Has anyone here ever head of something called the "Tabata Protocol"? No, it's not a spy novel, it's specific type of workout. I had never heard of it before and then I came across it in a magazine a while back. Suddenly, I've seen it in 4 or 5 different places. It's not "new" really (I'm sure runners have been doing such a thing for as long as they have been competing) but I've never seen it formalized quite this way.
The idea is simple: After a decent warmup, you perform repetitions consisting of 20 seconds flat out, as hard as you can possibly go followed by 10 seconds of rest. After 6 or 7 (or 8) of these, you are done. So the entire workout takes only a few minutes.
What has caught my interest is the idea that such a workout is a great boon to endurance athletes. The claims of gains both aerobically and anaerobically are quite bold. I generally flat-out disbelieve such claims as they are usually just material for trendy workout magazines. But the workout DOES remind me of some of the very short hill reps that I seem to recall Renato describing on that massive thread of his. And it was developed for Olympic caliber athletes.
Anyone here tried something like this with any regularity? I would be interested in hearing your experiences. Did it have a noticeable benefit on your longer races?
Just curious.