Ab-Blasting Tabata Workout

Hi friends! When you think about it, working out is pretty freaking amazing, don’t you think?

I mean you do weird movements with your body for a while. Then your body rewards you with all kinds of amazing molecules that make you feel good along with some pretty great long-term side effects. I am in LOVE!

Okay, it doesn’t take a lot to make me happy at the moment. I’m coming out from a very low period of depression and suddenly doing stuff starts to make me feel good and I can feel joy again! It’s amazing, I tell you.

I don’t take any good moment for granted, I’m grateful for every second I get where I no longer feel held down by depression or anxiety. I’m still very fragile and it won’t take a lot to send me spiralling back, but I am continuously getting better at taking care of myself and saying no to things that are bad for me.

And I do stuff that makes me happy.

Like spending my day curled up in bed reading or working on my blog. Then spend my evening at the gym – which has become a really good habit for me (by now it’s starting to feel weird on the days I don’t get up and go the gym after dinner!).

My current workout program is an upper body/lower body split + a wonderful weekly wildcard workout. There’s a few too many w’s in that sentence.

The purpose of that workout is to have fun, add some variety, and it can work as a buffer for days where my body feel tired – in which case the workout will just be some yoga or foam rolling. On other days, it’s a chance to create an awesome and intense interval workout – which is what I did for the workout I’m about to share with you.

Tabata workouts

This workout consists of multiple Tabatas. Tabata is a form of interval training where you alternate between 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds (4 minutes in total). There will be 2 exercises in each Tabata that you will alternate between (Here’s another example of a Tabata workout).

All the exercises are mainly core or full body exercises. My normal workout plan doesn’t have a lot of core exercises as I think it quickly gets boring. Yet, when you combine them with the intensity of Tabata intervals it becomes more challenging and fun!

Workout Breakdown

Warm up

• ~10 min on a cardio machine (stationary bike)
• Foam rolling + dynamic stretching

Tabata 1

• Sit-up press up with a medicine ball
• Mountain climbers with inwards twist

Tabata 2

• Standing crunches with medicine ball
• Scissor legs

Tabata 3

• Forearm plank
• Seated crunch

Tabata 4

• Curtsy lunge + crunch with a medicine ball
• Russian twist with medicine ball

Running

• Interval running
  • Now, I haven’t gone running since I got mono back in August and I have a serious knee injury so you might not want to copy my intervals. I mean, even I can walk faster than I run – for now.
  • Something you could do instead is 15 minutes of alternating between running at a fairly high pace for 1 minute, then walking for 30 seconds.

Cool down

• Foam rolling
• Stretching

If you have any questions about how the exercises are done leave them in the comments and I’ll get back to you!

I hope you’ll have as much fun doing this workout as I did 🙂

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