I just came across this polished-looking piece on Tabata Intervals titled Guerilla Cardio (PDF). The focus is on fat-burning, but also includes references to many of the training benefits of Tabatas. On the fat-burning front, there's this note:

To prevent overtraining, try to incorporate the program on your weight training "off days." For instance, I train with weights on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and perform my Guerrilla Cardio sessions on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, before I eat anything. (Studies show cardiovascular exercise performed first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach, burns up to three times more fat than the same amount of exercise performed later in the afternoon!)

Scientists are divided on this idea. Tom Venuto covers it well. Personally, the idea of tackling something as punishing as Tabata sprints upon waking, on an empty stomach, is unappealing, to say the least.

Speaking of sprints, they are the Tabata exercise of choice as outlined by Guerilla Cardio:

Now, while Guerrilla Cardio can be applied to all sorts of activities—the stationary bike, stairstepper, etc.—I would highly recommend you stick to sprinting for a couple of reasons . . .

First, all else being equal, sprinting elicits a significantly higher peak oxygen consumption (VO2 peak) than do other modes of cardiovascular exercise, according to researchers from the University of Missouri, Columbia, who recently compared treadmill sprinting to high-intensity exercise on a stationary skier, shuffle skier, stairstepper, stationary bike and rower. This is important because this new research shows the closer you come to your VO2 peak while exercising, the more fat you'll burn once that exercise session is over.

Second, sprinting is tough. In fact, it's so tough, many people actually fear doing it, which is exactly why I recommend it. (Remember, if you move away from what you fear, you get weaker. But, when you move toward what you fear, you get stronger!)

Leaving the focus on fat loss aside, and having applied quite a few different exercises to the Tabata protocol, there's no question in my mind that sprinting is the toughest, lung-wise, and by a wide margin, in many cases.

(Burpees are the closest contender, and while I personally feel like they take the title for whole-body muscle fatigue, lactic burn from head-to-toe, etc., I don't think they hit the lungs quite as hard as sprints. But that may be because my burpee technique limits my repetition ceiling, whereas sprints don't have a comparable personal limitation.)

HealthHacks on the recent "discrediting" of the Glycemic Index. That's the post I would have written. The distinction between the Glycemic Index and the Glycemic Load in particular. Nice. I'm not a GI zealot, but I do keep in in the back of my mind when I'm picking what to eat.

Knock code technology rolls out, open thousands of locked doors by knocking "shave and a haircut." :-)

I prefer to workout at home, but man, Sacramento Pipeworks looks like a fun gym. Click the links to load different pictures on that page.

My favorite Olympic story so far. I love how the guy really doesn't understand what all the fuss is about.

I bet this bit of Internet flotsam has been around for awhile, but it still makes me want to go out and buy a pile of marbles. If you feel so moved as well, you can always go for the big box o' pee-wees for $29.

I was interested to read this bit from Skwigg on NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis). It's basically the calories you burn from fidgeting. Squirrelly people burn more than we relaxed folks.

This got me thinking about a crackpot idea I've been mulling over: the concept of micro-workouts. I recently read that you don't have to get your exercise all in one big chunk, you can break it up over the course of the day. So six 10-minute sessions is as good as an hour straight (I'm not advocating long cardio work, but some folks dig it). What I wonder is, how small can the workouts get and still be effective? If I take a two-minute break every fifteen minutes during the workday and crank out a semi-quick 500m on the rower (I work at home), is that as good as rowing for an hour (32 2-minute sessions)?

I doubt it does anything for my strength, or even much for my conditioning, but what about my metabolism? Tying this back to the NEAT ideas, I imagine that kind of work would count as some serious fidgeting. Just some half-baked thoughts late on Monday evening...

A few of the sites I frequent seem to be down on stability ball training and other forms of unstable surface training. Mostly it's shrugged off as "not functional" or "you get all the balance training you need just living." Personally, I find it useful, but I'm not a slave to it (or any other training modality). With that in mind, I was interested to read Art De Vany's take on Paul Chek ("simply put, he is among the best"), and in particular, this bit:

The idea is to work out on an unsteady surface to train your balance. But, the more important point (which I think you may find only Chek among trainers points out clearly) is to trigger unsteady states wherein the dorsal horn must quickly activate a response. The dorsal horn is down near the end of the spine and it is responsible for the extremely quick corrections that do not have time to go up the spinal cord to the brain and back down in time to make the correction. This tends to over ride learned, disfunctional neural patterns that come from protecting the lower spine from past injuries or poor patterns.

I know pretty much jack about Chek, and had never heard of the dorsal horn before (even now it sounds vaguely like the "five dollar shelf stretcher" the grocery store manager from my youth used to send new stockboys to the storeroom to find when they couldn't find room on the shelves on freight day) but having suffered back injuries in the past, I know it can happen in an instant on one off step, far quicker than your brain could ever brace for intentionally, so the notion of training the right corrective reflexes rings true to me.

43 Folders (a popular personal productivity site) has an open question up, asking readers what their favorite fitness sites are. Out of curiosity (and since some nice reader gave L&HF a mention) I culled through the responses. In addition to a couple nods to favorites Crossfit and Ross Enamait, there were these:

• The Shovelglove guy is quite funny, and really makes some good sense, once you get past the fundamental wackiness of the concept of using a sledge indoors. I'm more a "go outside and beat the hell out of a tire with it" kind of guy, but is that any less wacky, really? He also has a "No S Diet" plan, one of the few diets that doesn't automatically set my Klaxon sounding.
• Stumptious Women's Weight Training and associated blog has some good stuff, and plenty applicable to both sides of the gender tracks.
• Three more blogs I've subscribed to: SideDish, Starling Fitness, and HealthHacks. We'll see how much of interest they bring to my aggregator (there's enough there currently to get me to subscribe, so that's good).

Oh man, I want some eyeglasses made of this stuff. For some reason the video only worked for me when I saved it locally first (it stopped after 1 second when viewed in the browser).

Ross Enamait just posted the 13th edition of The Warrior Wire. Summary:

• Link to his new training video. Did I mention the grip-switching pull-ups last time I linked to it?
• Equipment notes on homemade rollout wheels, exercise mats (I've used that Home Depot anti-fatigue mat, it's good stuff), and rope suppliers.
• The "No Excuses" workout (looks like 10 minutes of hell).
• A pointer to the book of the same title by Kyle Maynard, illustrating that there really are no excuses (along those lines I'd also recommend the documentary Murderball).

Enjoy!

An unusual and interesting read, even if I'm not into martial arts myself: "Exercising with the Master". The homemade equipment piques my interest, of course. That pulley/tree stump contraption has me particularly curious. I might have to add it to my "stuff to try" list, although probably with a bar rather than a tree stump (and only if I can find a cheap pulley, which I kinda doubt). I already have the swing hangers screwed into joists in my basement for my rings, so this should just be a question of hanging something different from them. Between wanting contractor bags for my sandbag, PVC for parallettes, and this, a Home Depot trip might be in order...