The Deck of Cards

One of the best ways we use to get a killer conditioning workout at the gym is the Deck of Cards workout. Most people who have done it, dread it when they see it on the board. But they know they're going to get a phenomenal workout in even if it is going to hurt a little (ok, maybe a lot if they're willing to really push it).. I've been training an up and coming MMA fighter, Dennis "The Menace" Olson, and he's got a big fight coming up in a couple weeks so this is the time he needs to be getting in some workouts that are going to help him go at a really high intensity for extended periods of time with little to no rest. The deck of cards workout is perfect for this. The way it works is you do the number of reps on each card drawn (or some multiple of the number drawn). Each exercise is represented by a different suit. Today, I worked out with Dennis and we pushed ourselves to the limit with this one.. The exercises we chose were:

Spades = Burpees

Hearts = Jackknife

Diamonds = Hindu Squats x 2 (for example, if an 8 of diamonds is drawn, do 16 hindu squats)

Clubs = Kettlebell Swing x 2

Face cards = 10. Ace = 16

Kettlebell swings were done with a 32kg kettlebell. Once we flipped the first card there was no stopping until all the cards were flipped. First person to finish the exercise would flip the next card. This workout kicked our asses. At one point we had to do 46 consecutive kettlebell swings. Given that this was about 15 minutes into the workout and I was swinging a 32kg I can tell you that I was ready to drop.. The worst part of the workout though was the lack of spades coming up as the deck was getting slimmer. So we both knew we were going to get slammed with burpees at some point. The last 4 cards of the workout were all spades. 36 burpees in a row to finish the workout. Brutal!

Totals for the workout:

27:30

100 burpees

100 Jackknifes

200 Hindu Squats

200 Kettlebell Swings x 32kg

4 stars for this one!!

Best,

Kevin