The “Sugar Kane” Workout: Build Your VO2 Max | Dr. Andrew Huberman

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If you listen to the series with Dr. Andy Galpin, you may recall our discussion about the Sugar Kane, which is so named after our friend and expert trainer, Kenny Kane and it is a very efficient, yet somewhat brutal way to increase your cardiovascular output. So the Sugar Kane is the type of protocol that you would incorporate once in the period of a week, but certainly not every week.
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It’s the kind of thing that you might throw in once every two weeks or once every four weeks as a replacement for your other high intensity interval training. The Sugar Kane involves selecting some form of exercise that you can do at high intensity safely, and of course it will differ between individuals.
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For some of you, it will be a stationary bike.
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For others of you, it will be a road bike. For others of you, it’ll be running, and for others of you it will be rowing.
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The exact form of exercise is not important. What is important is that you can generate a lot of intensity, so you’re going to be doing some sprint like work, although not all out sprints, except on the final round. I’ll explain where all this is going in a moment. But again, you need to select a movement that you can do without injuring yourself while still performing a movement at high intensity. So for me, that would be running.
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For you, it might be something else.
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The Sugar Kane is pretty straightforward in structure.
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It involves three rounds after a brief warmup, of course. So you’re going to do three to five minutes of jogging or jumping jacks or skipping ropes, something to get your core body temperature up so that you’re prepared to do the high intensity work.
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And then there are only three rounds of high intensity work and they go as the following.
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In round one, you are going to take two minutes, so you’ll need to set a timer for two minutes, and you’re going to go the maximum distance that you can in that two minutes.
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So run the maximum distance that you can for two minutes or cycle the maximum distance that you can for two minutes or versa climber the maximum distance that you can for two minutes.
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Whatever you select, you’re going to do that as far and as fast as you can for the duration of two minutes. So depending on the movement and depending on your level of fitness, that distance might be 400 meters, 600 meters, 800 meters, et cetera.
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Whatever distance you travel in that two minutes, you are going to mark that distance down in your mind or in your phone or on a piece of paper.
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And then you’re going to rest two minutes. So two minutes of work, then rest two minutes.
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Then in round two, you’re going to go the same distance that you did in round one, and you’re going to take as much time as you need to do that distance as fast as you can.
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So if you went 600 meters in two minutes for round one, in round two, you’re going to go 600 meters and it’s going to take you however long it takes you.
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Chances are, if you really did the best you could in round one, you were at maximum output for the first two minutes, that in round two it’s going to take you longer than two minutes to travel that equivalent distance.
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However, there is the possibility that it will take you less time, but for most people, it’s going to take you more time. So staying with this example of 600 meters in two minutes on round one, in round two, you’re going to go 600 meters.
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Let’s say it takes you two minutes and 30 seconds.
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You then are going to mark down how long round two took you.
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So in this case, the example is two minutes and 30 seconds. Then you’re going to rest another two minutes, and then in round three you’re going to go all out again as fast and as safely as you can for the same duration that you did in round two.
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And your goal is to go at least as far as you went in round one.
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And if there’s still time left, you’re going to continue to go all out again as fast as you safely can until the entire duration is completed. So it’s really just three rounds with two rest periods in between round one and round three. And then I highly recommend that after round three that you do some sort of dedicated cool down.
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So instead of just flopping onto the bench or the floor or the lawn, that you walk around slowly until you recover your breathing.
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The reason I like the Sugar Kane as a tool that one implements once every say two to four weeks as a replacement for one’s typical high intensity interval training is several fold.
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First of all, if you provide the right intensity in round one and round two and round three, it is sure to elevate your heart rate substantially.
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And in doing so, improve your VO2 max, which is correlated with all sorts of important metrics related to healthspan, performance and lifespan. Second of all, it gamifies things a little bit. It pits you against yourself in the sense that if you go out at maximum speed, again, performing a movement that you can safely perform at maximum speed in round one, well then you have something to compete against in round two and round three.
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And that makes the high intensity interval training, first of all, very intense, but also it makes it kind of fun in a way that lets you forget just how painful the whole thing is. [MUSIC PLAYING]