Bodyweight exercises can be used to develop an almost ideal cardio routine. They can be done indoors or outdoors, are safe for most people to perform, and require little or no equipment. However, many people who have never wrestled competitively or served in the military are unsure of how to construct a bodyweight exercise routine. The “deck of cards” routine is the answer to this problem. The “deck of cards” routine can be adapted to almost any level of fitness, can be completed in 30 minutes or less, and, best of all, will increase your muscular endurance, and cardiovascular fitness in a relatively short amount of time. The only equipment needed is an ordinary deck of playing cards.
The most basic “deck of cards” workout consists of assigning black cards to push-ups and red cards to squats. Start by shuffling the deck and drawing a card. If, for example, you draw a black seven, do 7 push-ups. Similarly, drawing a red nine would mean doing 9 squats. All face cards are assigned a value of 10 and aces a value of 11. A well-conditioned athlete should be able to complete the deck in 20-30 minutes if little or no rest is taken between exercises. However, unless you’ve been doing bodyweight exercises regularly, you will probably not be able to get through the entire deck at first. That’s okay. Start
out with the 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s, and 6’s (or as few or as many as you need to) and add an additional card every week or two until you are doing the entire deck. Since this is cardio, it’s more important to keep the amount of rest between exercises to a minimum than to increase the number of repetitions.
Different variations of the basic workout can be constructed. For example, you can substitute sit-ups or leg raises for squats, or instead of two exercises, you can use four exercises–one each for diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades. An example of such a workout would be squat thrusts, push-ups, squats, and sit-ups. Below are four sample routines you can try:
Routine 1
Push-ups
Squats
Routine 2
Squat thrusts
Push-ups
Squats
Sit-ups
Routine 3
Push-ups
Sit-ups
Routine 4
Mountain climbers
Push-ups
Front kicks (Kick your leg in front of you as high as you can.)
Leg raises
Making up your own routine is easy. For a two-exercise routine, choose an upper body exercise (push-ups, dips) and an abdominal exercise (sit-ups, leg raises, crunches) or a leg exercise (squats, lunges, front kicks). For a four-exercise routine, choose a calisthenic exercise (squat thrusts, mountain climbers, jumping jacks), an upper body exercise, a leg exercise, and an abdominal exercise. Squats are the most cardio intense of all these exercises, so be sure to include them regularly.
Though it’s almost statistically impossible that you would ever repeat a routine exactly in lifetime of exercising, it’s still important not to use just one “deck of cards” routine for all of your cardio. Instead, use at least two or three routines and rotate them. Alternately, rotate the “deck of cards” routine with another form of cardio. This helps keep your body from adapting completely to any exercise or routine and prevents reaching a plateau in your progress. That’s how to consistently challenge your body and continually increase your fitness.
