You may be wondering what a post about playing cards is doing on a site about fitness? Well if you fancy shaking up your training and doing something completely different then grab yourself a deck of cards. The principle is simple; pick 2 exercises one for the red cards and one for the black. So for example red could be press ups and black could be pull ups. Turn a card over and do the number of reps that matches the number on the card, so for a 5 of clubs you would do 5 pull ups. For picture cards I used the following reps, Jacks 11. Queens 12, Kings 13 and for Aces it was 20 reps. Below are some sample rounds which I used recently within my circuit class and with clients. Check out the combinations I used for when a joker was turned over.

ROUND 1:

Red cards: Press ups

Black cards: Burpees

JOKER: If this card is turned over then perform 10 burpees complete with a press up and jump.

ROUND 2:

Red cards: Barbell clean and press

Black cards: Jump squats

JOKER: This time perform 1 clean and press, put the bar down and do 1 jump squat. As you land back on the floor squat down grab the bar and repeat. Perform 10 combination reps.

ROUND 3:

Red cards: Barbell high pulls

Black cards: Double leg squat thrusts

JOKER: This time for a joker card perform one high pull and put the bar down. Keep your hands on the bar and do one squat thrust before immediately standing back up and repeating. Again complete 10 reps.

ROUND 4:

Red cards: Barbell push press

Black cards: Lateral jumps over barbell (Jumping over the bar and back counts as 1 rep)

JOKER: Do one push press and then put the bar down, complete 1 lateral jump and then repeat for 10 reps.

Tips:

: For each round I turned 10 cards over but feel free to change the number depending on time and fitness levels. You could try and do the whole pack!!

: I used a mixture of resistance and aerobic exercises for each round but again you can change this to suit your own needs.