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How to Create a Full-Body Deck of Cards Workout
Use a Deck of Cards to Develop Your Own Workout By Laura Williams, MSEd, ASCM-CEP Laura Williams, MSEd, ASCM-CEP Laura Williams is a fitness expert and advocate with certifications from the American Council on Exercise and the American College of Sports Medicine. Learn about our editorial process Updated on September 17, 2020 Reviewed Verywell Fit articles are reviewed by nutrition and exercise professionals. Reviewers confirm the content is thorough and accurate, reflecting the latest evidence-based research.
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Content is reviewed before publication and upon substantial updates. Learn more. by Tara Laferrara, CPT Reviewed by
Tara Laferrara, CPT Tara Laferrara is a certified NASM personal trainer, yoga teacher, and fitness coach.
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She also created her own online training program, the TL Method. Learn about our Review Board Print Jojo Jovanovic / Stocksy Table of Contents View All Table of Contents Determine Workout Focus Select Four Exercises Each Exercise Gets a Suit Know Your Numbers Choose a Time Limit Start Your Workout A simple deck of cards is one of the easiest ways to plan your own workouts. While several companies have developed exercise playing cards specifically for workout routines, there's no reason to go out and buy a set if you have a good ol' deck of playing cards sitting around your house. All you need to plan your own deck of cards workout is a list of exercises (a few examples are included below), a timer, and a set of cards.
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Determine Workout Focus If you want to do a cardio-based full-body routine, you need to choose exercises designed to raise your heart rate, like jumping jacks. If you want to focus on strength training, you need to choose resistance-based exercises, like dumbbell chest press.
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If you want a mix of both, you need to select a combination of exercises that can do both, like squat presses, burpees, lunge curls, or spider push-ups.
Select Four Exercises Choose just four exercises aligned with your workout focus. Here are some suggested exercises, grouped into workouts based on workout focus: Full-body workout: Squats, push-ups, jumping jacks, and sit-ups
Lower-body workout: Squats, lunges, bridges, and weighted deadlifts
Upper-body workout: Push-ups, bent-over rows, shoulder press, and triceps dips
Core workout: Sit-ups, leg lifts, wood chops, and oblique twists
Cardio workout: Jumping jacks, high knees, mountain climbers, and burpees Need more exercise ideas? Check out these lower body, upper body, core, and cardio exercises.
Assign Each Exercise to a Suit in the Deck Simply assign each of your four exercises to one of the suits of cards.
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For instance, if you're doing the full-body workout suggested above, you might pair the exercises with the card suits as follows: Diamonds = SquatsHearts = Push-upsSpades = Jumping JacksClubs = Sit-ups To help you remember which exercise is associated with which suit, write it down on a piece of paper to keep next to your deck of cards. This way you can double-check which exercise you're supposed to perform when you pull a particular card from the deck. Know Your Numbers When working out with playing cards, the number on the card is representative of the number of reps you'll perform.
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For instance, a two card represents two repetitions. It's fairly straight forward. Except, this gets tricky with face cards, like jacks, queens, kings, and aces. For face cards, you have a couple options.
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First, you could choose to assign each face card the equivalent of 10 repetitions, so no matter which face card you draw, you always perform the same number of reps. As an alternative, you could assign each face card a different number of repetitions.
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For instance, jacks might represent 11 reps, queens 12 reps, and kings 13 reps. In either scenario, decide what to do with aces.
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You can treat them as a face card, assigning them the equivalent of 10 or more repetitions, or you can treat them as a one, assigning them a single repetition. In a nutshell, the number or number equivalent of the card you draw from the deck is the number of reps you'll perform.
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Number of Reps Ace = 1 rep, 10 or 14 reps, player's choice2 = 2 reps3 = 3 reps4 = 4 reps5 = 5 reps6 = 6 reps7 = 7 reps8 = 8 reps9 = 9 reps10 = 10 repsJack = 10 or 11 reps, player's choiceQueen = 10 or 12 reps, player's choiceKing = 10 or 13 reps, player's choice As an example, using the total body workout detailed above, if you pull a 10 of hearts from the deck, you'd do 10 push-ups. If you pull a six of spades from the deck, you'd do six jumping jacks.
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Choose a Time Limit Now that you're ready to go, you need to decide how long you're going to exercise. It's a good idea to do each series of four exercises for at least 5 to 10 minutes. If you want to exercise longer, give yourself a brief water break, switch up your exercises, and continue.
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For instance, if you do a full-body workout for the first 10 minutes, when you're done, assign new exercises to each card suit, and do a lower body workout for five minutes, then an upper body workout for five minutes, for a total of a 20-minute total-body routine. Start Your Workout All that's left is to get to work! Set a timer or keep an eye on the clock.
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Shuffle your cards and pull the first card from the deck. Perform the designated exercise for the assigned number of repetitions, then immediately pull another card from the deck. Continue drawing cards and performing exercises until your time expires.
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Just like that, you've planned and implemented your own workout routine using nothing but a deck of cards! A Word From Verywell Don't be afraid to get creative and add your own rules or twists. For instance, if you draw the same suit three times in a row, you could add a challenge, like holding a 60-second plank before progressing to the next card.
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You could also turn it into a partner workout by using two decks of cards. The first person to make it all the way through his or her deck of cards has to make the other person dinner.
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1 Source Verywell Fit uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Nystoriak MA, Bhatnagar A.
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Cardiovascular effects and benefits of exercise. Front Cardiovasc Med. 2018;5:135.
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doi:10.3389/fcvm.2018.00135 By Laura Williams, MSEd, ASCM-CEP
Laura Williams is a fitness expert and advocate with certifications from the American Council on Exercise and the American College of Sports Medicine. See Our Editorial Process Meet Our Review Board Share Feedback Was this page helpful?
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Other Helpful Report an Error Submit Related Articles How to Make Your Home Cardio Workout Worthwhile 20 Cardio Exercises You Can Do at Home Effective 20-Minute, Full-Body Workout You Can Do at Home Mix Up Your Routine and Try One of These 8 At-Home Workouts Simple Methods for Improving Muscular Endurance Why You Should Add Body Weight Training to Your Exercise Program How to Create a Split Workout 14 Full-Body Exercises With Weights to Burn Fat and Build Muscle 19 Bodyweight Exercises You Can Do At Home for a Quick Workout The Simple, At-Home Workout Perfect for Any Exercise Enthusiast 19 Effective Cardio Exercises for a Gym-Free Workout Strength Training: A Beginner's Guide to Getting Stronger 8 Simple Strength-Training Moves to Work Your Whole Body How Can I Use the FIIT Principle for Effective Workouts? These 10 Interval Training Exercises Will Help You Get Fit Fast 45-Minute Back and Biceps Workout With Supersets When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies.
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