I know I called Madden 2007 for the Wii “mediocre”, I know its rude. It’s also not 100% accurate. Madden 2007 like its predecessors is a very deep game that football fans the world over will love, but that doesn’t save it from a beat down in the “Wii Workout Week” article series. I like Madden 2007 on the Wii, my friends like Madden, rumor has it Santa Claus likes Madden, but there just isn’t much in the way of exercise I can extract from it. Remember, the point of this article series is to run some popular games through their paces to determine if we can fit a workout in around the game. Madden 2007 flops in this department.
Fitness:
Madden 2007 has some great control schemes that get you flinging your limbs around when you need to, unfortunately, you just don’t have the opportunity often enough or with enough force. Here’s a quick incomplete rundown of the common Wiimote movements you can perform:
Push both controllers forward to do a power tackle
Waggle the nunchuk to the left or right to juke
Move the Wiimote left or right to stiff arm an opponent
Pump both controllers up and down to break out of a tackle
Swing both controllers up to catch
Swing the Wiimote down to swat
The controls are a great addition to the game, but aren’t used with enough frequency to get your heart rate up at all. As anyone would know from being at a football game, a lot of the game is tactics and strategy, broken up by short aggressive plays. This is the main reason I’m rating Madden 2007 as a 1 tick, because I can’t work anything interesting in amongst the game play, and the already mentioned control scheme doesn’t get me working hard.
You can still do a few things like I suggested in “Get Soccer Slim with Mario Strikers” such as bouncing, and some isometric squats. However, due to the fact that the down time in this game is when you need to be thinking about what plays to implement, you can’t weave a workout into your game like yesterday’s game.
Fun:
I think I’ve said enough about how good this game is. If you like football, you’ll love Madden 2007 on the Wii. The control inputs add something extra the previous games haven’t seen, and make the experience just a bit more gratifying.
Multiplayer is great fun for Madden too, it seems the Wii is the master of the group experience- I think its something about needing to actually move around a bit to make things happen, it just excites people.
Motivation:
The full season mode will get you immersed in Madden 2007 for a long, long time. The career mode has an ocean of options for the beginner right through to people that have been playing Madden since its first appearance (I’ve no idea when that was… yearrrrs ago though). However, given this isn’t a game I’d recommend you’d play for fitness, the motivation rating here suffers as a result. 5 ticks if you just want to play football, 2 if you’re deluded enough to consider it part of your exercise routine.
While I don’t recommend you purchase Madden 2007 for your workouts, Madden 07 is almost a year old now, so you can pick it up pretty cheap at Amazon.
Lets do it. It’s time to get some ideas together on how to really have some fun with the popular Wii games and get a workout at the same time. Its not going to be an easy stroll in the park, you’ll have to use some will power here and want to actually work yourself. Our review structure for Wii games is basic and effective and is the same system I’ll be using to review every game here.
Day One of the first “Wii Workout Week” is a review of Mario Strikers Charged Football.
Fitness:
I picked this one up on a whim yesterday, thinking maybe there would be something vaguely exercise related that I could do with a Wii soccer game. I was right and wrong; the game intrinsically has no real exercise value, unless you include a bit of arm waggling to knock down your opponents. However, the game can definitely be played by an exerciser to shed kilos or stay fit. The game would receive a miserable 1 tick if you’re just going to stand up and play it normally, but picks up an extra 2 ticks because you can workout around the game fairly effectively.
For fitness, I strongly recommend playing a best of 5 series, splitting up different workout ideas that I list below into different games in the series. I’ll include a sample workout at the end of this article to show what I mean.
Here’s how:
Bouncing. Ever seen a boxer bouncing around the ring? Add this simple motion to your Mario Strikers game to get your heart rate up.
Jumping. Every time you win a goal jump as high as you can for as many goals as you score, plus the total score. For example, you just scored 1 goal, but the total goals in the game is 5- jump 6 times.
The point above is the best part of this game if you have friends around and you’re a little competitive. Each time your opponent scores, you jump the number of total goals scored. Work your friends in to a sweating heap on the floor with your Mario skills!
Alternatively, jump, and keep jumping for as long as it takes for the replay to play out, without any skipping ahead.
Push-ups. Every time a goal is scored, get down and bust out push-ups to the game goal total. Or, if playing friends, your friend gets down and pumps them out.
Tons of push-ups. Don’t just pump out push-ups every time a goal is scored, do them every time there’s a delay in the game; goals, replays, super strikes while the computer/your friend defends your shots, and so on.
Work your Abs. Get down on your back and play with the Wiimote through your legs. Keep your abs contracted to sit up well enough to see the screen (probably depends on your t.v. setup).
Super abs. Do crunches constantly while the opponent has possession of the ball, play ‘keep away’ with friends to burn their abs into aching piles of lactic acid.
Planks! You can get down and do some planks for as long as you can handle it while you play- you can still waggle that Wiimote from your wrists! Throw in side planks to change it up.
Squats. Take the same game technique from push-ups and apply it for a great body weight squat workout
Extended squats. I once had a karate class when my instructors told us to get our backs to the wall, and squat down until our thighs burned furiously from the lactic acid build up. I’ve never forgotten that torture, and now pass it on to you, my poor readers. Get down in a squat position while you play and stay there for as long as you can. Once you give up, let yourself rest until you think you can take a little more and repeat.
Power shots. If you’re particularly fit, competitive, or maybe a little silly, while you play with friends take the extended squats option & make it a game breaker. Get down and squat until you can squat no more, whoever breaks first lets his opponent have a free power shot with his captain.
Boxing. One of my favorite things about this game is the beat down you can give friends. Rather than waggling the Wiimote like a sissy to make your players knock each other down, break out massive punches. It’ll work your biceps and back so well you’ll feel it the next day (just like Wii Sports Boxing!). For an even better workout ban slide tackles, its beat down time!
Choose teams with the lowest defense rating so that more goals are scored, or alternatively, just set your level of difficulty by doubling, tripling or quadrupling the repetitions you do to number of goals scored. For example, a super strike by a captain lands 3 goals, the game total is 2 goals, that makes it 5. Double that, and you’re doing 10 push ups.
Example workout:
Game 1: Start with a whole game of bouncing to get warmed up and ready for the more serious exercise
Game 2: Push ups on goals
Game 3: Jumps on goals
Game 4: Squats on goals
Game 5: Abdominal planks and crunches
Set your difficulty higher by doubling or tripling jumps/push-ups/etc if you need to, or just set arbitrary numbers of repetitions per goal scored. Remember, the whole idea behind this is to get a workout in while you enjoy yourself.
Fun:
The fun side of this game is huge. There’s nothing about this game that would make me consider bringing it out of the 5 tick class.
Lots of kudos to the game designers, there’s a variety of balanced, interesting ways to make an offensive play, from passing it around to power the ball up, defensive jinks, sprinting to break away from defenders, and my personal favorite, dishing out multiple player beat downs before making a quick break back towards your opponents half with your full 4 man team to their 2.
Defense is fun too, again, beating players up and throwing them against the electric fence is great for a laugh, but leaves the ball rolling away free, while slide tackling can let you come away with possession of the ball immediately. There’s pros and cons to each way of tackling, and different teams are better at different options.
Continuing from my last point, another game play aspect I like in Mario Strikers is the difference between team captains. If you like fast nimble teams you can go with speedy captains, or if you like slow juggernauts who can lay the smack down, go with that- it offers great re playability and a unique feel for each match up.
Online mode can be great too, giving you the ability to play multi player when you’re home alone, however about the only black mark I can give this game is that I can’t play someone of lower skill level (I could hardly believe how high the skill level was online).
Motivation:
Mario Strikers, like most good games is very addictive, and will have you coming back game after game. Motivation drops a bit for me when I’m playing alone, but is much higher if I’m playing friends where we can get competitive, and rub victories in each other’s faces.
I’m a big believer in fun being the biggest motivator, so if you can integrate these workout ideas into your Mario Striker’s games, you’re already half way there.
I hope you enjoyed day one of the Wii Workout Week. If you’d like to support my web site, and like the sound of Mario Strikers, buy it here at Amazon.
You’ve read the blogs by the guys and girls who are losing weight with the Wii. Good on ‘em. Unfortunately, its all about Wii Sports. I love using the Wii as a workout tool, but I need more variety than just Wii Sports to get me on my Wii regularly. Other games are a ton of fun (as I found out yesterday) and its prompted me to come up with my first week long project, “Wii Workout Week, Worthless or Worthy?”
The project will review 7 games, 1 game a day, and will show you which titles are worthy of using as a workout, and which ones are worthless.
This project won’t just be me sitting on the couch playing games, enjoying myself while I convince my girlfriend that I’m actually working. I’ll be pushing some workout limits, being creative, and coming up with as many ways as I can to use these Wii games to break a sweat.
And before you ask, no, I won’t be tracking my weight (this web site isn’t just for people losing weight), however if anyone wants to use these tips to create their own weight loss record, share their success, or just to let people know how they’re going, please join my traineo.com group, “Wii Workout Week“. Or if you’re not a member of traineo, simply let us know via comments at the bottom of this page.
If you have any requests on which games you’d like to see reviewed, please ask! I will be running other Wii Workout Weeks in the future.
I got my hands on a bunch of new Wii games yesterday with the intention of seeing how effective they are for getting a workout, and how fun they are in general. Unfortunately, the first game I played was Mario Strikers Charged Football, it was so addictive and fun, I couldn’t put it down to check the other three out, and then mates came over, and we didn’t stop playing until 2am.
We actually did get a bit of a workout playing, due to the competition being so fierce that controllers were being thrashed around like boxing gloves to knock down opponents, but its probably not a game to play for exercise alone.
Stay tuned for a full review of Mario Strikers Charged Football, Madden 2007, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Wii Play. Given there’s already been so many reviews for Wii Sports, I’ll give that game the treatment down the line.
The perfect body and fantastic health could be yours if only you knew how not to start an exercise program. Think about how many times you’ve started an exercise program only to stop shortly after. People start exercise programs every day, but can you stick with it?
If you want to beat off members of the opposite sex like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s baby will have to, a few key principles will stop you bailing out like an overweight skydiver, keen to plummet to earth to devour a box of sweet, tasty donuts.
If you want to fail, make the following mistakes:
Always exercise alone
Keep your weight loss goals a big secret
Follow every starvation diet plan you read about
Stay away from fresh fruit and vegetables, they give you gas anyway. And we’d rather never get gas than be skinny, right?
Run run for hours on the treadmill alongside all the skinny 18 year old girls who’s metabolisms haven’t caught up with them yet (guys, maybe forget this point).
Choose an exercise plan, and
change that plan every week to something completely different (you can’t track your progress)
don’t tweak the plan sufficiently to keep you interested
Choose an exercise plan that you have no interest in; for me, thats the “treadmill only” plan
Choose an exercise plan written by a body building magazine, even though you’re a total beginner
Choose an exercise plan that you can’t have fun with. I.e. you love exercising with your dog, but you choose to workout in a commercial gym- and your dog isn’t for your blindness
Start a new program and give it 1000% You’ll get injured, and then you’ll gain weight. Why did you start this exercise program in the first place…?
Start a new program and be scared to try new things, and don’t give it your best shot. Just read my 1000% percent comment again though, please?
Do exactly what you did last time you started, and then gave up on, an exercise program. Learn from your mistakes, okay?
Start exercising without even considering seeing your doctor. From www.fitness.gov:
If you’re under 35 and in good health, you don’t need to see a doctor before beginning an exercise program. But if you are over 35 and have been inactive for several years, you should consult your physician.
Plan, and plan, and plan, and then research… and research some more, and then forget you need to start some day. Its called the, “Ready, aim, aim, aim… aim… now your old and fat” approach. Summon the courage to start, then build upon your experience. This plan is called the “Ready, Fire, Aim” approach. It’s my favorite. Again, remember my doctor point, above.
Take crazy full on weight loss products that do terrible things to your body. Forget stuff that’s good for you and helps you look good- you know; like fish oil, green tea, and multivitamins. Unless you’re a painter at heart, I’d stay away from drugs that stop your body absorbing fat. You get the picture.
Never record or measure anything. Just because “some guy your friend knows” is ripped (read low body fat) from going to the gym twice a week, or as I alluded to earlier, just because the 18 year old skinny girls at the gym are only ever on the treadmill, doesn’t mean those methods are the best for you. Make meaningful long term efforts and record your progress.
Don’t make yourself accountable by using social networking sites like my friend at “The Fit Blog” suggests. Failing to keep up with your promises to those new friends is a great motivator.
Forget the latest weight loss craze of using video games to lose weight. Think of it this way: it’s a bit like getting into a car crash in that you don’t really see it coming, and then BAM! You’re losing weight and enjoying yourself. Plenty of people around the world are losing weight (or at least slowing the speed of weight gain) accidentally every time they play games. Why not use that? Fun while you exercise is key for motivation.
Never think of starting a new sport, or getting back into the old sports you played in school, you’d suck now and make a total fool of yourself. Wrong. Look for social sport listings in the paper, or in local take-aways and laundromats everywhere- there’s sports available for all skill levels.
Don’t let that little voice in your head make up excuses, start a new exercise program today, and follow my advice. I think you’ll do great.
I received an email today from Games for Health about a new competition called Ruckus Nation. This fantastic initiative invites people from all over the world to come up with a product idea that gets kids up and moving, to help control weight gain in kids. The winner of this competition could win $75,000, after which HopeLab (the non-profit group which is running the competition) will develop the idea and possibly bring it to market.
I thought this was one of the most socially valuable competitions I’ve heard about in a long time, so thought I might be able to help out with some ideas on how to best develop a winning product. Keep in mind this competition aims at kids in middle school (ages 11 through 14) and can be almost any kind of product (see the exact guidelines in PDF form here).
Without further adieu, here’s our way of helping you win $75 grand, and helping HopeLab reduce kiddy waist lines everywhere:
Kids can be competitive- does your idea pit child against child, or does it give kids a chart which shows their progress against themselves, other groups, or the world?
Kids in middle school are generally social with each other, does your idea involve groups of kids, or can it leverage off involving a social element to the game?
Kids enjoy rewards and recognition, can this idea of yours give a sense of reward or achievement to the kids using it?
Does your idea provide information which gives the child knowledge that they can then apply in life? Can your idea get both get the child up & moving, as well as provide weight loss information at the same time?
Is your product cool? Are kids going to ‘puke’ when they see it, or is it likely to become socially unacceptable for kids using it? You may need to run your idea past some kids aged around 11-14 years to gauge their reaction. Forget the perils of the generation gap and you may risk missing out on a prize!
Does your idea get kids moving, and give them incentive to keep moving? Judging guidelines for the competition state that 20% of the score given to an entry is based on whether you can keep your kids moving after you’ve given them motivation to get up to begin with. A device like a pedometer might be key to monitoring that a child is moving around, but how can you use that to motivate them to keep going?
Is your idea easily portable, or available to kids all day long? If your idea consists of a very large product that can only be accessed in large outdoor areas at limited times of the day, or only small numbers of people are able to use it at a time, the product may not appeal to HopeLab. Remember, the more kids that can afford to use it, and are able to use it at the greatest length of time during the day, the better.
Another judging criteria is whether your idea gives kids the control over the product. You shouldn’t find it hard to go wrong here, just be sure nothing about your product design requires adults to be involved. Adults aren’t cool anyway, just ask your kids!
Find some inspiration by looking at current trends. Two that I’m particularly aware of are Dance, Dance Revolution and the degree to which that has taken off as an exercise tool for schools, and the Nintendo Wii. What elements of those two products can you identify as being integral to their success? My ideas are; its fun, its cool, and it involves your friends. I doubt getting fit at the same time has ever had an influence over how popular those products are with kids.
I can’t believe it, but I almost forgot the most important, and most obvious tip! Is your product fun!? If you can make the product or game fun, or addictive, then you have a much better shot at getting a prize. Again, you will want to consult with some 11-14 year olds to see if your idea of fun is the same as theirs. If you want some inspiration from addictive games, try playing The Sims, or World of Warcraft. These games are like some kind of addictive drug- I’ve personally spent far too many hours on both. And while I’m on the topic of drugs, the competition doesn’t allow you to enter any kind of medication or surgical ideas, so you’ll have to follow that one up on your own…!
The competition allows you to enter solo, or as a member of a team. I strongly suggest if you’re an adult, you enlist the help of a couple of team members who are around that 11-14 age group. I’ve already mentioned a few times why this is a good idea, but having a kid around who can poke holes in what you believe to be a flawless masterpiece may elevate your idea from unsuccessful, to a $250 prize winner, a $25,000 category prize winner, or to the top $75,000 prize winner.
Is your idea original, or is it a clone of another idea? HopeLab would like the entries to be bold, creative and original. These criteria alone will help HopeLab market the idea to the media better, and hence create a more successful product which more kids will be able to use. However, be sure that while your idea is bold or creative, Ruckus Nation are looking for ideas for products that actually can be developed in the near future, so no holodecks or anti-gravity boots. More on that, here.
Ruckus Nation suggests you come up with an idea by thinking of a time when you were physically active and moving about, and it was really fun. Numerous ideas pop into my head at this point that unfortunately only over 18′s could engage in, but the guideline may help you none the less.
Finally once its all said and done, you need to submit your entry. Even if you’ve had mixed response from adults and kids, if you personally believe strongly in your idea- submit it. You never know what the greater population might think of it, or whether HopeLab can use your idea in combination with something else.
I hope you’ve found my list useful and are able to make a lot of kids healthier, and yourself wealthier!
If you’re interested in signing up, go here, you need to submit your entry by November 20 at 5pm PT. And please read all the legal and entry requirements. While I’ve done my best to be accurate regarding what I’ve written about here, its best to review all HopeLab’s documents in detail, especially the legal guidelines!
If you have any good ideas for submission to my list, please let me know via comments, below, or via my contact page.
Following on from my previous article, Exergaming, Easy Effective Weight Loss, I thought I’d compile a short list of the best exergaming authors, bloggers and a few exercisers using their Nintendo Wii and Dance, Dance Revolution to lose weight.
Here they are, with a quick review of each:
www.wiihealthy.com – a news blog dedicated to keeping readers abreast of all things Wii & healthy. Regularly updated.
www.wiiweightlossplan.com – The author, J.R. started this website to help himself lose weight, and found the best thing was that it was fun. Well written & interesting, the author is losing a lot of weight.
www.abqtrib.com- On Aug 9th, Willie Jefferson Jr has vowed to lose almost 100 pounds. Stay tuned.
www.wiiwii.tv- Another good exercise with Wii website, dedicated to a wide variety of news on using games to exercise… and other things!
www.wiifitchallenge.com – Another blogger using the Wii to exercise & lose weight, they’re currently waiting for the Wii Fit’s release to begin a new plan.
www.ryanmercer.com- Billing himself as the Jared of Nintendo, Ryan has some progress shots up, and forums for people to speak Wii.
www.workoutwithwii.com- Slowing down with the updates a bit now, but some good info there on how much the author worked out with the Wii, and how much weight loss he experienced.
www.wiiplayable.com- Has a great list of flash games you can download & play on your Wii (not sure yet how good they are for exercise), and a “news blender” which shows news from other sources.
www.videogameworkout.net- A female blogger for a change trying to lose weight with a combination of Wii, DDR, and other games, and not only that, she’s now pregnant! Read about how she’s going and check out the forums for other people’s weight loss stories.
www.wiiweightloss.com- A site with a bunch of reviews on Wii sports games, and how effective they are to work out with. Interesting tips here, too.
www.traineo.com- A weight loss tracking and motivation site, traineo has a Wii weight loss group that you might want to join. Very cool!
www.sporle.de- A German Wii site! Daily news on exergaming products and trends.
Got any of your own favorite links or websites you tune into? Let me know!
Exergaming is the cure to a frighteningly overweight population, childhood obesity, boring workouts, and lack of motivation everywhere.
First, lets define it. Exergaming is a combination of exercise and video games. Thats all!
It may sound simple, but exergaming has the greatest chance of helping kids (and the rest of us) get a leg up in the battle against the bulge. Why? Because its fun. You’ve noticed how many people out there love video games. There’s a lot of us out there, and because exergaming has such great fun and incidental exercise potential, it also has the greatest weight loss potential when we look at society as a whole. Sure, we might not get many people losing 20 kilograms of body fat in 6 months just using the Wii, but half an hour a night is just what the world needs to keep off millions of tons of collective body fat.
“Exercise can be very boring! It takes real determination and long term commitment to drag yourself off to the gymnasium and put yourself through the paces. It is so easy to lose interest when you fail to see immediate results.” -Roland Rocchiccioli, in Fat or Fiction.
That quote, from Donna Aston’s excellent Fat or Fiction, highlights the number 1 problem for exercisers. I believe people have great difficulty staying motivated to work out, and any motivation they do have evaporates due to lack of results and boredom. We can use goal setting to help us stay motivated, however most of us either haven’t been taught effective goal setting methods, or dismiss the idea before the next ad break finishes and Law & Order resumes.
Exergaming provides you and I with an easy, perhaps irresistible urge to exercise. Again, its because its fun, addictive fun! Plenty of us bemoan the demise of children getting outside and getting some sunlight, but we can either go with the flow, or fight it, and any parent with teenagers knows how well that can backfire. Why not join your kids or parents in a game of multiplayer tennis, and build up some family spirit, rather than spouting the same “go outside and get some fresh air” that today’s kids (and plenty of adults!) dread hearing.
In their current form, exergaming machines like Nintendo’s Wii and Konami’s DDR provide excellent “incidental” or “accidental” exercise. People aren’t playing their Wii games or DDR to get healthy and lean, they’re playing it because its social, challenging, and fun. Lots, and LOTS of fun. If you accidentally burn some energy and fat while playing computer games and having fun with friends, why not capitalize on that as much as you can, rather than trying to use brute will force to get yourself to workout like Roland and so many others do?
If you know anyone with a Wii, or Dance, Dance Revolution, have a go- you might get hooked and go down a belt notch.
My favorite hang out- Jetty Rd, Glenelg in South Australia and a horde of fun runners. It must be fun after all!
Maybe next year I’ll join in and make up a bunch of t-shirts that I can wear with friends. On the back they’ll say something like, “Anyone who passes me isn’t having fun.” Or something equally silly.
…if a fun runner can’t run for fun? I’m not really sure, but according to my brother who just completed the Adelaide City to Bay fun run, “Not much!”.
The recent activities in Adelaide for the bay fun run made me ask, “Why is it called a fun run?” As you might know, I’m not the biggest fan of running for fun and fitness, so I have trouble understanding what makes fun runs fun. I was talking to my brother after the event, and he tells me plenty of extremely fit people run these events, but at a snail’s pace. Sounds to me like they’re in it for the socializing, the comradeship, and to participate in the thrill of a large event. I guess that’s starting to sound a bit more like fun.
Rumor has it people even dress up for fun runs. We managed to spot a guy in a gold skin tight, full length outfit wielding a massive toilet brush… I think…! I bet it was a good workout carrying that brush, and a good talking point for other social joggers!
If you’re into jogging, or feel the need to join your local fun run the next time it erm… runs, you should get started on a fitness regimen as soon as possible. Most events will include a sample exercise plan for competitors-to-be, such as this one from the Adelaide City to Bay. Its always a good idea to follow these plans to negate the risk of injury, and as always check with your doc before starting.
Check here for a list of fun runs around the world.
I think I’ve said enough about how good this game is. If you like football, you’ll love Madden 2007 on the Wii. The control inputs add something extra the previous games haven’t seen, and make the experience just a bit more gratifying.
