Kickbike Tabata : visit Utopia

 Izumi Tabata

 If you Google "Kickbike Tabata" you'll get this blog wall to wall. I guess I occupy a training niche.

Ironically I've never done Tabata style exertions on a kickbike and I was thinking that maybe my one option while on board would be to simply add a few interval sprints to my scoots. Say, 500 metres  to one  kilometre in length.

But my Tabata sweats on the kettlebells have caused my tummy navel based hernia to pop up  and that presented a complication I hadn't planned on. It will pop back in soon enough but I don't want to give it a further shove.

So lifting is deferred for the time being as I searched for low-stress-on -the -abdomen work outs.

Thus: kickbiking tabata.

There are a few plusses with kickbike mounted Tabata.

1. The scoot out is a warm up. You can scoot for as long as you want to heat up the old bod until you get to a road you want to burn rubber on.
2. Select a road that's straight and low on or without traffic. No potholes but smooth asphalt. Lose concentration (and you will as your tire) and you could come a cropper at speed if other wild card factors are in the mix.
3. Plug the mp3 player into your ear and switch to  your preferred Tabata music. Music is essential I reckon.It's the auto pilot coach in your head.
4. Obey the 20:10 seconds protocol (or newbie version of 10 or 15 : 20 or 15 --see below) for 8 interval sprints.
5. Die.
6. Scoot home. 

You know you are doing right if you do die. That's the zone to aspire to: Purgatory. But you get to visit Physiological Utopia with the whole body. No system gets to  slouch.

I wonder if I can integrate this Tabata into a longer scoot: whether that's worthwhile or ill advised? Cyclists interval train as a standard but the sprints are a much longer distance.  In the gym, the exercise bike is used to the same ends. 

Kickbiking you don't have a free hand to check your pulse. (Maybe a heart rate monitor is in order for moi to be on the safe side?)

But I do so much look forward to these sessions because I know they will be over and done with sooner rather than later. And like a fond memory they will live with me for 'acoupla days'. The anguish just before the first burst takes me back to them ole shine school days 'on the  blocks' waiting for the starter's gun.

I used to run middle distance track. I wasn't much good but loved the business of training. I'd run for long distances along this coastline of Port Philip Bay  and for titillation used the steep paths climbing from the beach to the ridge top as excuses to sprint -- you know, sort of vertically. I thought I was doing my own version of a Percy Cerutty sand hill climb. Ironically I later nursed the great proponent of Interval Training, Franz Stampfl after the accident that sentenced him to quadriplegia. Cerutty and Stampfl were great rivals. But I've never done much in way of Interval being hooked on LSD -- Long Slow Distance.

And when you die -- soon enough -- you know you're alive. 

The Tabata Protocol

Experienced Exercisers
8 sets x 20 seconds work + 10 seconds rest
Beginners
8 sets x 10 seconds work + 20 seconds rest
Unfit Beginners
4 sets x 10 seconds work + 20 seconds rest
1 minute rest
4 sets x 10 seconds work + 20 seconds rest
Or
4 sets x 10 seconds work + 20 seconds rest

EastSide Strength Training:Tabata Coaching