Interval training to burn fat

Have been enjoying Matt's recent entry into the "my first tri" blogging world (he just did his first brick, congrats!), and he found an interesting workout style, called the "Tabata Intervals." In Matt's words:

Dr. Tabata discovered that fat-burning was more evident in a hard-core workout session for 4 minutes as opposed to an hour of steady-rate cardio. After a quick Google search of Tabata, I discovered that it has become the go-to exercise for weight-loss. Basically, a Tabata Interval can be done with weights or without.
A Tabata Thruster is where you hold two light dumbbells (max 15lbs) at your shoulders, you squat down, rise up and lift the dumbbells over your head. You do as many reps as you can for 20 seconds, break for 10 seconds, and then repeat 7 more times. Apparently this workout absolutely kills people. Here is an extreme example of the Tabata Thrusters, but it will show you how it's done:

Read the rest of Matt's post to find out about cardio-based Tabata Interval workouts. While intervals can help melt the pounds more quickly, it's still the long slow miles than increase my aerobic capacity overall. I think my cardio improvement is what's impressed me most in my ten weeks of training. Of course, now weighing 185 pounds (I lost six pounds this week while suffering the flu) is nothing to laugh at, either. Especially since I started this whole thing last summer weighing in at 220 pounds.

Thanks for digging the interval info up, Matt. Keep up the great work!