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Innovative

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 25
Date: October 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I think the idea of an interactive fitness programm brilliant. Because the use of beautifully animated computer models, instead of a human 'personal trainer', the exercises never get repetitive like on a DVD.

The program starts with an initial evaluation of your fitness level (resting heart rate vs. elevated heart rate, flexibility and endurance) and that alone got me sweating. After you evaluation you can set your overall goals and your new virtual trainer will recommend a personalized program for you. You can either choose to go with the recommended workouts or create your own schedule. Your trainer will ask you occasionally how you feel during the workout and will automatically adjust the level of difficulty for the upcoming workouts. She will also provide you with your workout progress and eventually unlock new features (music, exercises, environments) as a reward. The best thing is that the workouts never get dull and are always different. If you're tired of the same old exercises all over again and don't want to join a gym, look no further! You don't need any equipment, but after a while you just might want to get a stepper or some dumbells and your trainer will automatically incorporate them in your workout. I was also pleasantly surprised with the "Meditation Garden" with basic Yoga exercises and tutorials.

I can highly recommend it!

My $35.00 Gym

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: October 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was thinking of joining a gym until I found Yourself!Fitness. This game gave me everything I wanted, aerobics, yoga, and weightlifting all from within my living room, using equipment I already own. I have done 5 workouts and overall I think this is a great program. It is at my level, it pushes me, I can focus the program to my needs, and I feel like it is a great value for the money.

The personal trainer is just right- not too annoying, and the length and intensity of the sessions are challenging but not overwhelming.

The workouts are heavy on aerobics, but so far each workout has included strength training exercises. I'm excited to add a stability ball to vary my workouts even more.

Give it a try, it is suited to both men and women.

Great concept and great "game" gives you a great workout

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 74 / 77
Date: October 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was taken back when I noticed this on the shelves of my local gaming store. So I read the back, came home and did a little on line research.

It was less than 24 hours after that, when I decided to purchase this product.

This is a great "game" that takes getting in shape very seriously. You answer some questions at the beginning and do some exercises to allow the trainer, Maya, to get a feel for your overall health.

Once you've done that, Maya has created your personalized training schedule, eating schedule and I was ready to go!

During my first workout, Maya gave plenty of encouragement (based on how I was answering questions throughout the workout)to keep me going. The bottom of the screen displays the workout that you are doing along with the next one coming up, including rests and water breaks. She can incorporate a stepper, flexibility ball, hand weights and a heart monitor in the workout.

The variety of the workout was AMAZING and I sweating more after 30 minutes with Maya that I ever have doing other videos.

This is definitely worth the $34 price tag just to have your own personal trainer in your Xbox whenever you want one.

Overall, this is only a 4 star product since it doesn't really tell you how much you "need" to lose and how you are going to get there. I also would have liked a BMR calculation with calories taken in so I can see what I need to burn off to lose some weight.

Perfect for Moms or those who don't have time/$ for the gym!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 330 / 338
Date: October 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am a WAHM of one 14 month old; I gaining a LOT of weight during my pregnancy (no thanks to the women who kept saying "You're too small!" as they shoved cake and chips in my face!) and I've had a heck of a time getting it off (even though I eat VERY healthy). I used to be VERY active and loved running and/or going to the gym, but we can't afford a gym membership (or a babysitter on a daily basis so I could actually GO to the gym and I'm too tired after my husband gets home to go to the gym anyway) OR one of those outrageously expensive jogging strollers (for those prices, they should get better ratings!). I've tried baby & mom yoga (a book)- that didn't work for me. I purchased a DVD on Amazon, Pilates for Everyone I think it was called- that was better than the yoga book, but I found that the gap between the beginner and intermediate workouts was WAY too wide for me (the beginner workouts got too easy and the intermediate workouts, yeah, I couldn't even make it through the first five minutes of one). This is the BEST thing I've found so far and I am LOVING it! :-)

So let me break it down.
Things I LOVE about this:
1. Custimization- you enter your weight, target weight (if you need to), resting/active BPM, flexibility, etc, even the excersize equipment you already own and it will tell you what your MAIN goal should be (mine being weight loss, obviously). You enter days of the week you can work out and how much time you can spend working out on those days.
2. Tempo- It doesn't seem to be repetitive at all, like my Pilates DVD was, it never got boring.
3. Scroll bar- There's a scroll bar on the bottom of the screen as you do a work out that tells you what you're doing and shows you what is up next as well. For example, it shows a picture of two free-weights before the next segment if you need to use them during the next excersize. And there is a clock counting down the time (which I REALLY need, I need to be able to see that the time is going DOWN and I'm making progress) and it tells you the level of difficulty of the exersize that you're doing- both under the time and on the scroll bar- one line for level one, two bars for level two, you get it.
4. Tutorial- You can pause and review the tutorial at ANY time, as needed.
5. The Personal Instructor- She virtual and she doesn't look like freaking Barbi, THANK GOODNESS! :-) (In fact, she looks a lot like me BEFORE I had my daughter :-) )
6. Reinforcement- Before you start your workout for the day, you can change what the personal instructor has chosen for you (if she recomends cardio, and you aren't feeling up to it, you can change it to some other area of focus). She asks you how you're feeling both before you start your workout and in between at intermitent points so if you need MORE positive reinforcement, she will do more "rooting". :-)
7. Recipes and meal plans and shopping lists, oh my! - I don't use these, I'm vegetarian, no sugar, and I'm decreasing my intake of dairy products so I have my own healthy recipes customized to fit MY life and budget, BUT these are a great idea and I may actually flip through the 4500 (gasp!) recipes for something new.
8. She KNOWS if you missed a day! Yup, I guess if you miss a day, it will show up on your "progress", which may annoy some people, but I feel guilty VERY easily so if I miss a day I'd feel guilty because not only would I know, the virtual Personal Instructor would know it too, so she'd remind me of it. And that would work to my advantage so I wouldn't skip a day unless I was really sick or something.
9. The "LEVELS" - I think this is so cool. Like most other video games, the more time you spend doing it, the more levels open up to reward you. In this case, the "levels" are the spaces where your personal trainer works out (yeah, I'd like to work out in a field surrounded by green grass and waterfalls for REAL!) but it makes for a nice change of scenery.
10. Calories - At the end of your work out, it tells you how many calories you've burned! That is SO important for me because I need to see improvement.
11. Workouts - I get bored easily, and my target is weightloss so when the personal trainer recomends I do cardio, it's not just cardio- in my cardio workouts there are some cardio weight training exersizes too, which is nice so I don't get bored! There are also water breaks after strenuous steps and stretch breaks after each cardio weight set and the workout time includes stretching at the end. ALSO even though my main goal is weight loss, the personal trainer doesn't suggest that I do just cardio for every single workout. For example, if I do a 30 minute workout, the first 10-15 minutes will be cardio, and the remaining workout could be upper/lower body strength, flexibility, core body strength, etc. So I end up with a very well-rounded week of workouts.
12. The "camera angle" changes throughout the workout so you can see what it should look like from different angles and it changes the back drop behind the personal trainer too, so it's not boring.
13. In addition to the daily workouts, you can also chose "Meditation Garden" and do a roughly 20 minute yoga session. I've been doing this at the end of the day before bed after my daughter is asleep and it's WONDERFUL! It's so great to have yoga in this "game" too! It's like having everything I need in one place!

Things that I would improve:
1. Ok, this is silly, but it'd be fun to change her body type or even her weight, and her clothes/hair color/eye color, etc. But that's more play and less workout and I guess that's really not the point of the "game". :-) That's just the child in me.
2. During the cardio, while you're doing any type of work with reps and weights, I wish that the number of reps would count down on the screen as you are doing them with the personal trainer, because again, I like to see results.
3. I think this is mainly geared towards women, for the very fact that the personal trainer is a woman. But my husband is going to use this as well (for improving his core strength) and he said he'd rather have a male personal trainer than female.
4. When I was setting up my customized section, after I plugged in my height and weight, the personal instructor instructed me that I was over the weight range for my height. Now maybe this is just me being uber-sensitive, but DUH! I'd rather just have it just state at the end that my target goal is weight loss so I will be doing a lot of cardio in my customized workouts.
5. Although I don't have a problem with this because my husband already had an x-box, it would be more versitile if they came out with one that can be played on regular DVD players OR one that can be played on BOTH an x-box AND a DVD player (and for the x-box, they could just have you use the x-box remote that plays movies instead of the controller).
6. Although I LOVE the Meditation Garden yoga sessions, I would like to know how many Calories I've burned at the end of each session- the "game" only tells you how many Calories you've burned at the end of each "Workout" session.

I was a little apprehensive about this at first, I'll admit, I thought it was a silly idea, but I LOVE it now! Once I got into it and started the workout, it was fun and not boring at all! This is perfect if you are a mom (or a dad, I know some dads stay at home or work at home too)/ hate the gym/ don't have $ for the gym AND a personal trainer AND a nutritionist/ get bored easily/ need positive reinforcement/ need a schedule/ need something different in each workout/ need custimization... ENJOY! :-)

ALL I CAN SAY IS "WOW!"

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: November 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am an avid gamer ever since star wars galaxies online came out, but the only problem is that after a year and a half of playing the game I packed on some extra pounds, and I figured with Everquest II coming out this month that I had better do something. Then I saw an ad for this game, and I bought it, thinking well it is a game, so maybe it won't seem as much like a workout:) I bought it and I loved it:) OMG it gives you a great workout adjusted to your body needs, and if something is too easy or too hard during the workout Maya will adjust it the next work out:) I will be on my 10th workout tomorrow and I have already dropped 2lbs:) It has a ton of recipes too:) The yoga is awesome and very relaxing:) I am even letting my 10 year old daughter use it:) It customized a workout to her needs, and she loves it:) My husband is going to start using it too:) It has changed the fitness outlook of our whole family:) It is very exciting to watch the bars go across as you come close to finishing a routine, and you know that you have made it:) And it is very exciting when you unlock a new place to work out, and gain levels to go up to new exercises. You also unlock new music:) This game is great:) I have seen in the last week a change in my energy and sleep. I am sleeping much better:) Also I am already beginning to see muscle definition in my arms:) This is awesome:) If you have found yourself having trouble sticking to a workout program in the past you should definetly try this:) I guarantee you will love it:)

Good Luck and Stay Healthy:)

No one to embarrass but yourself

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: November 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I have a gym membership, as do many people. Like many people I tend to walk around, get frustrated and make excuses not to go.I won't do aerobics classes because I can't seem to follow the instructors, and I worry about keeping up with the class.

So I bought this virtual personal trainer, and I am impressed. Difficulty is scaled to your fitness level, she keeps up with you rather than you trying to keep up with her. I've been training for almost three weeks, and have discovered two important benefits:

1) I feel small muscles I haven't felt in a long while. This is a great all around workout, and I have noticed some improvement in my ability to keep up.

2) I'm eating less, and that's without help. For some reason the exercising is curtailing my eating habits. My appetite is the same, it's just taking less to fill me up. Probably has to do with the stomach crunches.

She will work with a heart rate monitor, a ball, hand weights, and a stepper. I have the ball and hand weights, and am considering purchasing a stepper.

I can honestly say my energy levels have improved, and I look forward to the workouts and feel bad when I miss one. For 35 dollars xbox owners should try to make this a best seller, I would like to see more products like this on the market.

A new kind of work out video

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: November 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I have been looking for some workout videos that wouldn't bore me within a week or drive me crazy with overly perky stars. Then I discovered this title when browsing through the video games during some preliminary Christmas shopping with my husband. I was intrigued, but not an owner of the XBox system. (We owned one of its competitors.) Then my brother came to visit and bought a copy of the game to demo with me and his wife on his system. Everyone in the room was impressed.

Granted, I haven't owned the program long enough to discover lots of flaws. Instead, I am thrilled to get so much of my workout wishlist fulfilled in one place! I'll detail a few of my favorites below. I am sure many people are afraid this is a game, but it's actually a programmable workout DVD you can personalize to fit your own stats and needs. You begin by answering a series of questions about your weight, current activity level, desired workout times, exercise preferences, etc. This first-time only set-up is lengthy, but worthwhile.

Maya, the personal trainer, is neither perky nor bossy. Her voice is calm and professional. You also have the choice of several different workout locations (or backgrounds--my current favorite is the Dojo), five styles (weight loss, upper body, etc.), music preferences, session length, diet plans, menu suggestions, calendar schedule and so much more. If an exercise doesn't make sense, you can choose to see a body grid to get a better idea of what exact movement and body placement is being described. You can choose between three speeds and Maya will occasionally ask during your session if she is going too slow, too fast, or just right and change accordingly.

For Yoga fans or just the curious, there is a yoga meditation garden routine. Maya can also incorporate familiar equipment such as hand weights, an aerobic step, and balance ball.

The day after my brother's demo, my husband and I bought the XBox system and our own copy of the program. The price was still cheaper than a personal trainer, gym membership, or an ever increasing exercise DVD/video collection.

ResponDESIGN's motto is "Games that are good for you." They are telling the truth. I can't wait to see what they do next.

Sounds great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 21
Date: November 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I ordered this but I have not received it yet, I will edit this once I have. But as to the person thinking you get to open new places to soon...coming from myself who hates any exercise and 2 times a week for 5 mins is to much...thos of us need incentive to keep going. We need to take baby steps and if you do only a bit and get something new, then you want to do a bit more,etc. But maybe they need to make it so one can set it to take longer to open something up or shorter time, what works for the person.
I got this the other day. I like it but it won't let you say you can not get on the floor,etc. At this time I have a bad back and can only do the warm ups. I can NOT get on the floor and no cruches or sit ups, most of them,even the most easy, are on the floor,etc. I can not say I have to stand or sit in a chair, so at this time it is more then I can do. Have to stay witht he R Simons one where you sit in a chair or wheel chair, but it is only 15 min's and won't but you if you miss a day. In time this will be good but not now, was hoping hubby could use it too but he is parlized on one side and can not get on floor, it won't let you input this kind of thing. oh well, almost a great one. it has droped between a 2 1/2 and a 3 star now.
Kathy

So much more than just a game, more like a virtual gym.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 30 / 31
Date: November 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'm a single male in his late 20's who one day kind of by accident found this game here on Amazon. So I went out and bought it and I have just finished my first workout tonight. I have to say that I am very impressed because this game is a workout and not really a game at all. I broke a serious sweat the first workout that I took. They even have yoga on there and I think that is one thing that I will be doing more of because it teaches you the positions as you go. This game may be targeted towards women which I think is great because not many games are. But, I think that men can even benfit from using the game too. I really like the concept and I can't wait to see what the developer responsdesign does next. They really do make as their motto says "Games that are good for you". I think any game that can make you get up off the couch and get involved physically is a good game to begin with. It's a really groundbreaking concept because Maya the trainer seems almost human at times. This is why I play video games not just to pick up a controller but to become involved with the action physically. I can't say enough about this title! It may not be the best selling or best looking XBox game but it's the most inovative concept I have seen since all the dance pad games came out and before that all the old NES games with the pad. So check this game out and this is coming from a hard-core gamer here.

Too good to be true?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: November 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Definitely not. After reading all the rave reviews this "game" is getting, I decided to be a sceptic and buy it for the sole purpose of finding it's flaws.

Then I met Maya, and she showed me all of my flaws instead. And then I started to hate her perfectness even more, because she showed me my flaws nicely!

I had no idea how out of shape I truly was until my fitness evaluation. I rolled my eyes and trudged through it, saying aloud that it was so lame, but secretly thinking it was the coolest, most innovative thing ever. I looked at Maya, and sad, "Seriously. Jumping jacks??!! Puh-lease. Are we in third grade gym here?" Then I began doing them.

So after I regained consciousness, I huffed and puffed through the rest of the evaluation. Then I was given a workout schedule recommendation, and a plan for healthier eating. I was happy with how thorough it was. And the food is very simple, yet extremely yummy! Nice, normal, healthy choices. Things I actually have in my house!

RUN, don't walk, to go buy this right now. It's wonderful for beginners, or even the advanced who is looking for a change of pace to get away from their latest plateau. The Yoga Meditation Garden is wonderful, the workouts are wonderful, Maya in wonderful, the food plans are wonderful. I know I sound like a broken record, but it's truly that impressive. My entire body aches so bad that it's painful to type this review. Who knew I had muscles in there somewhere?

A thousand times cheaper than a gym membership and a personal trainer, even if you have to buy an Xbox for it. They are planning to release a PS2 version in January, so it would be a great gift for the New-Years-Resolution-to-get-in-shape person. There is also access to a wonderful, supportive companion site where you can post a journal if you'd like, or just share your "war stories" about Maya.

All in all, this is the best thing I have ever bought for our Xbox. Besides Halo 2. ;)

I am editing this review today, Friday March 4, 2005 (originally written in Nov. 04) to add that with the help of this game, I have gone from a size 20 to a size 14. In 4 months!!! I follow Dr. Phil's food plan, and use this program 5 days per week, and the pounds have just melted off. Not a week goes by that I don't see improvement.

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