Yeargghh

No, that wasn't the Dean Scream(TM). That was me after my workout this morning. I've been doing Tabata's for a while. I got them from Ross Enamait's book "The Underground Guide to Warrior Fitness." It's based on a study done in Japan that established high intensity interval training (HIIT, the other name for this kind of workout) as one of the best conditioning excercises available. The method is, pick a whole body type of excercise like sprinting, heavy bag, burpees, and do that excercise as hard as possible for 20 seconds. Then rest, full stop, for 10 seconds. Then start it up again. Keep this going for 4-8 minutes. Then, as somone I read once said "That thing that you're trying to wipe off your face... it's the floor." Problem is, timing this is a bear. Nyarl came over to our house once and laughed his butt off while the GeekWife & I ran through a set of these things, oh and timed us. Enter Gymboss
This handy little tool times excersice & rest periods that you can set yourself. It also counts rounds. I used mine today for the first time. The evil little device counted 20 seconds as slowly as it could and then raced through 10 lightening quick, over & over again, mercilessly. I loved it! I did sprints outside for four minutes, took a break & then worked the heavy bag for four. After the room stopped spinning I ran up here to type this out.
We're going to be using our Gymboss a lot over the next six weeks as we train GeekWife up for her black belt test and then I'll be using it once a week or so when I lead excercises in the dojo. No more trying to peer at the clock to see where the second hand is. Great product and really inexpensive.
Mr. Enamait's (should call him Sensei or Shihon or something horribly honorific) book is out of print, but it's been replaced with Never Gymless, which I intend to pick up soon.