD course, and learned how to measure anaerobic energy release from late L Hermansen, PhD who first defined maximal oxygen deficit as measure of anaerobic capacity. He earned his PhD from University of Tokyo, Japan. As a post-doc, he studied under late John O. Holloszy, a legendary scientist at Washington University (St Louis, USA), where Dr. Tabata learned biochemical adaptations to exercise training in rats. In 1996, he first published a paper regarding Tabata training. Since then, he has been studying effects of exercise, especially high intensity intermittent training (HIIT) on sport performance and health using both human and experimental animals. Dr. Tabata has published 138 original papers including 125 papers written in English. He’s a member of Japan Academy of Science and was first dean of the faculty of Sport and Health Science at Ritsumeikan University for 6 years.

Book preview

Preface

Young animals practice hunting on their own or with their parents’ guidance. They do not expect that such hunting activities and vigorous play with peers improve their physical fitness, resulting in more fruitful hunting. In this context, hominids also might have practiced hunting 1.5 million years ago, for example, by throwing spears (Umminger, 2000). It may not have been the intention of either animals or ancient hominids to improve their fitness. Ancient Egyptian soldiers organized systematic wrestling training in ~ 3400 BC (Umminger, 2000). It is thought that the aim of this training was to win wrestling matches and not to improve fitness.

Most animals avoid demanding exercises other than hunting practice. It is well known, however, that ancient Greeks were inspired by Plato to train with strenuous exercise to improve their fitness and physiques. Therefore, exercise training for the purpose of improving physical fitness may be specific to humans. From this perspective, the Tabata training explored in this book could be thought of as quintessentially human, because it is one of the most demanding forms of exercise training. Given this context, it might appear natural that Tabata training emerged and has gained appreciation by people in the past 20 years, although it may be that the primary reason why people prefer Tabata training is that it is not time-consuming.

The training was unexpectedly named after me by an unknown person, and I have been recognized as one of its representatives. Because the training has been taken up not only by a small number of elite athletes but also by an extremely large number of exercise lovers, I have felt a sense of responsibility to provide scientific evidence as to whether this training is beneficial or hazardous.

This book is a compilation of evidence that I have collected to date. That includes evidence not only of the effects of Tabata training on the performance of athletes ranging from elite to school level but also of the possible effects of health promotion among the general public by preventing lifestyle-related diseases. Further, I recognize that in addition to such applied physiological research, Tabata-style training conducted with rats can be used as a tool for finding cellular signals induced by exercise and elucidating molecular mechanism(s) regarding their effects on cell metabolism and expression of proteins with physiological functions. I think there will always be a need for more data on the effects of Tabata training on various aspects of the human body.

It is my great pleasure to share such data, in addition to the history of Tabata training, which I love to present to young scientist and coaches. I hope they invent even better trainings in collaboration with researchers and coaches with scientific backgrounds at the field (rink) side, just like my own experience with the coach of Olympic medal-winning speed skaters, Mr. Kouichi Irisawa. May they win medals at many future games!

Reference

Umminger, 2000 Umminger W. Überarbeitete und ergänzte Ausgabe der Chronik des Sports, 5000 Jahre Sportgeschichte. München, Germany: Alinea Verlag; 2000.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Abstract

In recent years, in addition to moderate-intensity prolonged exercise training, highly motivated athletes and people who enjoy exercise for health promotion have been using high-intensity intermittent/interval training (HIIT). Kenney et al. (2019) attributed this revival of interest in HIIT between the 1970s and 2000s to appearance of Tabata training articles published in 1996 and 1997 (Tabata et al., 1996, 1997).

This is the first scientific book written exclusively on Tabata training by an author who has been studying the training named after him. This chapter introduces the book’s contents, including chapters on the scientific basis for the superiority of the Tabata training (Chapter 2), history of Tabata training (Chapter 3), later scientific evidence (Chapter 4), and an epilogue that looks to the future (Chapter 5).

Keywords

Tabata training; High-intensity intermittent/interval training (HIIT)

Introduction

Maximal aerobic power, measured as maximal oxygen uptake (V̇o2max), is closely related to both sports performance and prevention of lifestyle-related diseases. Moderate-intensity prolonged exercise training has been used to improve athletic performance and promote health. In recent years, in addition to this conventional training, so-called aerobic training, high-intensity intermittent/interval training (HIIT) has been utilized by highly motivated athletes and people who enjoy exercise for health promotion.

HIIT itself is not new. In the 1930s, Dr. Gösta Holmér introduced HIIT as the Fartlek training. A bit later, Dr. Woldemar Gershler trained Rudolf Harbig, who set the world record for the 800-m race in 1939 in Milan, using HIITs. HIIT, also known as interval training, was made more popular in that era by the late Czech runner Emil Zátopek, who won gold medals in the 5000 and 10,000-m races, as well as the marathon at the Summer Olympics in Helsinki in 1952. More recently, Lord Sebastian Coe, who medaled in the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, was trained by his father using HIIT (Coe, 2013).

I believe that the revival of interest in HIIT was triggered by our publications (Kenney et al., 2019). If you Google the Tabata protocol, Tabata method, or Tabata training, you will get more than 600,000 hits. These were all named after me by an unknown person who read our scientific papers published in 1996 and 1997 (Tabata et al., 1996, 1997). The number of entries reflects the increasing public interest in Tabata training, a form of HIIT.

In terms of protocol, the original or authentic Tabata training is defined as an exhausting, short, intermittent bicycle exercise training consisting of 6 to 7 sets of 20-s cycling at an intensity of 170% V̇o2max with a 10-s rest between bouts. In terms of metabolic profile, Tabata training was found to stress both the aerobic and anaerobic energy-releasing systems maximally, resulting in maximal effects on the two systems as shown by a robust increase in both V̇o2max and maximal accumulated oxygen deficit (MAOD). In addition to the evidence of the success of Japanese speed skaters who routinely used the Tabata training, the scientifically proven unique features of the training allow athletes who adopt it to feel the improvement themselves, resulting in further use of Tabata training in their routines. I consider that this trend might extend to exercise enthusiasts and, finally, to all health-oriented people. It was not my idea to name this training the Tabata training. Some unknown people who read our papers and introduced the training decided to call it the Tabata protocol or Tabata training. Since this training was originally designed by Mr. Koichi Irisawa, it might have been more appropriate to call it the Irisawa protocol.

Experimental data for the two papers were collected in 1988–89 at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Kanoya (NIFSK, Kanoya, Kagoshima, Japan). The reason that I started to study Tabata training is explained here in Chapter 3.

After a sabbatical a St. Louis in 1990–91, I moved to the National Institute of Health and Nutrition (Tokyo, Japan). Their mission is to provide nonmedical tools, such as exercise, physical activity, and nutrition (Ishikawa-Takata and Tabata, 2007; Tabata, 2006a,b), to prevent noncommunicable diseases. I therefore did not have a chance to study exercise as a tool to improve sports performance. Thus, the Tabata training/protocol was disseminated by scientists who read my papers and wrote articles on Tabata, or perhaps by journalists and others who read the articles and passed the general idea on to friends without a true grasp of the original concept of Tabata training.

Recently, some concerns about Tabata training have been raised in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise (Gentil et al., 2016), a leading peer-reviewed journal of our community. In response, using unpublished data I collected at Ritsumeikan University (2000–2021), I decided to write this book in order to return to the original concept. Hopefully, readers will find this book useful should they decide to attempt their own Tabata training in future.

In 2019, I wrote a review paper (Tabata, 2019) that attracted the attention of many readers in this field. I guess one reason for this global attention might be that the review, Tabata training: One of the most energetically effective high-intensity intermittent training methods, was written by the scientist who first studied the specific training named after him after a long period of silence.

Before publishing this book, I published three books for exercisers in Japanese in 2015, 2019, and 2020. The first book was translated into Taiwanese, Korean, and Chinese. The second was being translated into Russian. More than 40,000 copies of the first Japanese version of the Tabata training were sold. One day in August 2015, the book was ranked seventh in Amazon Japan among all categories!

This represents the first book for scientists. The contents provide more evidence than the previously mentioned review. I hope this book, written in English for researchers and instructors, will be welcomed in the English reading world, including not only academic but also athletic and sports enthusiast communities.

This book contains chapters on the scientific basis for the superiority of the Tabata training (Chapter 2), history of Tabata training (Chapter 3), later scientific evidence (Chapter 4), and an epilogue (Chapter 5). Chapter 2 describes the theory of basic human metabolism consisting of aerobic and anaerobic energy-releasing systems with a detailed introduction of the concepts of V̇o2max and MAOD, and the historical development of the two measures. I highlight the science behind MAOD, which Fox, who studied HIIT extensively in terms of V̇o2max in the 1970s (Fox, 1984), did not consider.

Chapter 3 describes the historical events leading up to the publication of the two original Tabata papers (Tabata et al., 1996, 1997). It may interest readers to learn how the Tabata training, originally designed by a coach, was broadcast to the public after communication with and help from many other researchers around the world.

Chapter 4 is a summary of studies related to Tabata training, collected at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports (Kanoya), National Institute of Health and Nutrition (NIHN), and Ritsumeikan University Japan. The findings collected from animal experiments at NIHN highlighted HIIT as a tool to study exercise-induced cellular signals that enhance transcription-regulated expression of proteins that have physiological function. These include glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4), which is a rate-limiting step of glucose metabolism in skeletal muscle, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ coactivator-1 (PGC1α), which stimulates many of the exercise-induced proteins.

In 2000 (Goto et al., 2000), we first reported an increase in the mRNA of PGC1α, which is regarded as a master key of exercise-induced adaptations in skeletal muscle for several cellular functions. In a latter section of this chapter, I introduce unpublished material collected at Ritsumeikan University. Since they involve descriptive and practical studies, they have not been published in journals. However, they contain specific evidence strictly related to the authentic Tabata training and Tabata-style trainings derived from the original. Over the past 20 years, many types of training have been developed from the authentic Tabata training, and as I considered various effects claimed for them might or might not be true, I felt that I should study and collect evidence on trainings that bore my name.

Chapter 5 was written to suggest future research approaches to further improve the Tabata training and invent better training based on scientific evidence. I believe that once readers learn about and understand the theory of Tabata training practices, they will feel confident in designing their own original Tabata or Tabata-style trainings and using them in their exercise