The Hardest Damn Burpee Workout You Will Complete This Week | Men's Health Magazine Australia

The Hardest Damn Workout You’ll Complete This Week

OK gents, it’s mid-week, motivation is a little low, and you’ve probably conceived every excuse in the book to avoid going to the gym. Well we’ve got good news and bad news for you; the good news is that we have a do anywhere, kick-ass workout that requires zero equipment. The bad news; this will hurt.

Meet the Deck of Cards workout, a 52 minute burpee-based workout that will leave your lungs screaming for air. All you need is a tiny piece of floor and a deck of cards. And don’t worry if you don’t have cards handy, there’s a deck of cards app for all smartphones… we’ve thought of everything, you can’t escape this workout.

To complete the workout, place your deck of cards face down. Start a stop watch and immediately flip the first card over. Whatever the value on that card, that’s how many burpees you have to complete. You have one minute to complete the corresponding number of burpees.

Every minute flip a new card over; this is how many burpees you must complete in that minute. Some minutes you may only need to complete 2 burpees, other minutes you may need to chase down 20. The random brutality of this game is what makes it extremely difficult, especially when you’re rewarded with multiple high numbers back to back.

Just to clarify, these are the burpee values of each card:

2-10 = The number of burpees is the value of the card
Face Cards = 10 burpees
Ace = 11 burpees
Jokers = 20 burpees

*While 20 burpees in a minute becomes a challenge even for the top athletes, especially after 52 minutes, feel free to substitute a small sprint run for the Joker cards. For those just starting a fitness regime, burpees can also be substituted for push ups and squats. Try to even the load however if this is the case, and use red cards for push ups, and black cards for squats.

More From