EA Sports Active (Wii)

== EA Sports Active Personal Trainer ==
The Wii Fit has been a hugely popular game, coming with it's famous Wii Balance Board players were doing combinations of balancing exercises, yoga, muscle training and cardio workouts. However, whilst this sounded good, people who were looking for a strong workout may have been disappointed. Wii Fit is fun... but didn't have continous workouts which told you how many calories you may be burning.
...to be able to play EA Active. It should be noted that you do need a Nunchuk to play this game, and most Wii owners will have one of these already. If you don't own one you need to purchase one. The game comes with a Leg Strap and a Resistance Band, both of which are used consistently throughout the various workouts.



== Set Up ==
When you first use the game you need to set up your profile. You choose a male or ... more

EA Sports Active Personal Trainer

The Wii Fit has been a hugely popular game, coming with it's famous Wii Balance Board players were doing combinations of balancing exercises, yoga, muscle training and cardio workouts. However, whilst this sounded good, people who were looking for a strong workout may have been disappointed. Wii Fit is fun... but didn't have continous workouts which told you how many calories you may be burning.

Then along came EA's game... EA Sports Active Personal Trainer. Priced at £34.96 this is considerably cheaper than Wii Fit which is priced at £59.99 (prices according to Amazon). It doesn't come with a Wii Balance Board, however it isn't a requirement to own one to be able to play EA Active. It should be noted that you do need a Nunchuk to play this game, and most Wii owners will have one of these already. If you don't own one you need to purchase one. The game comes with a Leg Strap and a Resistance Band, both of which are used consistently throughout the various workouts.

Set Up

When you first use the game you need to set up your profile. You choose a male or female character and customise their appearance. You also need to put in your stats such as weight (in KG), height (in cm) and body type, this is important as it helps the game calculate just how many calories you are burning off. You also need to choose whether you have a male or female trainer and, in my opinion, the male trainer's voice is rather annoying! I opted for the female. You can also customise the soundtrack that plays in the background during your workouts, you can select certain genre's or you can select to play all genre's.

You can set yourself some goals. You can go along with the default ones or change them to whatever you want. The 3 goals are calories to be burned in 7 days, how many hours workout for so many days, and exactly how many workouts you aim to do in 7 days. I went with the default ones at first, but now find myself setting harder goals to keep me going.

Throughout the game you will also earn 'Trophies.' You can view your trophies earned, and any grayed out ones are the ones you have not earned yet. The trophies range from number of calories burned using the game, hours spent working out, or how many journal entries you have completed.

Journal entries are to be completed everyday. Here you fill in a short daily survey which asks how many balanced meals you ate, how many sugary drinks you had, how many glasses of water you had, how many hours were spent sitting down etc etc. You then also need to fill in any other activity you may have done including walking. These 2 sections combined with your Workout for the day give you a medal. If you've ate well and done enough activity you may gain a gold medal, otherwise there's silver and bronze. On the right hand side the game advises where you could improve, for example it may tell you to eat more portions of vegetables!

Working Out

So you can then begin the 30 day challenge! The 30 day challenge is just that, over the course of 30 days you will do various workouts which will get harder as they go along, and workout various parts of the body. Of course you do have rest days though! You get 2 rest days a week which are shown on the calendar, however you can choose to workout on a rest day and have your rest day on a workout day. You don't need to select anything to do this, just simply don't use the game on your rest day or select to workout when it states it is your rest day, easy! You start off selecting the intensity of your workout, there are 3 choices here, Easy, Medium and Hard. I have gone for the Medium intensity and it's challenging enough for me and not too much of an easy breeze. You can change this, so if you find the workouts are getting too hard for you, simply change down to easy the next time!
You also select whether you are enabling the Wii Balance Board if you own one. I do so I select Yes, however I have chosen not to use it and you really don't lose out by not using it at all! The workouts are adapted slightly but aren't any easier or harder so I can say that you don't need to buy a Balance Board to use this game to the full because it doesn't make too much of a difference at all.

At the start of your workout it estimates how long it will take and how many calories you will burn off. I usually burn off slightly more than they estimate, and time for the workout varies depending on if you watch the videos or if you take a break.

It's now time to attach your leg strap! This is a good quality strap with a pocket for the Nunchuk. You need to strap this around the top of your thigh on your right leg. For alot of exercises the Nunchuk sits in the pocket, make sure you put the Nunchuck in the right way, this is demonstrated on the screen. On some exercises however you will be holding the Nunchuck, but I recommend you keep the leg strap on throughout the workout as you will often have to put it in, then take it back out again, and vice versa!

When starting your workout it states the title of the section you are about to begin, such as 'Run (Short).' If it's your first time doing this type it will then show you the tutorial video, else it begins the workout straight away. You can view the tutorial again at any point though and this is clearly shown on the screen. As you work through the current section the amount of calories you are currently burning is displayed in the top left corner, and the time you have taken on your workout in the top right.
If you are on the track, the distance left to go is shown in the bottom left along with your current position on the track.

On some exercises mainly involving your arms, you will use the resistance strap. It is clearly shown on the tutorial video what to do with this and how to carry out the exercise correctly. I've found the resistance strap to be very good and my arm muscles will ache and shake as I stretch them using this! When doing any muscle workouts an image of your trainer is shown in the bottom right going through the exercise with you. Your character is clearly displayed on the screen and shows what action you are currently doing. At the top it shows how many of the curent rep you have done, out of how many you have to do. For example if you are on your 8th lunge out of 14, it will show 8/14.
Through your workout your trainer will shout out at you to keep it up, how good your rythmn is and how well you are doing. If you don't do something correctly they will ask you to do it again. I haven't found this annoying at all, and can keep you motivated to keep going, especially when they say 'think of your goals!'

At the end of your workout you are given some feedback, for examples 'your reverse lunges were good, keep it up!' You also view exactly how many calories your burned off over the course of the workout, displayed on a graph against the estimates they gave you before your workout. On the next screen it will add your workout to your goals, and the bar charts will move up showing how far is left to complete your goal. From here you can now go back to your journal and view your medal award for the day.

You can choose to do other set workouts outside of the 30 day challenge, these can be preset workouts, or you can make your own custom workouts! Here you can combine various sections into one workout, and it will give you the time it will take and the estimated calories that will be burned off.

Compared to Wii Fit, is it any good?

Compared to Wii Fit I've found this game much better to 'play' to keep fit as you do one workout. With the Wii Fit you do an exercise, then you have to browse through and choose your next activity, rather than it being a continous workout.
EA Active also keeps track of how many calories you are burning off, which is great motivation!

However, as with the Wii Fit, sometimes it isn't accurate. The motions may not be picked up properly by the game and you may be holding a lunge but the screen is saying you are not doing it, leaving you screaming at it! I haven't found this too big a problem though and doesn't happen alot, wearing the leg strap I have found helps keep things accurate. I have noticed though on some exercises it showing you moving when you're stood still. I noticed this on the track on the 'Kick Ups' My leg strap had fallen off and I stopped to make this tigher, but my character kept on doing the Kick Ups around the track! This is annoying, but I haven't found this happens with alot of the activities!

It also doesn't weigh you like the Wii Fit, whilst I would have liked this feature I can understand it's missing because owning a Balance Board is not essential for this game, and if you own the Wii Fit anyway then you can still keep track of your weight over time on there, or of course, on your own scales.

Summary

I have found this game gives you a brilliant workout. You will sweat, alot, and be screaming at it when it wants you to do another set of Jump Lunges or Side Jumps! I find my muscles aching the day after, however this eases after the first few days of the 30 day challenge and you notice the difference as you find some exercises becoming easier that you struggled with at first.

It's not all just boring stretches and track running though. I have done boxing (includes kick boxing when using the balance board), tennis, in-line skating and a cardio dance workout! They're not silly little games like the Wii though, they usually come between stretches to help loosen up arms, and the In-Line skating is harder then it sounds as it requires you to hold your lunge and jump in the air. The cardio dance was a brilliant cooldown and wasn't just a simple 'step' workout as on the Wii Fit.
The track running is also better, you have to combine walking, running, knee ups and kick ups, the latter certainly getting your heart rate up!

This game certainly is a challenge. I have been on the medium intensity and find myself having a fast heart rate and sweating lots. My boyfriend is quite fit and exercises alot, he straight away opted for the Hard intensity and later regretted it! He quickly switched down to Medium intensity and finds it to be quite comfortable. I would recommend going through the preset workouts first on the different intensities to find something that's challenging enough for you, however bear in mind the 30 day challenge does get slightly harder as it goes on.

I would recommend this game to anyone who feels they needed more of a workout and challenge than what the Wii Fit provided. It's no easy challenge with this game, you WILL sweat, you WILL ache, but that's all in a good workout!  

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