If you’re grinding down to zero reps in a full tabata, you should cut the tabata short at 6 rounds (5 if absolutely necessary).

Gant Grimes recommends doing tabatas the hardcore way: go 100% effort from the beginning, for all 20 seconds. This means your reps are going to drop off rapidly, and you’ll be near zero when you get to round 5.

I haven’t been doing them that way recently, I’ve been pacing them, trying to equalize my number across sets so I can maximize my total reps completed.

I think Gant’s method has more merit than mine. I’m trying to get to a goal — to do 20 reps across all 8 rounds of a tabata push-ups, for a total of 160. (I’m almost there, I got 154 the other day.) After I get the 160, I’m going to use Gant’s method, which should be quite different and will probably get me better results.

The hypothesized merit of my current method — pacing and maximizing total — is that you maximize the total work you do. But Gant understands the benefit of power, of explosive work; and the tabata protocol is all about max effort, rest, max effort, rest, which is why I believe his interpretation is superior. (Most of CrossFit is using the pace & maximize total interpretation, however.)

Need to speed up the movements, be more explosive.

A little disappointing — took a while to squeeze out the last sets of sit-ups.