Category: Video Games

This week, I tried out Your Shape Fitness Evolved’s boot camp, cardio boxing, yoga, and hip hop dance.

On Monday, I began with Cardio Boxing.  I ran through a complete sequence: Learn It (16 calories burned with punches and kicks), Push It (A) (18 calories burned with jabs, hooks, and upper cuts), Push It (B) (18 calories burned with side punches and kicks), Own It (18 calories burned with a little bit of everything) and Attack It (48 calories burned with all the previous workouts and 4 times the workout time).  Of note, I hit 97% of the workouts in Own It.  After Cardio Boxing, I figured I’d cool down with some Yoga.  I burned 19 calories in Develop It (A).  I found that some of the Yoga poses just didn’t work with the small size of my room.  The total calories burned was 137.

On Tuesday, I tried a few different workouts and wound up burning 111 calories.  First, I tried Boot Camp: Push It.  Thought I burned 15 calories, I found this way too intense of a workout.  (Especially coming right after having a big Valentine’s Day dinner.)  Next, I figured I’d test out Hip Hop: Learn It (A) Class 2.  (I had tried Class 1 before this Diary series.)  I burned 23 calories with this.  I found this workout nice, but not my style.  I’m not really a Hip Hop kind of guy.  (I’m more 80’s rock than Hip Hop.)

With these eliminated, I went back to Cardio Boxing and tried Learn It Class 2.  I burned 20 calories with this.  Though it was much more complex than Class 1 was, Cardio Boxing was definitely more my style.  Next up was Push It (A) for 22 calories and Push It (B) for 15 calories.  These picked up the pace on the punches and kicks.  Finally, I went back to Yoga for cool down.  Develop It (B) burned 16 more calories.

Finally, Wednesday arrived.  Though my arms had been sore all day, I returned to Cardio Boxing.  I warmed up by repeating Learn It Class 2 and burned 21 calories.  Next, I jumped into Own It (A) to speed up my routine and shed another 22 calories.  Then, it was time for Attack It (B).  This 11+ minute workout burned 58 more calories.  Finally, I cooled down with Yoga’s Develop It (C) for 24 more calories.  I considered finishing off the category with Develop It (D), but noticed that this would take about 23 more minutes.  I just didn’t think my body would last through this so I stayed with 125 calories burned.

Giveaway

You could win a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved.  Simply post a comment to this blog post.  You can enter multiple times by leaving one comment in each of the posts of this series: Week 1, Week 2.  When my five week series is finished, one commenter from across the five posts will win a copy of the game from Ubisoft.

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved by Ubisoft and financially compensated for this  Clever Girls Collective, Inc. campaign.  In addition, I was loaned an XBox 360 and Kinect for the duration of the campaign.  The opinions expressed above, however, are my own.

This week, I tried out Your Shape Fitness Evolved’s Glutes, Toning, Abs, Arms, and Sports preparation workouts.

On Saturday, I burned 110 calories. First, I worked out my glutes  with some squats and kicks (10 calories).  Next, I moved into pushups to work out my arms and burn 12 more calories.  After this, I worked my abs out with some crunches (8 calories).  Then, it was time for some toning.  I had no weights, so I just ran through the motions.  Still, I burned 16 calories.

So far, it seemed like an easy workout.  Then came Sports Preparation: Football Basic Preparation.  Instead of 2 groupings of 3 workouts, I had to run through 6 sessions of 3 workouts!  At the end, I had burned 64 calories.  Yes, this one selection burned more calories than all of the other workouts combined.

On Tuesday, I decided to keep better track of the names of the workouts.  First up was Arms 100% (B).  This entailed two reps each of Knee push ups, slow mountain climbs, and triceps knee pushups and burned 25 calories.  Next was Abs 100% (B).  This put me through two reps of slow mountain climbs, up & down planks, and fast mountain climbs.  I burned 13 calories and learned a valuable lesson.  Don’t do Abs right after Arms. Ow, my back!

Up next was Toning: Build Strength (B).  This burned 18 calories by working me through 4 reps of bicep combo lunges and 2 reps of dumbbell squats.  Then came Glutes: 100% (B) and 21 more calories were burned.  This had me perform 4 reps of dumbbell knee-up side-kicks and 2 reps of dumbbell squats.

Then it was time for Sports Preparation.  This time I selected Soccer Basic Preparation.  I burned 55 calories by running through two reps each of power jogging, dynamic leg curls, knee-up punches, dumbbell step squats, curtsy lunge raises, balance skating, jumping jack punches, plyo leg curls, and jab knee-ups.  If that seems like a lot of exercises, it was!  All totaled, I burned 132 calories this day.

Finally, on Wednesday, I burned 219 calories.  How did I exceed my calories burned from the two previous days?  Well, first I ran through Glutes: 100% (C).  This burned 19 calories with 2 reps of braced squats, dumbbell sumo squats, and lunges.  Then, I worked on Arms: 100% (C).  This 38 calories burning workout consisted of 2 reps of Push ups, fast mountain climbs, and triceps knee push-ups.  Next up was Toning: Build Strength (C).  I burned 15 calories with 4 reps of reverse fly lunges and 2 reps of triceps squats.  Next, I tried the Abs: 100% (C) and burned 22 calories with the supported leg stretch, roll up & down, pulse crunch, up & down plank, slow mountain climb, and fast mountain climb.

If you are counting, you’ll realize this only totals 94 calories.  The other 125 calories came from Sports Preparation: Soccer Cardio & Endurance.  Yes, one hundred twenty five calories!  Instead of the usual 6 sessions of 3 workouts, this had 7 sessions of 3 workouts: Jumping jack punch, triple run punch, front kick punch, slide jump, high knees run, plyo leg curl, power skate, sumo knee lift, x-jog, sprint jump, sumo jump, sprint jump, muscle man twist, dumbbell squat, muscle man twist, single-leg squat, sumo squat, single-leg squat, push-up, up & down plank, and fast mountain climb.  Yes, I was ready to collapse after all of this.

Giveaway

You could win a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved.  Simply post a comment to this blog post.  When my five week series is finished, one commenter from across the five posts will win a copy of the game from Ubisoft.

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved by Ubisoft and financially compensated for this  Clever Girls Collective, Inc. campaign.  In addition, I was loaned an XBox 360 and Kinect for the duration of the campaign.  The opinions expressed above, however, are my own.

I’m always looking for ways to burn calories.  (Running after kids only gets you so many burnt calories.)  Going to the gym may be for some people, but I just can’t take the time to drive there and back often enough.  Any workout I do needs to be able to be able to be done from the home.  Preferably during down time when the kids are asleep or otherwise occupied.  For this reason, I love the latest generation of workout video games.  Don’t let the "video game" name confuse you: these suckers can really make you feel the burn.

During the next five weeks, I’ll be posting my progress with Ubisoft’s Your Shape Fitness Evolved for the XBox 360.  My goal will be to workout 3 times a week and burn at least 150 calories per session.

For my first workout, I began with some warm up activities.  First, I did Hu-La-La, where you wiggle your hips as if you are playing with a hula hoop.  This was very intense and I really felt the effects of this exercise in my stomach.  This burned 8 calories.  Next up, I selected Run the World: New York Times Square.  Running burned 70 calories.  I could have burned more, but I had some trouble with the Kinect losing me while I was running in place.  (This isn’t a fault of Your Shape Fitness Evolved, but seems to be an issue relating to the small size of my room.  After this, I repositioned the Kinect and it seems to be better.)

After this, I tried Stack ‘Em Up: Hard, a balance game where you need to hold up a platform to catch falling blocks, to burn 4 calories.  Then, I played Jump Rope: Easy (exactly what it sounds like) for 19 calories.  Next, Wall Breaker: Medium (where you punch/kick to break bricks hovering in front of you).  This one really helped me work up a sweat and scored 23 calories.  After this was Juggle It which is kind of like a virtual hacky sack game (only with a ball).  This surprised me and burned 15 calories.  I didn’t think it would burn that many.  Finally, I played Stomp It: Easy (where you need to stomp panels "in front" of you to the music) for 10 calories and Wall Breaker: Easy for 7.

Total calories burned in this session: 152.

The next session, I tried Pump It (where you flap your arms and bend your knees to inflate and then pop a ball) for 26 calories, Kick It (a soccer goal shooting game) for 19 calories, Hurricane (where you roll your arms around in circles to levitate some balls) for 19 calories, Stack It: Medium for 4 calories, Wall Breaker: Hard for 23 calories and Run the World: New York 5th Avenue for 70 calories.  Total calories burned: 161.

I was going to have a third session, but life intervened.  And by life, I mean JSL got sick and I had to tend to him instead of working out.  I do plan on doing three workouts for next weeks’ installment.

Giveaway

You could win a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved.  Simply post a comment to this blog post.  When my five week series is finished, one commenter from across the five posts will win a copy of the game from Ubisoft.

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of Your Shape Fitness Evolved by Ubisoft and financially compensated for this  Clever Girls Collective, Inc. campaign.  In addition, I was loaned an XBox 360 and Kinect for the duration of the campaign.  The opinions expressed above, however, are my own.