Take a gamble on how bad your workout destroys you with the completely unpredictable ‘deck of cards workout’.
In order to progress, workouts should be challenging. Your body is a clever machine and will adapt to a stimulus it’s faced with. The deck of cards workout protocol is an interesting, unpredictable and exciting challenge. It makes a great finisher to a session or as a workout in itself. The only disadvantage is it’s almost impossible to replicate a session. Meaning tracking progress can be hard.
Example
This is an example of the protocol applied to a fat loss/metabolic circuit, but it could also apply to a strength or hypertrophy workout too. First off, pick 4 exercises and assign them to a suit. For example:
Spades – battle rope drills
Clubs – kettlebell swing
Hearts – mountain climbers
Diamonds – medicine ball slam
Pick a card at random and add a zero onto the end of the number you get, that’s how many seconds you’ll perform that exercise for. For example if I picked a 4 of diamonds that would equate to 40 seconds of medicine ball slams. Rest 60 secs then pick another card at random. It’s worth noting I use an ace as 30 seconds and a jack, queen and king as 60 seconds. I also like to put 2 jokers in the pack. A joker means 30 seconds on each exercise, no rest in between. Dedicate 10-15 minutes at the end of your usual session to make a great finisher. Can you see how unpredictable these workouts could get?
Have fun…