Airmen push to limit with turn of a card

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Michael Phillips
  • 40th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) --  “Right now, I’m at 15,541.” And counting.

As he counts down the days before returning home, increasing his push-up total has become a goal for Lt. Col. Jeff Sheppard, the 28th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron commander at a forward-deployed location.

What began as a challenge among several Airmen has become what some would say is obsession.

The “game” is simple enough.

Participants get together with a deck of playing cards. After the deck has been shuffled and cut, the first person draws the top card. The value of the card represents the number of push-ups the person is required to do. Face cards are assigned a value of 10 push-ups, with aces worth either one or 11, at the individual’s choice.

The “game” continues around the room until all the cards have been drawn and all the push-ups completed -- simple enough.

Until one realizes the game is played every duty day. And as the deployment progresses, the number of push-ups will double, then triple the face value of the cards.

And the aces? They are no longer worth “one measly push-up.”

“My involvement started with my predecessor, Lieutenant Colonel Monty Perry, a commander at MacDill [Air Force Base, Fla.],” Colonel Sheppard said. “I replaced him on the first of June and, I believe, he was doing it as part of the tanker squadron.

“Then, Colonel (Eric) Single, who was the group commander at the time, caught on to it, and we kind of migrated it over into Colonel Single’s office,” he added. “Over the weeks, people realized it was happening at (2 p.m.) every afternoon and started joining in. It really turned into a fun thing.”

While there are the basic rules, Colonel Sheppard said the rules can be, and have been, modified to suit the participants.

They started out slowly, going through the deck one at a time, using the face value of the cards. After a couple of weeks of “playing” every day but Sunday, it had gotten easier. The group decided it was time to start “upping the ante.”

“We decided that the first card you draw, you double the face value. The next week, it was the first two cards,” Colonel Sheppard said. “Before long, we’d gotten through the whole deck. Now what do we do? How do we raise the bar again?

“So we decided, ‘cut the cards and triple the card you draw -- before we even start the regular rounds,’” he added. “Finally, we added a ‘personal best’ round.”
After the regular rounds, players do as many push-ups as they can in one minute.

“Now, we’ve started tripling the first four rounds,” Colonel Sheppard said. “The average high for the day has gone from about 138 (push ups) to about 400.

“It’s amazing to see the numbers add up as you get to the end of the rotation,” he added, noting that several of the Airmen from the original group have gotten into the 12,000 push up total range.

“When we started, Lieutenant (Heather) Leite (the 40th Expeditionary Communications Flight commander) was only able to do about 20 push-ups ‘knees-down,’ and was struggling a bit with those,” he said. “By the time she left, she was busting out 70, straight legged, as well as any of us.”

But the most important part of the game is the fun.

“What I emphasize to people is that it’s not how many you can do, it’s the fun of doing it every day, and seeing your own personal improvement,” Colonel Sheppard said. “And it’s something I plan on taking back to my squadron.”

Still building his total, Colonel Sheppard was “on the carpet” in the group commander’s office recently, where Airmen just arriving at the commander’s staff have begun to take up the new tradition.

Though the staff only recently took up the challenge, the rules have already changed -- adding crunches along with the push-ups.