The Pushup Game

From Wikimacs

Requires a deck of cards. As many people can play as want to play. The deck is shuffled and placed somewhere face-down. Players come up in turn and flip over the top card and do as many pushups as there are pips on the card flipped (ace = 1, jack = 11, queen and king -- see below). The type of pushups done is determined by the suit of the card as follows:

• Hearts - normal pushups
• Diamonds - hands make a diamond on the ground (with both thumbs and index fingers) directly below center of chest.
• Spades - hands spread wide (outside the shoulders)
• Clubs - on knuckles instead of palms (make fists with hands)

Furthermore, there are two card ranks that are special:

• Queen - flip another card and do twice that many pushups. Multiple queens also stack. e.g. Queen, 4 of Hearts = 8 normal pushups; Queen, Queen, 6 of Clubs = 24 knuckle pushups
• King - the current player is skipped and the next player must do 13 pushups of the type specified by the suit.

Play proceeds until the deck of cards is exhausted.

Notes

• This game was first introduced to camp by Stephen Liang in 2002, at the end of the first Counselor Meeting Sunday night following Orientation. What began as a simple demonstration of the game's rules turned into a marathon session in which Jack Chen, Mok-yi Chow, Stephen Liang, and Stan Liu finished an entire deck of cards. Their arms all felt fantastic the next morning.
• Later in the week in 2002, this game was also introduced to the campers, which led to quite a few Counselor vs. Camper Pushup Games in the 2nd Floor Lounge. In these games, with so many players, some found it boring to wait around for a turn and find an Ace or Two, requiring only one or two pushups. A new rule was then instituted that an Ace or Two required one-armed pushups.
• The contests spawned a trend that year of rampant pushup-ing during freetime by campers and counselors alike outside of the contests. Inverted pushups against the wall, clapping pushups, and attempts at the "Superman" pushups (with arms outstretched in front) were frequent sights in the 2nd Floor Lounge.
• For further variety, Stephen suggested that Stan and Ian should attempt to high-five each other during a pushup, instead of just clapping. The first attempt failed miserably, however, as they completely missed the high five and both landed squarely on their chins. Ian's extremely pronounced chin slamming into the carpet made the unfortunate incident all the more comical.