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Many years ago, I remember reading about how Bo Jackson first started training to get the hard athletic body he had developed. If you do not remember Bo Jackson, he was one of the original two sport athletes. He played football and baseball at the highest levels and was quite successful at both.
In his training, he chose two exercises – push ups and squats. Red cards were push ups and black cards were squats. Whatever number he flipped was the number of repetitions he needed to do for that movement. All face cards equaled 15 in his workout. As you can imagine this was quite the routine, especially if you got a series of face cards all the same color in a row. While this is a great idea in theory, there are definitely some muscle overuse issues with this plan.
I decided to make some changes to the workout so it could be more appropriate for the masses. I also encourage you to do the same. If you have the opportunity to try a few cool ideas and they work for you, please be sure to write me at bobby.kelly@resultsonly.com and let me know your progress and ideas.
Take a regular deck of playing cards. Include the jokers if you want. (You will see why later)
The first thing is to systemize the deck.
Some people like to assign all the reds’ upper body and all the blacks’ lower body. I like to choose a different approach. It is a little more detailed but I believe it gives a better workout. But your workout is your own and you can change it as you wish.
Spades: Squats or walking lunges
Clubs : All core work crunches, alternate side crunches, or bridges
Hearts: Cardio – jump rope, jacks or up downs (aka burpees)
Diamonds: Push-ups or pull-ups (modified is OK)
* All face cards are 10 repetitions each
* All Aces are 11 repetitions
* 2,3,4′s are low for reps, so add a 1 in front of them to make them 12 ,13,14
* If you keep the joker in, make each joker a set of 20 mountain climbers
This workout takes about 30 minutes if you are in extremely good shape and no longer than 45 minutes to an hour if you are getting into shape. The workout is constantly changing and it is an awesome way to do conditioning, keep things new and get a full body workout!
Modifications:
* You can start by taking out the face cards to make it a smaller deck with lower numbers
* You can also change the moves to be a little easier
* You can also make every 5 and 6 a rest to give you a series of 50 and 60 second rests
* Do it with a partner and do every other card
* Take a break every 8 cards to ensure ample rest
* Make the face cards value change: Jacks-11, Queens-12, Kings-13, Aces-15
Your workout is never the same, and constantly engaging. You don’t have to put any thought into it because It is very simple to follow, and works your whole body.
Unless:
Sometimes the “God of Cards” will not shine favorably down upon you. You see every once in a while you will get 3 or 4 hearts in a row and you can get slammed. In the initial version, that wouldn’t be so bad because I let you alternate between movements. But if you only choose one exercise for each suit … well my friend, you are in for a long 30 minutes.
Another benefit is you always know where you stand in the workout because you can see the amount of cards left in the deck and you know you are getting closer to the finish line. You can literally see your workout ending. This is also a no excuses type of workout because it can be done anywhere. You can choose only body weight exercises. Or if you have an exercise tube or belong to a gym, then the sky’s the limit.
Now for today, I will give a short description of some of the lesser known exercises to keep things interesting. In future emails I am going to send you to a link to the coaching site that has a description, pictorial and video presentation of all the exercises listed.
Up/Downs (A.K.A. Burpees) – Start standing with your feet shoulder-width apart. Squat down and place the palms of your hands outside and slightly forward of your feet. Support your weight with your hands under your shoulders and thrust your feet backward, so that you are in the traditional “top position” for a standard pushup. To get back up, pull your feet up to your hands in one movement, and stand back up to the original position.
Mountain Climbers – Begin in a push-up position. Keep the head in line with the body and contract your abs. Start by bringing the right knee to the chest and back to your starting position then quickly alternate to the left leg and continue switching back and forth. Every time your right and left leg do a repetition, consider that one repetition.
These are two of the lesser known exercises for many of my readers. If you don’t know some of the other movements it is important to get proper guidance before starting any workout. One of the ways to do this would be to join www.resultsonlycoaching.com and you will have immediate access to videos, descriptions and monthly workouts just like the workout you read here today. Good luck and remember you will never play 52 card pick up the same way again after this workout.