I promise I’m not going to make this a daily workout blog! But I did think it might be of interest to some for me to relate a bit more EA Active experience.

I woke up this morning sore, but not uncomfortably so. In fact it was that “good feeling” soreness, though oddly it seemed to get worse, not better, as the day went on. That said, I worked from home today so my ‘commute’ was 15 feet from the bedroom to the office and plunked back down in the chair to write code.

I went out to do some shopping this afternoon and that loosened things up, but then it was back to work for part of the evening, so I didn’t get to EA Active until about 9:30 pm, which I think is much too late to do this kind of thing. But life happens, right?

Tonight’s workout was different from last night. A few new things, a few varieties of things I did yesterday. Yesterday I did side lunges, today it was side lunches with a toe touch, for instance. No boxing today, instead it was tennis (just returning balls at a target, not actually playing).

The leg strap was fussy again. I finally got it to stay put after Angela insisted I should wear it higher on my thigh than I’d been doing. After I looked at my on-screen trainer I saw she was right, so I put it almost as high as it would go and cinched it down pretty tight and it finally stayed in place. I kind of tucked the leg of my shorts around the pocket in the front and that seemed to work well. I think you’d have to do that with anything the least bit baggy. So under the shorts unless you’re wearing spandex or something, and believe you me, you do not want me wearing spandex. Even if you can’t see me, it would cause a darkness that would spread across the lands.

I’m already getting better at using the tension strap and pocketing/unpocketing the Nunchuk. The upper body exercises really feel kind of trivial. I know you can double up the strap but I’m afraid I’m going to break it (and I know some folks have broken them). I might see if I can find a heavier weight strap the next time I’m at a department store.

On the other hand, the lower body exercises continue to kick my behind. And I struggle on the track when it comes time to run. It *always* tells me I’m too slow. Brings back bad gym class memories. I was blaming the system, but then I just went for it and I got into the “Perfect” range, which I could maintain for about 10 seconds before I started wheezing. Plus we live on the 2nd floor and it was closing in on 10 pm and our office is technically the master bedroom so I was worried I was stomping on the floor when someone was trying to sleep.

But bottom line, it’s clear that the running is going to be an on-going challenge for me. But that’s ok.

I’ve also found that you have to be careful with the exercises and do them as instructed. For instance, I was doing these standing leg crunches… you lift one knee up high and are supposed to cross your hands over your belly and ‘crunch’ your abdomen forward. I was just lifting my leg, and I wasn’t getting any Active love. Turns out you NEED to cross your hands over you belly (thereby placing the Remote on you belly) and then you have to crunch forward in order to move the Remote, and then the rep counts.

In general, smooth controlled motions work best, but I guess those are best for maximum performance anyway. It’s important to know that you don’t have to start the exercise with the on-screen trainer…it’ll wait for you. So get your breathing right and then start. But once you start, you have to maintain cadence with him/her/it, and it will do things like make you hold a position for an extra few beats now and then. You WILL curse at this thing.

The good news is that after I was done, I didn’t feel the need to pass out. I managed to get right to the showers (yesterday after the workout I wouldn’t have trusted myself to stand up near all that hard porcelain). So Day 2 wasn’t as bad as Day 1. And Day 3 is a “rest” day and I have to confess I’m glad of that!

I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with the product. I do feel like I’ve had a full body workout, and I sure do sweat (I barely broke a sweat on Wii Fit). I’d just love to see EA take advantage of the Wii Motion Plus add-on when it comes out.

Oh, and my apologies for any typos. Apparently my brain is slightly oxygen starved after working out and my writing gets really sloppy, but I don’t really notice how bad it is until the next day!