I Tried the Sugar Cane Workout and Now I Understand Why No One Does It

I’m starting to wonder if I’m the only person on the planet who has actually tried the Sugar Cane workout. You can read and hear about it anywhere: Andrew Huberman’s podcast has made him famous online, there are tons of blogs describing this protocol, and you can’t scroll long on fitness tiktok without coming across a clip of Huberman promoting it. But unlike other trendy workouts like the Norwegian 4×4 or 12-3-30 , I couldn’t find many people who would say they actually did the Sugar Cane workout, much less enjoyed it or saw results . So I had to try it for myself.

What is the Sugar Cane (or Sugar Cane) workout?

The Sugar Cane workout is a series of intervals described by Andy Galpin (on Huberman’s podcast). He says he learned it from trainer Kenny Kane, leading Huberman to call the workout “Sugar Cane” (Sugar Kane?). Here’s a video of Galpin initially describing the workout .

The Sugarcane workout is sometimes called a HIIT workout or a VO2max workout, but Galpin doesn’t use either of those terms. However, this is an interval workout with short segments that you perform at high intensity, with rest in between.

Galpin says this can be done with intervals of any length, but only gives an example of how to do it with two-minute intervals. It looks like this workout hasn’t been published anywhere, so all we really need is a short clip from the interview. Here’s how he describes it in the podcast:

• Round 1 : Run (or bike, row, etc.) as far as you can for two minutes. Pay attention to the distance you have covered.

• Rest two minutes

• Round 2 : Run (or bike, row, etc.) the same distance as Round 1. Expect this to take a little longer than Round 1.

• Rest two minutes

• Round 3 : Run (or bike, row, etc.) the same amount as round two. Aim to beat the initial distance set in the first round.

So if you covered 400 meters (one lap of the treadmill) in the first round, it might take you 2:05 to cover the same distance in the second round. You will then need to run 2:05 in the third round, aiming for 401 meters or more.

How did it go when I tried it

I decided to do it on foot, running on a flat gravel path. Should be pretty simple, right? Just a nice evening of interval running. Oops, I ran into a few problems.

There is no easy way to program it into the app or watch.

My first problem was that there was no easy way to program a workout on my phone or watch. In the Garmin Connect app, I can create intervals based on time or distance, so the first two-minute round should be fairly easy. But I can’t program the second interval as being distance based unless I know the distance in advance. And I can’t program the third interval as time-based either, since I don’t know the time in advance!

This workout may be easier to do with a 1980s-style wristwatch, but no matter how you do it, you’ll need to record the time and distance for each interval as you do it—by pressing the watch, for example. circle button, while simultaneously noting which tree you are running past. I’m not sure if I’ll have that many brain cells left over through hard work, but I’m sure someone has done it.

So I programmed it into Garmin anyway. I set the first interval to 2 minutes, each recovery to 2 minutes, and the other two work intervals to “until the circle button is pressed.” I also created a data screen that could show me the previous lap time and distance next to the current lap time and distance. I have everything ready. Let’s go!

A lot of fuss at three very similar intervals

It occurred to me that it was quite possible to fail this workout and not get the desired stimulus. Galpin says that “if you relax, the next round will be harder,” but that doesn’t seem to be the case—more on that below. I decided that I was not going to relax. I will do my best to run each interval at near maximum effort. Here are my splits:

• Round 1, two minutes: 0.27 miles.

• Round 2, 0.27 miles: 2:06 minutes.

• Round 3, 2:06: …I’m not entirely sure. I tried to stop the clock at 2:06, but I actually stopped it at 2:07. However, I reached my goal of 0.27 miles. It is about 434 meters.

I give myself an A for pacing. For comparison, Galpin said in his example that if you run 400 meters in the first round, you could do the same 400 meters in 2:05 or 2:10, and in the third round you try to aim for 405 or 410. My watch doesn’t there are 5 or 10 meter intervals, so I did the best I could under the circumstances.

For God’s sake, just do normal intervals

I finished this workout wondering: what’s the point ? I could get almost the same stimulus from a traditional runner’s workout with time- or distance-based intervals at a set pace or target heart rate.

For example, I might set myself a “3×400 interval pace,” where “interval pace” means a pace that feels hard for the distance but still allows me to run all the intervals in about the same amount of time. Not only do runners do this all the time (no need to reinvent the wheel), you can even use a vdot calculator like this to tell you exactly what pace to aim for. I entered my last race time and the calculator gave me a goal of 2:04 for the 400m intervals. This is almost the same as my average pace for three Sugar Cane intervals. Why didn’t I just do this ?

Another way to create intervals is to make them time-based. Two minutes of hard work, two minutes of recovery, repeat. If you use the watch for running, you can also select your target pace here. In my case, my two-minute interval pace would be almost identical to my 400-meter pace. If you run faster or slower it will be a little different for you, but you can either count to determine your goal or just go by effort or heart rate. My heart rate during these intervals averaged almost exactly 85% of maximum, if that gives you any idea of ​​what to aim for.

This conventional approach also teaches you to practice pacing: instead of crashing and burning in the first interval because you’re trying to go at “max effort” (and then much slower in subsequent intervals), you run through the first interval knowing that what you you will have to repeat this three, four or seven more times with a two-minute rest.

How’s the Sugar Cane workout going?

This is where confusion arises. In the interview, after the Sugar Cane workout is described and named, Huberman asks Halpin how to promote the workouts he was talking about. Galpin describes adding extra work or extra rounds, but his answer clearly doesn’t apply to the Sugar Cane workout. He talks about published research (as far as I can find out, the Sugar Cane workout has not been formally studied) and talks about using a 2:1 rest to work ratio (the Sugar Cane workout described uses a 1:1 ratio).

The Sugar Cane Workout is described as a one-off, fun little game that you can play with yourself while you work out. This is not a workout that is research-backed or that you have to do a certain number of times per week (like, say, the Norwegian 4×4 ). It does not have a built-in development scheme. It also seems to fall apart quite easily if you don’t force yourself to work every round.

On the other hand, if you do regular running intervals (400, 600, or two-minute intervals), it’s easy to progress. Just add a round each time you do the workout until you’ve done about 8 at a time. At this point, you can switch to a different workout (say, 800 instead of 400, or hill reps instead of intervals) depending on your training goals.

How often should I do the Sugar Cane workout?

Galpin doesn’t say. Huberman suggests doing this every two to four weeks because it’s so intense. This doesn’t make much sense: three two-minute intervals, even if you run the first one as hard as you can, won’t take you weeks to recover from.

In a more traditional running or cardio program, you’ll do these intervals once or twice a week, but not always the same workout each time. For example, every Wednesday you might have a hard training day and alternate between interval training, tempo runs, and hill repeats.

If you really want to do the Sugar Cane workout—and I think you should, if only because I’ve done it and misery loves company—you can do it once a week. Or better yet, once in a lifetime and then move on to regular intervals.

How does the Sugar Cane workout help you work harder?

Here’s the thing. Actually this is not true. Galpin says that if you relax in any round you will make the next round harder, but I don’t see how that happens unless you’re trying to run as hard as you can every time, in which case you don’t relax. at all. For example, after walking 400 meters in the first round, you can simply walk 400 meters in the second round. It will probably take you five minutes. Then in the third round you’ll just have to go a little faster to cover 401 meters in five minutes. It’s not three hard intervals, it’s one hard interval and two leisurely walks.

Again, regular intervals are best for this. Give yourself three two-minute rounds of “run as hard as you can while leaving enough in the tank to do it again” and you’ll eliminate all the rules that reward you for sandbagging.

I think what bothers me most about this workout is that it assumes you need to gamify the workout to push yourself, but the rules of the game don’t require you to push. The only thing that keeps you honest is if you want to run three hard intervals, in which case you should just run three hard intervals.

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