EA Active - Over and Out!

Well, I made it through the 30-day challenge for the EA Active Wii game and... it was OK. Towards the end of the challenge, I'd primarily done workouts in the Advanced category, with only a few Intermediates snuck in when I didn't have time for a fuller workout.

The four main elements that every workout uses are:

1. Cardio: there were several things that were slipped into this category.
   
   • My favorite was the boxing (no surprise here): alternating between punching targets, punching the bag and standing on the balance board and kicking the bag. Good stuff, always raises my heart rate and gets me sweating. Also good for getting out that aggressive energy.
     
   • Also quite good: the track running, high knees, and kick backs. The track workouts were surprisingly good for what is essentially just running in place. The high knee and kick back intervals particularly really got my heart pumping and I'd be sweating by the end. The visuals were fun and having other people run on the track actually worked to make me speed up to pass them. No interval was ever longer than 6 minutes, but as long as I don't use EA Active as my primary source of cardio workouts, that's just fine.
   • My least favorite here was the Dance. So lame. It was basically a much less exciting version of DDR (either just upper body with the Wiimotes or upper and lower using the balance board). Sorry, it was just super lame and no matter how vigorously I tried to do the moves, I still didn't feel particularly worked out.
2. Upper body strength: a variety of the standard either isolated or combined strength moves using the band. They were pretty good, I've definitely felt a difference in my upper body but the band isn't great for all the moves. Also, I think it would have been a smart move to add some pushups or something along those lines which I feel is much better for ramping up the upper body strength. One thing I really didn't like here was that with two workouts in a row, 2 days back to back, it had me do one workout that focussed on upper body the first day, but then still had me doing upper body strength the second day, instead of resting it. Not cool.
   
3. Lower body strength: decent array of squats, lunges, with some interesting challenging moves thrown in, like the jump squats, the stationary squats and stuff like that. In general, this focus felt effective. I definitely had days when I was brutally sore after a lower body focus workout.
   
4. Sports: Now this part is just fun. I really enjoyed all the sports (tennis, basketball, volleyball, baseball and skating) and they typically felt like a good distraction from the focus of the workout while still doing something of a workout.
   

Having completed the challenge though, I don't know that I would do it again, since it doesn't seem to scale to my ability level. One of the things I liked about Maya and Yourself! Fitness (aka My Fitness Coach), was that there was a check in each workout to see how it was and if it was too easy, the program would adjust to make it harder. There were also fitness tests every certain number of workouts to gauge my improvement. With Wii Fit, while the workouts aren't as challenging as EA Active can be, I can both track my ability to do certain moves and see improvement, as well as track my weight.

In the end, that kind of interaction with the program makes it something that's worth going back to (and ultimately owning). With EA Active, I'm only likely to do one of those workouts every once in a blue moon, if I'm bored with whatever else I have going on. The awards that the program gives me aren't interesting enough for me to come back for more. The only thing that keeps me coming back is being able to track my progress.

EA Active Challenge - Week 1 in review

I've been all fired up (probably a result of no longer feeling weak and crappy), so my kick-off week to the EA Active 30 day challenge was great!

When you first select the EA Active in your Wii homepage, be prepared for BLASTING ENTHUSIASTIC music. (Sorry for the caps, it's just the only way I can properly prepare you for the auditory assault that you have to bear through every time you start this thing. I've learned to start by turning down the volume, then selecting the program.)

Now you get the option of either creating a new profile, selecting a pre-existing one or using a guest pass. First step in creating a new profile is selecting gender, age, height and weight. Now, please someone tell me if you've figured this out, or if you have different starting stats, but the system seems to come automatically set with female, age thirty, and my exact height and weight - 5'9", 159lbs, which as far as I know, isn't really representative of the average woman. At first, I thought it was sneaking the info from my Wii Fit stats, but then you'd figure it would get the age right, no?

Anyway, you can then standardize your body type. I tried to make mine look like me by choosing level 3 out of 4 (on the curvier side) but that automatically gave me a double chin! So I scaled down to 2, cuz clearly it's more important for me not to have a double chin (which I don't, thank you very much) than it is for my body type to be at all accurately representative.

You then get a few more features you can mess with, a number of hairstyles, 6 hair colours (sadly nothing that strays from the "natural") and then about a gazillion workout outfits, hats, shades and shoes. This is all clearly very important.

Now you're ready to start! The next screen you get is the welcome screen you see whenever you log in from here on out. The options on this screen are: Journal, Fitness Profile, 30-Day Challenge, Preset & Custom Workouts, Help & Settings and Info.

The Journal invites you to "Start here," so I did. This screen looks like an open notebook, and is where you're supposed to fill out what you've done each day. For each day, you have the option to complete an EA Sports Active workout (it gets automatically checked once you workout), fill in a lifestyle and nutrition survey, and fill in the "Other Activity Survey." Once you start checking off these three items, you can track your progress in the lower left corner where you see the percentage of your daily requirements count up. On the opposite page, you see the trainer feedback for the things you've done, as well as a place to go check on your goals, edit your profile and view your upcoming calendar.

Now time to get started! I selected the 30-Day challenge program. There are a bunch of videos as you're getting started about the program, the challenge, the workouts. Most can be skipped but I decided to watch them all to see if there was anything really important I needed to know. There wasn't really in most of them. The only useful videos were the leg strap one and some of the demo moves ones, but even then, they were often intuitive. (Plus skipping these videos does allow you to skip some cheesy "LookForwardToANewYou!" moments)

Still more choices to make! I had to select a male or female trainer, how much of a workout I wanted: low, medium or high intensity, whether or not I have a Wii balance board, and then musical type (about 7 options). I selected Medium intensity because I figured I was still recovering from being ill, but I still don't think that the Low option would be enough of a challenge.

Finally, I made it past the questions. For every workout, the program shows a projected amount of calories burnt (it seems like the low intensity aims for around 100, the medium 130 and the high 170 or so).

I completed the first week at medium intensity, figuring I could upgrade if they were too easy. The first workout wasn't all that challenging but the trainer did explain that the purpose of the first workout was to ease me in and teach me how to use the program, so I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and see if it got harder.

More importantly, it was really fun! There was a track workout section that alternated between slow and fast running (in place, but cool to see the little avatar moving as I moved, but along the track and passing people), inline skating on the balance board (which consisted of holding a squat position then lifting one leg or the other to go over obstacles - whooo did that burn!), boxing at changing targets... Good stuff for the short-attention spans amongst us.

In general, the format was a sort of circuit training. After several minutes of warm-ups (either running on the track or squats and side lunges), the workouts seem to have 2 or 3 strength moves, then a sport (like boxing or tennis), then back again to the strength moves, etc. They switched up frequently enough that it was fun. The moves were difficult enough that I felt my muscles burn and was sweating and tired by the end.

The challenge setup is 2 days in a row (generally one that focuses on upper body, one that focuses on lower body) and then a rest day. So far I have yet to encounter a workout longer than 25 minutes, but when I combine this with my running schedule, it's perfect because unlike P90X, I can do these workouts in addition to my running - they're just enough of a workout without wiping me out completely.

Week 1 was good - all completed at medium intensity except for Sunday's which I did at low intensity because I ran my first really long run since before Thanksgiving earlier that day and I could hardly move anymore. What is even more exciting is that I've barely even scratched the surface of types of moves this program has to offer! Looking forward to Week 2!

(I'll have screenshots to upload by then - my camera was on a little extended vacation - and I also will review the custom workout options.)

Challenge is the New Resolution

Happy new year, folks! And what a fine new year it is! Do I really know that? No. But I do really truly hope that it's better than 2009. Now let's get down to business. I don't like resolutions. I find them boring. Every year, it's Iresolvetoeatbetterworkoutmoreloseweight... This could go on forever and gets a bit repetitive, in my mind.

Even if you're one the few, the proud, who actually do manage to follow through on their resolutions, it becomes what? I resolve to keep it up? That's also lackluster. So whatever your new year goals may be, if some form of better health and fitness is something you wouldn't mind achieving, I propose a new New Year's tradition: The Challenge.

The challenge is a great way to tackle the new year. What better way of coming off several weeks of eating a little bit too much or too richly or sitting around or having travel thwart your workout plans than to set yourself a fitness challenge?

The best part is, there are tons of them for you to choose from! Whether you're a workout beginner, an ultra-marathoner, a gym rat or a homebody, there are challenges out there that can fit your style. You can find 30-day challenges to 3-month challenges. Some are crazy expensive and some are practically free.

If you prefer working out outdoor in groups, with someone yelling at you, there are boot camps (like this one or this one in SF). If you're a loner who just loves pull-ups and hard-core kick ass training plans, you could try P90x (You may have heard us mention it before...)

Perhaps you'd prefer a method that is less intense and more fun or social? There seem to be a plethora of challenges out to satisfy your needs. This one seems fun. This is one is bit more more low-tech.

Then there are all the Wii fitness game: The Biggest Loser game has you compete against characters based on competitors in the reality TV show of the same name. Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2010 just sounds like a challenge, doesn't it?

Point being, I have a new challenge to kick off my new year. For Christmas, my brother very kindly got me one of the new Wii fitness programs: EA Sports Active. This past Sunday, now that I'm finally recovered from various ailments, surgery and whatnot, I finally started the 30-day challenge that came with the program. So far, I've done four days of workout, and I'm very excited to tell you all about it... So tune in this month for a week by week review of EA Active as well as some other fun useful stuff, like some Athlete Gourmet food and nutrition tips. (Also, rumour has it Tamsen's also kicked off a new year challenge!)