Fitness Friday – on Saturday

It’s so good to be back on track! I was limited this week in my workout time, what with Hovering Hubby hovering and all, but I did have a chance to play with my WiiFit 2 days this week, and Keely’s arch enemy, Maya, has arrived at my house as of Tuesday’s mail. 😉 Since EA Sports Active won’t be out until May 19th, I wanted to add a little something to my WiiFit workouts to increase the intensity of those workouts – after all, there are only 49 days before we head out on our annual drive to Louisiana to visit friends, and since it can be brutally hot down there during that time, I want to get into some sort of ‘shorts shape’ before we go.

I have some work to do to get back on track for my goal of reaching the 2000 Hula Hoops, I’m still stuck in the 1900’s…of course I probably should put the puppy in his cage during my workouts, I imagine not having him trying to get on the balance board and tugging at the hem of my yoga pants would probably work out better for me…but he’s getting a good workout, too, which makes him sleep much better at night.

So far I’ve been able to work out with Maya for two days. In case anyone else is thinking about getting My Fitness Coach, I thought I’d tell you what I like and don’t like about it.

Some of the things I like

1. There is a very thorough fitness test when you first set up a profile. A bit more comprehensive than WiiFit, so it took about 15 minutes to complete.
2. I was actually surprised that Maya, the coach, is a pleasure to work out with. Her voice is not terribly irritating, and she asks how you felt during the workout. Your choices are ‘No Sweat’, ‘I Was Working Hard’, and ‘I Couldn’t Keep Up’. Depending on which one of those you select, she’ll adjust the segment the next time she presents it during a workout – making it harder if you select ‘No Sweat’, or easier if you select ‘I Couldn’t Keep Up’. That way you are less prone to just give up if you happen to be in the ‘Couldn’t Keep Up’ category…
3. You can incorporate other equipment into the workout. That means the step I’ve had that was gathering dust will now be put to some good use. I was using hand weights with the WiiFit, and I’ll be able to use them with Maya as well. I still want to get the ankle/arm sand weights like I used to have (until the Princess Nagger played with them and created holes so all the sand escaped). There’s also an option to use a stability ball – I have one of those, but it’s still in its original box because I don’t have room to keep it inflated without fear of it also having holes mysteriously appear in it. So I only selected the step and the hand weights to incorporate into my routine with Maya, and that seems to be working well.
4. I still use the advanced step program on the WiiFit, because I have lots of fun doing that, but it is the same every time so I get lazy. With Maya I can use my actual step and can adjust the height for the most effective workout.
5. The routines scroll across the bottom so I can see how much torture I still have yet to endure time is left of the current routine and which routine is coming up next so I can mentally prepare. You don’t have to stop and make several selections like you do with the WiiFit.
6. The tutorial feature was a necessity for me. When Maya started a routine that wasn’t clear to me I selected the tutorial. Maya explained how to do it, and repeats until I select Resume. Then Maya restarts the routine. It makes it so much easier to follow along without feeling like too big of a dork trying to get into the rhythm of the routines.
7. Some people have compared Maya to just a glorified version of a workout DVD – the significant difference I’ve noticed is that a typical workout DVD repeats the same workout every time. This game is dynamic, which results in the variety that I need to make sure I stay enthusiastic about a fitness routine.

The short list of things I didn’t like:

1. It’s not Maya’s fault, but my space is limited for working out – what with the myriad of Princess Nagger toys and things crowding the living room. I have the step in a place where there was sufficient space to do the step routines but I also needed enough space to perform the non-step aerobic routines. I banged into the coffee table a few times.
2. It would be nice if this game were to incorporate the balance board for the weigh-ins and all that, but for those that don’t have a WiiFit yet, they could use this in the interim and just input the weight from a regular scale. Since I still use and plan to continue to use my WiiFit to round out my workouts (and will add EA Sports Active to that when it’s available), I use weigh in on WiiFit first to check my stats before moving over to Maya. It’s not as ‘interactive’ as I thought it would be, but that’s very minor.

On the two days I got to play with Maya, I didn’t get to play on my WiiFit other than just do the weigh-in. But I did get to play an additional 2 days just on the WiiFit, so that tallies to 4 days of working out in spite of the hovering going on. 😉 That also means that I did shed the final 3 pounds of the 5 I had gained by not working out for a couple of months. Next week should rock since Hovering Hubby will be back to a ‘normal’ schedule again and I’ll have more Mii time… 😉