5 Best Tabata Workout Timers

Tabata is all about high intensity exercises with short rest periods. Not only is this extremely effective for burning fat and losing weight, but it’s great for aerobic conditioning as well– and it can all be done in a very short amount of time! With Tabata, you don’t need to spend hours at the gym to get amazing results.

Why Time Your Intervals During A Tabata Workout?

With any high intensity interval training (HIIT) such as a Tabata program, it’s very important to make sure you’re properly timing your exercise times, your rest time, and your overall workout time. By keeping track of these times, you guarantee a few things–

You standardize each workout
Everyone loves making progress in their workout routine. We all know the “mirror test”– how you look in the mirror. And it’s easy to track your body weight. One thing that does have a huge impact on your ability to maintain your workout routine is how easy or hard your workout routine feels– nothing is more demotivating than hitting the gym consistently for weeks and feeling like all the exercises are just as difficult. But there are many factors for why that could be the case, and one of the main ones is that each workout is very different.

With Tabata, the only real variables you can adjust are reps, sets, work time and rest time– it’s very easy to track reps and sets, but not so easy to track the time unless you have the right tools. When you do have the right tools such as timers and watches, you can standardize each workout to get a better sense of your progress and have more control of tweaking the variables to get the best results possible.

You have the proper work-to-rest ratio
The original Tabata Protocol calls for a 2:1 work-to-rest ratio, meaning that for every 30 seconds of an exercise you perform, you have a 15 second break in between sets. But the work-to-rest ratio can be tweaked depending on your fitness goals. Therefore, tracking this ratio is very important– it will determine how easy or difficult a routine is, if you’re burning fat or building muscle, if you’re building aerobic or anaerobic endurance, etc. All this is much easier with the proper timing equipment.

You can progressively make workouts harder over time
Tabata perfect for everyone, from people just starting out their fitness journey, to elite athletes. But regardless of your fitness level at which you start your Tabata routine, everyone wants to get better and has goals to attain. The only way to do that is to make sure you’re progressively making your workout routine harder and harder. With the right tools, you’ll be able to manage that work-to-rest ratio, improve your fitness level and reach your fitness goals faster.

Here Are Our Five Favorite Tabata Workout Timers

It really comes down to personal preference on which sort of timing equipment you want to use, but it’s important to make sure that the watch or timer you use has not only a stopwatch feature, but an interval feature. Sure, you can make do with a simple stopwatch feature, but with a watch or timer that has an interval timing feature, you can set it and forget it and not have to worry about fussing with it in the middle of your workout.

With that being said, here are our five favorite stopwatches and timers to use for your Tabata workouts–

Gymboss Interval Timer and Stopwatch

This is easily our favorite Tabata interval timer– or any interval timer for that matter — for two reasons. First, it has the ability to have one or two intervals and it has an autoplay feature, so you can highly customize your work and rest periods as well as let it cycle through over and over, so it’s completely hands off. Second, it’s small enough to clip on to your clothes if you need it on you, but it’s big enough to keep it in front of you and still be able to see and hear it. At this price, you can’t go wrong, and that amazing Amazon rating doesn’t lie!

ACCUSPLIT Pro Survivor – A601X Stopwatch

For people that prefer a more hand-on approach to timing, or for teachers who prefer to have a stopwatch in their hand, this is the go-to stopwatch. Durable, sleek, affordable and wildly accurate and responsive, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Everlast Interval Training Round Timer

This interval timer is very similar to the Gymboss, with a few differences– it’s bulker, it has more attachment options, but it’s face is more fragile and it’s a bit more difficult to use as it’s not too intuitive. With that being said, the options this gives you — arm band, belt clip, magnetic back, etc — gives you a ton of flexibility on how you use it. As far as functionality, it does have two-interval timing as well as a stopwatch function.

GoFit Go Timer Interval Training Timer

The GoFit Interval Timer is a no-frills interval timer. You cannot customize your intervals as it has preset times you must use, but because of that it’s simple and easy to use. As with most interval timers, it has a vibration timer, so you can literally feel the beginning and ends of intervals if you’re wearing the timer.

Apple Watch with Black Sport Band

While not a native interval timer, the Apple Watch gives you the flexibility to use the most appropriate app for your workout, so in a sense this is the most flexible option you have. Plus this version comes with a sport wrist band so you don’t have to worry about sweat– it’s built for a workout! Check out the app store for your options, but we love Intervals and Timers.

Manage your workouts properly with any of these timers, keep yourself accountable and attain your fitness goals!