Tabata training consists of eight rounds of ultra-high-intensity exercises in a specific 20-seconds-on, 10-seconds-off interval. It may only take four minutes to complete a Tabata circuit, but those four minutes may well push your body to the exhausting level. This training style originated from a 1996 study in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise authored by Izumi Tabata. The study found that intense, four-minute workouts done five days a week for six weeks improved VO2 max and anaerobic energy supply system. The shorter the workout, the more intense it will be. Nowadays, the Tabata method is often used in sessions lasting longer than four minutes, making those workouts Tabata adaptations.