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!
Excellent blogs. I haven’t started the 30 day challenge yet, but am doing the routines. I’ve also had a lot of trouble with the remote and running at the end. I think it may be because I’m tired because I do ok at the beginning of the routine. Also had trouble with my Nunchuk working it’s way out of the pouch in one of the squats and whipped my self to death with the cords on volleyball. I do like the sports games better than the Wii Fit, especially boxing. Tennis, too.
Is this a “single-player” game? Or can I get the whole family working out together (or at least 4 of us with wiimotes)?
I know you can do two (because at some point they show a couple working out together) but I’m not sure if you can do more than that. You’d have to have a pretty big open area in front of the Wii!
I’ll see if I can figure that out tonight.
this is really interesting.. maybe I should give it to my dad for his b-day
The running secret is that you have to lift your knees higher than if you were really running..Kind of an exaggerated step. At least that has been working for me.
Thanks Eric, I’ll try that next time. That would make sense, since it always seems to work better earlier in the workout, when I’m probably picking my legs up a lot higher than I am at the end. 🙂
Thanks for this awesome post. Makes me want to go out and get one of these things this weekend.
Gwyn: It’s definitely multiplayer, have a look on the features page on the Wii Active website.
One thing worth mentioning re: multiplayer is you’d have to buy an Accessory Kit for each additional player (Leg Belt thing and resistance strap). They’re $20 each.
@Scotty, thanks! I have a workplace that won’t let us surf anything fun, so I’ll have to check out the link when I get home.
@Pete, good point — forgot about that part. $20 is reasonable, but adds up fast! Might just continue to be a lard butt and invest in Sims 3 instead. 😀
Looks like only 2 can work out at a time, Gwyn.
Also, this being a ‘rest day’ I figured I’d just check out some of the ‘sports’ in the package, and it’s actually kind of a pain to get to them. I had to create a custom workout, add the sport I wanted to try, then do that workout. I couldn’t find (maybe I missed something) a way to just play a single minigame.
Great Blog!
I have been thinking about getting one of this… I had been torn between Active and Wii Fit, but thanks to this blog I think I will be getting Active.
Now, the only thing I am wondering is how effective is this really at weight-loss… Thank you for this blog and please keep updating it on your Active experience!
Does it have an age adjusment? I would hate to think they give the same workout routine to a 40 year old as they do a 20 year old.
I’m trying to remember if it asked my age. It definitely asked weight, height and body type… and then you pick Light, Medium or Hard plan…
I just got my EA active sports yesterday. It definitely asks your age. I still haven’t quite figured out how to keep the leg strap on short of stripping down to the boxer briefs for the workout. My daughter is not pleased at that prospect. The tension strap is completely worthless to me. I was doing the upper body stuff like isometrics last night flexing muscle as I did the motions. I found an old set of dumb bells this morning and am going to see if I can hold them and the Wii controllers tonight. I imagine that should work better if I can do it.
I tried the sports part out like you did, but I set up a new profile.
I finally took the Nunchuk out of the holster and held it in my hand to run. I seem to be having a lot of trouble getting them to register right.
My Day 4, Workout 3, felt totally different from the first two. When it was over I felt like “Huh? Already?” and I felt pretty good after it. I don’t know if my body is adjusting or if it was just an easier workout or what.
I tried ‘high stepping’ more during the running, and also pumping my arms higher than I normally due, if that makes sense. Usually my arms are down near my legs when I run, but I held them higher this time. Both things seemed to help the running register. It struck me that if the nunchuk was farther down the leg it would move more, but then the belt would slide off.
Someone needs to start making shorts with that little pocket built in. They’d still need a strap/belt built into the shorts so the nunchuk wouldn’t bounce around, but at least that would take care of the sliding problem.
IM actually thinking about trying to modify a pair of weightlifting gloves with velcro to hold the controllers on teh back of my hands in the proper orientation so that I can try and use actual weight.
We’ve been having difficulty getting the two player “synched” up (I’m not sure if I spelled that right), anyone else have that problem, it always seems to be telling one of us that we aren’t doing a movement right when we are.
Also, if you need more resistance, take off the hand straps and move them in farther or go to a sporting goods store or Target or something and buy a heavier resistance band. I attached the straps to a really tough resistance band I already had and it is really working.