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Jeremy Singh

The hardest 7 minutes of your week

Welcome to the GO FOR A RUN, the newsletter that sometimes asks you to run as hard as you f#cking can.

I will sing the praises of slow running for the rest of my life.

It’s the best way to avoid injury and run farther than you thought possible.

But sometimes you gotta run harder if you want to keep progressing.

There is so much value in high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

  • Improve your form
  • Improve your VO2 max
  • Burn a shit ton of calories
  • Test (and improve) the limits of your body and mind

Usually you only need 1 session per week. I like to do my interval session down at the track.

There are a million ways you can do intervals…

Playing with the time or distance, effort level, rest period or number of reps.

But let me tell you about a quick one that’s hard as hell but also super fun.

The Sugarcane.

It’s really simple. Just 3 rounds and about 7 minutes of total time at the higher effort.

First, choose a mode of exercise that you can do hard, like really hard, without risking hurting yourself.

For me, that’s sprinting, but if you think that could cause an injury do something else that feels safer. The stationary bike or row machine are great options.

Here’s what you do:

  1. Warm up with easy effort for 15-20 minutes.
  2. Round 1: Go as far as you can for 2 minutes (record the distance).
  3. Rest for 2 minutes.
  4. Round 2: Go the same distance as Round 1 as fast as you can (record the time). If you’re doing this right, Round 2 should take a little longer than Round 1 as you only get 2 minutes of rest between rounds.
  5. Rest for 2 minutes.
  6. Round 3: Go as far as you can for the same amount of time you did in Round 2.
  7. Cool down for 15-20 minutes and you’re done.

What’s great about this Sugarcane interval session is it’s gamified.

You against you.

In Round 3 you want to try to go the same distance as Round 1.

See if you can beat your distance.

That’s it. So the next time you head for your hard effort interval sessions try the Sugarcane and let me know how it goes.

Jeremy “Sugarcane” Singh