Deck of Cards Workout, Itemized

Originally published: 11/18/2011

In my last post, I talked about my customized Deck of Cards Workout. After I completed this workout yesterday, without stopping (like I did the first time due to interuptions), I wondered how many of each exercise I was doing. Here’s a break down of each exercise.
Jumping Jacks: 80 total. I ended with a 5 of Hearts, so I decided to knees to chest jumps instead of the last set of jumping jacks. I think I will alternate jumping jacks and knee to chest jumps, since this was the easiest part of the circuit.
Pushups: 28 incline pushups. 57 regular pushups
Knee to Elbow: 28 total
Crunches: 57 total
Lunges: 28 total. I learned that stepping backwards is much easier on the knees/hips than lunging forward
Body Squats: 57 total.
Summary: This was just about the right difficulty level for me. I got a challenging workout in a short amount of time. It got my heart rate up and made me have to catch my breath a few times. I stretched my legs prior to this workout which made a big difference. I can feel the burn in my chest from the inclined pushups, which is good. I plan on keeping this routine as is with maybe a few tweaks. For example, I can see changing the face cards to higher values (10, 15, 20) for pushups and crunches. This routine is more intense than some of the other circuits I had been doing, so I’ll have to schedule a time to do these since I will need a shower afterward. Saturday mornings while the kids are watching cartoons seems to be the perfect time.
For now my weekly routine will be Monday night roller hockey, Wednesday or Thursday night simple strength circuit (Body Weight Squats, Pushups, Crunches) and a Saturday morning Deck of Cards workout.