Phil Black's FitDeck Fitness Program
CBN.com A GREAT FITNESS IDEA
When Phil was a Yale undergraduate studying for exams, he and his friends would take study breaks by playing cards. They were all athletes in school, and one day Phil dropped down to do push-ups. Soon challenges were issued, and someone drew a card from the playing deck. A three from the deck meant three push ups. By the seventh or eighth card, the guys were exhausted. Word got around, and the study breaks soon became known as “PUG,” short for “Push-Up Game.”
Years passed and after a few years in the corporate world, Phil decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a Navy SEAL. The job meant frequent deployments and living in tight spaces on ships or submarines with little or no room for exercise equipment. “As a SEAL, we became proficient at exercises that only required a person’s body weight,” says Phil, now 34. Like any workout routine, Phil says the sit-ups, push-ups, and lunges got boring and wanted to do something different. He decided to incorporate the concept of his old college PUG game into a physical fitness program. Phil expanded it to include other simple exercises that most people could recall from physical education classes.
ALL AGES
The FitDeck cards are divided into four color-coded groups. Each color targets a specific area: full body, upper body, middle body, and lower body. A simple illustration of each exercise on every card is accompanied by a number of repetitions based on the person’s fitness level: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. A few wild cards are shuffled in the deck to keep the game interesting like “Repeat Last Exercise” or “Skip a Card.” “This randomness of picking a card is a big hook for people,” says Phil. “You have exercises you wouldn’t have picked on your own.”
All ages can benefit from FitDeck. Phil receives feedback from men and women of all walks of life, all age groups, and all ability levels. He believes that the simplicity of the program keeps people on track. “I’ve interviewed hundreds of people while developing my program,” says Phil. The three biggest obstacles he found were that most exercise programs or systems were too complicated, too boring, or the individual felt he or she didn’t have enough time to work out. “The average person wants simplicity, convenience, and fun,” says Phil. “There’s a lot of flexibility with the FitDeck cards.”
Each card takes about a minute to complete, so if someone wanted a 20-minute workout, he could pull out 20 cards. One basketball team goes through the entire deck of cards in 30 minutes for more of a cardiovascular workout. Phil says by doing the exercises slowly, one can strengthen and tone. “You’ll never spend another minute thinking about what kind of exercise or stretch to do,” says Phil. “FitDeck does the thinking for you.” Some of the exercises include basics such as lunges, fire hydrants, and sit-ups. Others spice up the workout like “chase the rabbits,” “bear crawl,” and “the tripod.” The cards can be used anywhere, anytime. Some people find the cards beneficial while on a road trip, at the gym, in the hotel room, or on vacation. An instructional DVD is included with each set of FitDeck cards. By shuffling the cards, you can get more than 3 million different workout combinations.
