[bennyb]

Some of you may have done workouts using a deck of cards in the past using various exercises but mainly Pushups, Squats, Situps and the likes. It's one of my favorite routines for getting a great and intense workout. Lately for the past several days I have taken a different approach to the cards by doing Animal Movements to make it a little more interesting. 2 Upper Body Animal Movements and 2 Lower Body movements.

Here's how I do the deck to really kick things up a notch....

King, Queen, Jack are 20 Reps

Aces are 22 Reps

Jokers are 100 Bear Crawls

2-10 are doubled

This comes out to nearly 1000 total reps of movement. My goal is to consistently keep it under 25 min to complete. It's a lot of fun. One deck I have has 3 Jokers so it comes out just over 1000 reps for a full deck.

The animals I use are Bear Crawls, Crab Walks, a Primate movement and Duck Walks.

[John Peterson]

Hello Benny B,


One of the very best features to your deck of cards workout is that it makes every workout a new adventure by never doing the same set and rep schedule from workout to workout. You can obviously switch up exercies from workout to workout or choose to do an all "Upper Body" Deck of Cards Workout on Monday followed by a "Core" Deck of Cards Workout on Tuesday and A "Lower Body" Workout On Wednesday.

The options and combinations are virtually limitless and I cannot think of a better way mix it up from day to day so that body is continually challenged to create new adaptation. Some people call this 'muscle confusion' but I don't because the muscles are engaged by the mind and the best way to create challenges that are both fun and rewarding is to do exactly what you suggest here. The muscles aren't confused at all they are waiting for the master to give orders and in my opinion what you have described is a masterful way to train.



---John Peterson