Forget the gym – this ‘prison workout’ can help you strengthen your whole body with just a deck of cards

It’s accessible, versatile and (dare I say it) quite fun too

'Prison workouts' use little-to-no equipment to build strength and fitness (Getty Images)

Keeping an eye on fitness trends is part of my job, but I was recently surprised to see “prison workout” in the top Google searches of Brits seeking ways to stay fit. Intrigued, I decided to investigate and try the workout for myself.

Fortunately, it’s less intimidating than it sounds. While some of the formats may have been developed behind bars, the concept simply refers to workouts that can build strength, muscle and fitness with little-to-no equipment.

This reminded me of a workout called “deck of pain” – again, not as bad as it sounds. It’s a bodyweight session I used to do in my uni halls when a gym membership was beyond budget, and it’s capable of building muscle and muscular endurance without weights.

The format is incredibly accessible, surprisingly versatile and almost infinitely scalable to suit any fitness levels. Better yet, all you need to give it a whirl is a pack of playing cards. Read on to find out how.

How to do the ‘deck of pain’ prisoner workout

• Grab a deck of cards, give it a shuffle, then place it face down.
• Assign an exercise to each suit: I chose press-ups for diamonds, mountain climbers for hearts, squats for spades and butterfly sit-ups for clubs.
• Turn over the first card. The suit will determine which exercise you do, and the number on the card will decide how many repetitions you need to complete. I treated picture cards as 10 and aces as 11.
• Work your way through the deck until you’ve turned over every card. This should see you do 95 repetitions of each exercise, and 380 repetitions in total.

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How to scale the ‘deck of pain’ prisoner workout

This workout contains a lot of reps – too many for some. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to scale it to suit your fitness level, time constraints and other variables that may come into play.

Firstly, you don’t have to use the whole deck. When you’re low on time, use a fraction of the cards and let luck decide how your workout will look. If you’re doing this, try to pick up the pace to keep the intensity high.

If the workout above looks too challenging, you can also adjust the variation of the exercises you do. Most exercises have a sliding scale of variations available, with each one offering a different level of difficulty.

For example, with the press-up, you might start with a wall press-up – the higher your hands, the easier the exercise. Over time, as your strength increases, you could progress to a hands-elevated press-up, followed by a kneeling press-up before graduating to the full movement. You can increase the difficulty further with clapping press-ups, decline press-ups or adding weight via a rucksack. These exercises will, by and large, work the same muscles – they’re just challenging them to move more or less load.

You can find a scale for each exercise below:

• Wall press-up > hands-elevated press-up > kneeling press-up > press-up > decline press-up > clapping press-up
• Kneeling straight-arm plank hold > straight arm plank hold > tempo mountain climber (always have at least one foot on the floor) > mountain climber > Spiderman press-up
• Squat to chair > bodyweight squat > squat jump > single-leg squat
• Partial sit-up > butterfly sit-up > V-up

Of course, these exercises aren’t set in stone. You know your body, so you can substitute exercises in and out of this workout to suit your needs. The only reason I’ve picked these four is because they work a pretty wide range of muscles and allow you to move fairly quickly through the workout, raising your heart rate.

You can also use any gym equipment you have any handy, whether that’s a couple of dumbbells or a pull-up bar – just make sure you choose exercises and weights that aren’t so challenging that you’re struggling after a couple of reps.

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Benefits of the ‘deck of pain’ prisoner workout

One of this workout’s main selling points is its accessibility. You don’t need any spenny kit to give it a go, just a deck of cards. It’s also fantastic for versatility, allowing you to tweak the duration and exercises to suit your fitness level.

Another benefit is that, if you’re able to move swiftly through the workout, it will raise your heart rate and challenge your stamina for bonus muscular endurance and cardio perks.

But the best thing about this prisoner workout is that it’s fun. The gamified format keeps you on your toes, and this can be more engaging than the usual prescription of sets, reps and rest. When I tried it, I found myself cursing the sky with or laughing every time I turned a picture card over. But despite my complaints, I found it far more enjoyable than if someone had just asked me to do 95 press-ups, 95 mountain climbers, 95 squats and 95 sit-ups from the off.

There are some shortcomings. When you draw cards with lower numbers on them, the resulting smaller sets of your selected exercises will likely fall short of providing the stimulus your body needs to build strength and muscle. However, they do serve a purpose by providing respite between the bigger, more challenging sets.

So, next time you want to work out with no equipment, give this prison-inspired session a try.

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