Last January (Jan 2012), I had to return to the US for a couple of weeks for my grandpa’s funeral–I can’t believe I didn’t blog about that. While I was there, I bought several things to bring back. One of those things was The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout for xBox with Kinect. I never opened it (and had forgotten about it until I was looking through where I had hidden the kid’s and Cyndi’s Christmas presents). Today was my first time using it.
After some fiddly setup (be prepared for about 30 minutes of “stuff”), I was ready for my first workout. However, before I could start, it did a short body analysis. I entered my weight, the game had me face the Kinect, pause, then turn to the side, and pause. I was ready to work out.
First off, I am way out of shape. I knew I wasn’t in the best shape; however, I didn’t think I was this out of shape. After all, I used to ride my bike thousands of miles a year (and had even done two centuries). Wow.
On to the good:
- The workouts are good. My heart rate was up the entire 30 minutes
- There’s good customization. I was able to tell it my weight goal, select a time-frame, enter how many times a week to work out, and choose my workout duration.
- Having the kinect see the entire body allows the game to give you good feedback: knees up, too wide, and that sort of thing
- I liked the fact that it measured my waist, height, neck, etc… with nothing more than me removing my shirt.
Now for the bad:
- When I laid on the ground, the kinect didn’t track me so good. Although, to be fair, I think this may be related to available space more and position more than anything
- It didn’t always track my movements right. For example, in typical computer fashion, it told me to widen my lunge; however, when I widened it by more than an inch, it said too wide. In some exercises, it is very “computer picky.”
Now, this was only my first workout. Overall, I think it went well. I told it I wanted to do 4 per week. I’ll use it for this week then post a follow-up.