Teens use the new interactive workout game on the X-box Kinect. Physical fitness video games are the gyms of the future.
BY SARAH ROUSSELL
Whether it’s lifting weights at the gym, running miles outside, or taking spinning classes at a local community center, adults and teenagers alike are spending countless hours exercising. For some, all this hard work and dedication put into fitness training is a crucial step towards desired weight loss. For others, working out has become a normal part of their daily routine. Unfortunately, the loss of motivation, time, and energy has pushed some to completely avoid exercise all together. However, for those unwilling to venture out of their living room there is still hope. Various video-game systems such as the Wii and Xbox Kinect are livening up the idea of working out by introducing users to a new and unique alternative for exercising with interactive fitness video games.
The Wii, a home video game console released by Nintendo, has been entertaining families everywhere since 2006. With it’s wireless motion-sensitive remote controllers and a wide variety of games to choose from, the Wii has become one of this generation’s best-selling video game consoles. “Wii Sports” is just one of the exciting games that the Wii has to offer. Providing players with a natural and realistic feel to the ultimate sporting experience, the game features five different sports to choose from (baseball, tennis, golf, boxing, or bowling).
Like “Wii Sports”, different interactive fitness training games such as “Wii Fit” and “Wii Fit Plus” allow players to get active in front of their counsels. Changing how you exercise, how you balance, and how you move, the game features various exercises and activities to help you personalize a work out plan.
“I love using Wii Fit,” CCHS Junior Jeremy Rosenstein said. “It gets me active, and simulates that I’m outdoors when I’m actually in doors. I can be running inside with Wii Fit and I’ll lose the same amount of calories as if I was actually running outside.”
The game is grouped into five different categories, Aerobics, Yoga, Strength Training, and Balance Games. Under each category, there are a wide variety of games and activities to choose from. The design of the game helps you to lose weight, improve BMI, and tone your body while having fun.
The latest sensation to hit the video-gaming market is the Xbox Kinect. The system was created by Microsoft for Xbox and was launched in North America on November 4th, 2010. By using a motion sensor that tracks the movements of your entire body, skeletal tracking that creates a digital skeleton of you, facial recognition that remembers your identity, and voice recognition that can differentiate between your voice and other noises in a room, the Kinect brings virtual exercise to life and lifts each experience to a whole new level. Unlike other video game systems, the Kinect requires no remote controller, once the sensor is on and it recognizes you, you instantly are in complete control of the game.
With the new release of Kinect, Xbox has also released energetic fitness games such as “Your Shape: Fitness Evolved,” “Kinect Sports,” “Zumba Fitness,” and “The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout.” The Kinect, enables users to connect to the game and become fully active while moving around with the instructions of each activity, exercise, and dance routine.
“Technology has been a such a huge part of everybody’s lives,” CCHS dance teacher Jeanna Shuker-Joyce said. “If it contributes to them exercising, then I think having interactive fitness games is a wonderful idea.”
Fitness games for the Kinect are extremely beneficial to those who don’t normally work out. Whether it’s dancing, stretching your muscles, or jogging in place, each game provides you with an ultimate virtual workout that allows you to fully get active and exercise.
“Just after ten minutes of playing with interactive fitness games on the Kinect, you break out a sweat,” senior David Smilowitz.
The launching of various interactive sports and fitness games has introduced its users to a fun and unique way to exercise. For those who don’t have the time to make a trip to the gym, interactive fitness games provide an easy way to get active in the comfort of their own home and most fitness professionals agree that any exercise is good exercise.
“I have mixed feeling on exercising in front of the T.V,” CCHS weight training coach Arthur Taylor said. “Any kind of exercise is good for a society that has become so lazy. The best way to exercise is to go outside or a gym to work out, but any kind of exercise for those who don’t normally do it can be beneficial.”
