Deck of Cards Workout

Since I am currently in training for three obstacle course races in October, I have been trying to mix up strength training with my runs so that I have the ability to do whatever obstacle I am faced with in those races.

I am always on the lookout for a new and different way to do a workout, and today I found one I really enjoyed and wanted to share!

It's called the Deck of Cards Workout. You start with a well shuffled deck of cards, and then assign an exercise for each shape. The goal is to choose four exercises that will give you a well balanced routine.

Then go through the deck, and the card tells you how many reps of which exercise to do. Royals are worth ten, and though the website I read said to do aces as 11, I took it as 11 or 1 depending on the exercise and my exhaustion!

I chose:
   Hearts- Basically mountain climbers, but a variation that I learned in yoga where I hold plank position and then bring my knee to the outside of my elbow, then switch legs. I counted one rep after I did both legs.

   Spades- Dips to work my triceps. I had my hands on the coffee table, with my elbows behind me, and then I raised and lowered myself with arm strength alone.

  Diamonds- Pushup burpees. I would crouch down, then go into plank, do a pushup, and then bring my feet to my hands and jump. This was the hardest portion of my circuits.

  Clubs- I did squats with weights in my hands, and then as I stood up from my squats, I curled the weights, and then brought them into an overhead press before lowering them again.

The article I read said to do the whole deck... but after I got started, I realized that even half the deck was going to be too ambitious for me. I ended up doing 15 cards, as displayed above. So what you are looking at is actually my workout today. Notice the many diamonds in the beginning! Those were tough, and honestly on one of them I had to switch it to just push ups.

I loved my choice of cards, because it was fun to see different seashells as I did the exercises. The biggest reason that I recommend this workout is that it keeps it varied and fun, and you can be excited when you happen to draw a two!

The original website I found this on is HERE.

I also did some hill reps today on my run, trying to improve the time of my previous hill. Of the three I timed, I was successfully the fastest on the third one. My times for the three hills, up and down, was 3:17, 3:20 then 3:04! I read that hill runs can help increase your stamina for long runs.