Movement Practice - Deck of Cards

The month of May will have a weekly theme detailing a practice that I encountered in my journey of recovery. The first practice is Movement. Oddly enough, while in rehab, Movement taught me not to depend on others to maintain my desired actions and willingness to stay consistent.

This lesson proved vital in the early weeks after rehab to help me maintain myself on a path of recovery. Even while others around me relapsed, I still stayed on the path as I had learned through my movement practice that my actions didn’t have to depend on others.

I made brief mention of this in the latest podcast on the practice of Movement, so I thought it would be a great idea to detail the precise rules, with a few modifications, that we created in rehab for the Deck of Cards workout.

The past month and a half this has been my Saturday morning routine. I shuffle the deck, start the timer and flip the first card. I go until the entire deck has been flipped.

The modifications were created so anyone can do this movement practice.

Two weeks ago, I cracked the sub-45 minute mark for the first time ever. This past week was sub-42. This practice is simple, but it is not easy.

Rules

1. Each suit (Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, Spades) has a movement assigned to it. My movements are:

   1. Hearts - Air squats

   2. Diamonds - Forward Lunges (unweighted)

   3. Clubs - Bear Crawls Walkout to Pushup (aka Pushup Walkout)

   4. Spades - Burpee

2. When a card is flipped, you do the movement associated with that suit for as many reps as are showing on the card (i.e. 8 Spades is 8 reps of your Spade movement)

3. Face cards have the following rep counts:

   1. Jack - 11

   2. Queen - 12

   3. King - 13

   4. Ace - 15 (just a touch of added fun)

4. Keep flipping and moving until the deck is complete. That’s 105 reps of each movement if you do not make any modifications (read below).

If the above rule set is either too difficult or easy for you, there are a few modifications I would recommend:

• Set a maximum rep count. If a flipped card is over your max rep number, do only your max reps.

  • i.e. if you set your max reps at 5 and a 7 of Hearts is flipped, you do 5 of your Heart movement then flip the next card.

  • This modification permitted people of all fitness levels to join when we did this in rehab.

• Cut deck in half, or by any other card count

  • I much prefer someone modify their rep count and work through the entire deck, but this is another option if you choose.

• Add a weight vest for all movements

  • You’re a beast.