Workout Wednesday: Friendly Competition YourShape Style

Little Miss Techie has spent two days home sick this week as feverish-enough-that-the-teacher-in-me-knows-to-keep-her-home sick but not sick enough to keep her away from the Kinect. On Monday she watched me play from underneath a blanket on the couch but yesterday she joined in. A sure sign that she’s better, right?

We started with a 6 minute Zen Energy Class to wake up sleepy muscles and get warmed up. While only 1 of us was recognized by the Kinect, YourShape helps guide correct form during each of the poses by taking a snapshot and giving a percentage score based on correct positioning of arms and/or legs.

The white lines embedded in my image indicate that I am not doing any part of the pose correctly. Perhaps because I was taking a photo!

 

Green means my form looks good….

Hmmm…47%?!? Clearly I need to do this more often!

 

Then we moved on to the Smash Game and punching blocks as they appeared on the screen. This was the perfect multi-player game because it allowed me to work my arms (sorely needed!) while teaching Little Miss Techie about friendly competition!

Having watched me play before, she knew what to do but was discouraged when her starting score was 13. Mine was only 158 so neither of us were doing too well as indicated by the friendly voice that told us, “That isn’t working out quite right.” Thanks.

So of course we had to play again. Round 2 scores: Mommy 259, Little Miss Techie 55. Not bad but as the game said, “Let’s try again. You’re not meeting your mark.” Humph.

Round 3: Mommy 737, Little Miss Techie 97. We were improving but apparently not quickly enough to meet the standards of the electronic voice.

Round 4: Mommy 810, Little Miss Techie 86. The game ended with an enthusiastic “You’re playing at a very high level!” from our friendly Kinect woman. Now we were getting somewhere!

Finally, Round 5…. Mommy 856, Little Miss Techie 196!

 

Little Miss Techie was ecstatic about her high score and breaking into the triple digits. While she did note that my score was always higher, I told her that as a grown-up, mine was supposed to be higher than hers and we were working on improving our scores each time we played. She was pleased to see her overall progress over the course of the five games when we stopped and I showed her the scores I had been writing down.

In all, the workout was probably about 30 minutes and by the end, I could feel the good kind of burn that comes from engaged muscles. My legs felt strong from doing squats during each game and I had certainly worked my arms and core punching across my body at the different targets as they appeared on the screen.

Despite my personal satisfaction, no calories are recorded for the games so I look like a slacker during two out of the three days I worked out with YourShape.

Apparently Zen Energy Level 1 only burns 6 calories. Sigh.

Here’s a summary for this week:

• Total calories burned this week as recorded by YourShape: 203 (good thing I did 2 rounds of levels 1& 2 of Cardio Boxing earlier this week!)

• Total play time: 90 minutes (weekly totals will be added to this each week)

• Total calories burned to date playing YourShape: 432

• Total overall play time: 105 minutes (weekly totals will be added to this each week)

• Weight lost: 0 lbs (At least I didn’t gain weight!)

Ubisoft provided me with a copy of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and is sponsoring this series of reviews, though the opinions I’ve expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint. Ubisoft, Clever Girls Collective and I promote Blog With Integrity. Xbox 360 and Kinect were provided for review by Microsoft.