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Review: Yourself!Fitness
Feb. 13th, 2006 08:12 amI have a nemesis now. Her name is Maya. She's about 5'8", very fit, vaguely hispanic, and completely computer generated. And she's completely kicking my ass at aerobics.
I heard about Yourself!Fitness watching X-Play, where Adam and Morgan gave it a positive review. It's a "game" only in the sense you can run it on an X-Box or PS2. What it is actually is a customizable exercise program, something like an exercise video, but adapted for your own needs.
Booting it up, you're presented with Maya, your CGI trainer, who leads you through a series of questions and exercises, trying to evaluate your basic physical fitness. Then she requests your goal, which can range from weight loss, to cardio, to basic toning, and how often you want to work out. At the default you'll work out for three days a week. I upped it to four just because I was feeling manly (ha!). She also asks what exercise equipment you have (choices of hand weights, a step stair, and exercise ball). Then you can set your session from 1/2 hour, 45 minutes, or an hour, and you get to it.
The idea is she leads you through a variety of workouts (500 in all, according to the ad copy), with enough variation that you won't get bored. The program also tracks your progress, automatically upping the difficulty level as you grow more fit. The program also offers a meal plan if your goal is weight loss (the recipes are downloadable from a website), provided by Prevention magazine.
I chose to go with the toning program. After two days of workouts, I can safely say it's a good idea to start with the 1/2 hour session. I tried the 45 minutes the first time and was rendered quite sore. The workouts are challenging, and appear to be intelligently designed, with rest and water breaks sprinkled throughout. My only beef with the program is that it doesn't tell you exactly what exercises you'll be doing in each session. If an unfamiliar exercise comes up, you have to grab the controller and pause things briefly to bring up a tuorial program that explains the exercise. Being able to do that beforehand would have been more helpful.
But overall it's a good program. Even if I am getting my ass kicked...
I heard about Yourself!Fitness watching X-Play, where Adam and Morgan gave it a positive review. It's a "game" only in the sense you can run it on an X-Box or PS2. What it is actually is a customizable exercise program, something like an exercise video, but adapted for your own needs.
Booting it up, you're presented with Maya, your CGI trainer, who leads you through a series of questions and exercises, trying to evaluate your basic physical fitness. Then she requests your goal, which can range from weight loss, to cardio, to basic toning, and how often you want to work out. At the default you'll work out for three days a week. I upped it to four just because I was feeling manly (ha!). She also asks what exercise equipment you have (choices of hand weights, a step stair, and exercise ball). Then you can set your session from 1/2 hour, 45 minutes, or an hour, and you get to it.
The idea is she leads you through a variety of workouts (500 in all, according to the ad copy), with enough variation that you won't get bored. The program also tracks your progress, automatically upping the difficulty level as you grow more fit. The program also offers a meal plan if your goal is weight loss (the recipes are downloadable from a website), provided by Prevention magazine.
I chose to go with the toning program. After two days of workouts, I can safely say it's a good idea to start with the 1/2 hour session. I tried the 45 minutes the first time and was rendered quite sore. The workouts are challenging, and appear to be intelligently designed, with rest and water breaks sprinkled throughout. My only beef with the program is that it doesn't tell you exactly what exercises you'll be doing in each session. If an unfamiliar exercise comes up, you have to grab the controller and pause things briefly to bring up a tuorial program that explains the exercise. Being able to do that beforehand would have been more helpful.
But overall it's a good program. Even if I am getting my ass kicked...
