Mobile App
Seconds Interval Timer
The full Seconds experience — on iPhone, Apple Watch, and Android.
Tabata structure for multiple exercises — finish each one before moving on.
2 exercises × 3 rounds, 0:20 work / 0:10 break. The timer flows automatically from start to finish.
The original protocol — 8 rounds of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. Four minutes.
Two movements stacked back-to-back. Eight rounds of each, with a one-minute reset between blocks.
Full-body sweat. Four movements, eight rounds each, one-minute reset between blocks. Brutal but balanced.
The CrossFit benchmark — five back-to-back Tabatas: Row, Squat, Pull-Up, Push-Up, Sit-Up. Eight rounds of 20/10 each, a one-minute rotation between movements.
Tabata training is named after Dr. Izumi Tabata, who in 1996 put a drill borrowed from the Japanese national speed-skating team under laboratory conditions: 20 seconds of work at roughly 170% of VO2 max, 10 seconds of rest, repeated for seven to eight exhaustive bouts on a stationary bike. After six weeks, his subjects had raised their VO2 max by 7 ml/kg/min and their anaerobic capacity by 28%.
The comparison group rode for an hour a day at steady moderate intensity. They improved their aerobic fitness too — but their anaerobic capacity did not move at all. Four minutes of all-out intervals had trained both energy systems at once; sixty minutes of steady cardio had trained only one.
The 2:1 work-to-rest ratio is the engine of the protocol. Ten seconds is long enough to keep your output honest on the next interval, but far too short to actually recover — so every round starts deeper in oxygen debt than the last. By the final rounds you are working flat-out while severely short of oxygen, which is precisely the state that forces both the aerobic and anaerobic systems to adapt.
That is also why the rest matters as much as the work. Stretch the 10 seconds to 30 and you have a different (easier) workout: each round starts fresher, and the cumulative oxygen deficit that defines Tabata never builds.
Every Tabata is HIIT, but very little of what gets labeled Tabata is the real protocol. The name is often applied to any workout on a 20:10 clock, at any effort level. That is still useful interval training — but the famous result came from genuinely maximal efforts, the kind you cannot sustain past four minutes. If you can talk during the work intervals, you are doing 20:10 intervals, not Tabata.
Longer formats — 40:20 rounds, EMOMs, circuit stations — trade that peak intensity for volume and variety. They have their place; this timer family is for the short, sharp end of the spectrum.
Tabata fits when time is the constraint and intensity is not: a standalone conditioning session in a lunch break, a finisher after strength work, or stacked blocks with a reset between them for a longer workout. Pick simple movements you can perform fast and safely when tired — burpees, air squats, bike or rowing sprints — rather than heavy or technical lifts.
The presets above run from the single-movement classic to a four-block, full-body session. Start one as-is, or open it in the editor to change the movements, rounds, and rest to match your level.
Fixed work/rest intervals, repeated for a set number of rounds.
Rotate through named exercises with optional breaks. Stations of any duration.
Simple timed rounds with breaks. Boxing, MMA, sparring.
Build any interval sequence from scratch, one by one.
Stack other timers into a multi-block session, cycled as a whole.
The full Seconds experience — on iPhone, Apple Watch, and Android.