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Yourself Fitness is a fantastic program for health!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 132 / 133
Date: April 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

From the minute I met Maya, my new personal trainer I was hooked. Maya is a virtual fitness "person" who will help you meet your fitness goals.

The program begins with Maya greeting you and giving you a fitness assessment. Here you will input your height, weight and activity level and you will do a series of exercises; crunches, sit-ups, push-ups, and jumping jacks. Then you check your heart rate and input the information. Based on your level of fitness Maya will recommend an exercise program for you. She will tell you what you need to do and how many days a week you need to do it, to help you achieve your goals.

Maya will give you a selection of spaces to exercise in and ask what equipment you have. If you own a stepper, stability ball, weights and heart rate monitor, she will incorporate these into the workout. I would highly recommend adding all the equipment - especially the weights and heart rate monitor as these can really help you achieve your fitness goals.

After selecting your space (different virtual rooms with a different feel to each one) Maya begins your personalized program. During the workout she will ask you how you are feeling or you can at any time increase or decrease the intensity of the workout. At the bottom of the screen a scroll tells you what is coming up next in the workout ie squats, sidesteps, a stepper etc. You can also change the music selection - over 70 songs are available including hip hop, latin and 80's. The bottom also counts down the time of your workout - a fabulous feature.

Over time as you exercise, you will "unlock" treats from Maya like new workout spaces. Because she has so many "moves" your execise time with Maya will vary from one day to the next and keep your interest.

Maya also will hold you accountable. If you miss a day she will ask (nicely) where you were. As you exercise she will encourage you. Maya's voice is a beautiful, easy to listen to voice and you can lower or raise the volume of her voice and/or the music.
Maya herself is a buff looking brunette, it would have been nice if one could personalize their trainer's looks, and I will bet that's not to far down the road!

Maya also has a peaceful room where she will lead you in a nice yoga interlude. As you progress through the program Maya will help you adjust your goals and set new ones.

She will also set meal plans for you if desired.

I have to admit Maya has amazed me, besides kicking my booty in our exercise sessions. And the price point of $35 is so reasonable. Others love it too and there is an online community at www.yourselffitness.com devoted to discussions on this program.

Highly recommended!

UPDATE: I had a question about the program and was very pleased with the Yourself!Fitness representative Caroline's fast response and helpfulness. Double delight - a great program with super customer service!

Very Good Workout Program for the PS2

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 75 / 75
Date: March 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Over the past few years, a growing number of people have been using videogames as a form of exercise. Up until now, the game of choice for "exergamers" has been Dance Dance Revolution, but games such as EyeToy:Groove and EyeToy:AntiGrav have been used as well.

Finally, here is a "game" that comes right out and calls a spade a spade - Yourself!Fitness. Like to work out, but hate the gym? Get tired of DVD workouts after you've memorized the pattern? Prefer 3-D animation to real images? This is the fitness program for you.

The program starts you out by having you input your personal data (age, height, weight, sex) and perform a brief fitness test. From there, you set up a weekly workout schedule.

Each time, your virtual fitness instructor, Maya, will serve up a customized exercise routine for you on demand. You can vary the time, difficulty, and area of focus (cardio, lower body strength, flexibility, etc.). Maya talks you through the routine, and her animated figure exercises along with you. You can zoom and rotate the camera to get a better view of the exercise. If a given move has you completely stumped, you can pause the workout and call up a tutorial that explains the move step by step.

Maya will praise you for sticking to your workout schedule, and chew you out for skipping workouts. By working out regularly, you can "earn" new workout areas, songs, and the like. Also, as you progress in your fitness program, Maya will increase the difficulty of the routines and mix in new exercises. If you own equipment such as a heart rate monitor or a step bench, Maya will incorporate those into your routines as well.

The program also offers weekly menu planning and a "meditation garden" that serves up a yoga routine. I haven't used either of those features, so I can't comment on them.

Pros:

1. Routines contain a wide range of exercises, and vary from day to day.
2. Videogame format will motivate its target demographic in a way other exercise modes will not.
3. Marketed towards women, but a great workout for guys as well.

Cons:
1. Music is generic.
2. Load times on the PS2 are pretty bad. This problem is most bothersome when a workout routine is held up midway through for 10-15 seconds for loading purposes.

All in all, the program is great fun, and a good way to exercise on those days you can't be bothered with hauling yourself to the gym. Recommended.

5 stars to the people who dreamed this up!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 26 / 26
Date: November 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

What I like about this game:
-A lot of effort was put into making Maya accessible and realistic. Her voice and demeanor are pleasant and the animations are very realistic. She's surprisingly motivating considering she's not a real person.
- I like the different workout environments and how you can unlock new ones the more you work out.
-I like that I have a place to store my data and it creates a progress chart for me.
-I like that Maya gives a fitness assessment every 10 workouts.
-I like that you can set your workout session in increments of 15 minutes if you don't have a lot of time.

What I would improve:
-The music. It's very generic and repetitive.
-I'd add a male personal trainer (a hot one, preferably) so I could have two trainers to choose from for more variety.
-I'd add a "low-impact" workout option. If you're significantly overweight, jumping jacks and jogging in place are very difficult. For now, I just make up my own modifications as needed.
-I'd like the option of doing only strength training if I don't feel like doing cardio.
-I like the meditation room, but the yoga Maya does is too fast/advanced for me.

Overall, I find that when I workout with Maya, I do work harder and sweat more. I do get bored with doing such basic movements sometimes, because I prefer dance workouts, but lately I've tried adding a step bench to my workouts and have really enjoyed that. I try to use Maya once a week and do dance and other workouts the rest of the week.

This is a wonderful, customizable program and I'm sure that if another version comes out I'll get it.

Good for Fitness Newbies, Limited for Veterans

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 30 / 32
Date: April 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have been a bodybuilder for many years now and have acted as a personal trainer to various friends, family, and colleagues. My husband saw "Yourself! Fitness" at the store and thought I would get a kick out of it (no pun intended), so he told me about it and--after checking out various reviews of the game posted here at Amazon and elsewhere--we went out and bought it together.

First off, there are many good things to say about this exercise program (carefully directed and coached by personal trainer "Maya"):

#1 - Considering that this is marketed as a video game, the fact that it will get people up off the couch and moving is a big plus. There are so many overweight/obese and inactive people dragging themselves through our modern world that any increased physical activity is a boon to both health and lifestyle. And while "Yourself! Fitness" obviously has women as its target audience, there is a great possibility that guys will sheepishly find themselves drawn in by the athletic brunette instructor and the catchy (sometimes giggle-worthy) background music.

#2 - There are many options offered regarding the intensity, duration, versatility, and "aesthetic appeal" of the various routines. The game has workouts targeted for the upper and lower body, weight loss, cardio/aerobic activity, and movements that focus on perfecting your core (abdominals). Mid-routine, you have the option of increasing or decreasing the difficulty of the workout, and "Maya" often asks you if you're doing all right, and suggests frequent water breaks.

#3 - The graphics of this game are fairly well done. Occasionally there is some static while the game loads a new section, and Maya jerks around a bit--or the music skips back a few notes--but all in all it is a fairly complete package. The workout areas are finely detailed (the helicopter flying around outside the "Urban Oasis" makes me laugh) and the information scrolling by at the bottom of the screen (a timer counting down the duration of your routine, the current exercise and any equipment that is used for it, et cetera) is helpful in keeping you oriented during your workout. Also, if you need to see more clearly how to do a specific movement, you can flick over to another screen where a little cylindrical doll shows you more simply how to perform the exercise--which is helpful for some of the more complicated dance moves.

Yet, in my eyes, there also are some strong negatives to this game which greatly influenced my rating of the program:

#1 - I have logged in various times sas myself, and also as guest, to see how Maya interprets my "long term goals" as well as approaches the challenge of an individual, non-connective workout. While the routines are always varied, they are hardly what I would consider balanced. Perhaps the game-creators were hoping to see the entirety of a full lower-body routine, for example, pull together over the course of a week; but my experience with weight-lifting and bodybuilding has shown that it is far more beneficial for a person to work, not just their front quads in one workout, but a mix of movements addressing their hamstrings, inner/outer thighs, calves, and glutes as well. It is one thing to do a split routine while weight-lifting, addressing various sections of the body equally, individually, on a regular basis, but truly it is only the more experienced bodybuilders that would even think to tax their bodies that way. The little hand weights that Maya uses during her routines to accompany her lunges (and, yes, there are more exercises than merely the lunge to target your front quads!) are hardly the Hurculean masses that most bodybuilders who use split routines use to blast their thighs to bits. In other words, thus far I have found the game's incorporation of exercises for various body parts to be repetitive, limited, and disappointing in its lack of (circumspect) variety. What the average woman (or man) is looking for in their body is aesthetic symmetry--and Maya seems singularly ignorant of the concept of creating harmonious body balance.

#2 - While the cardio routines get your blood moving quickly and receive my full thumbs-up, the segue into the strength-training sections is indistinct and could be physically jarring to some. Generally speaking, the rule is to wait at least two hours between intense aerobic/cardiovascular exercise before starting any amount of anaerobic exercise (working with weights). I get the distinct impression that the creators of the game were looking to mimic the effect of peripheral heart action [PHA] through Maya's incorporation of cardio intertwined with light strength-training--which is not a bad thing in and of itself, but like I said before, jumping into any form of body sculpting after high-impact aerobics can create negative stress on the body. I would consequently have preferred the option of having a strength-training workout directly after the warm-up, sans the cardio at all. A separate workout dedicated entirely to cardio could then have targeted that aspect of physical health.

#3 - The Yoga section was interesting and very 'pretty' with its graphics, but my understanding of Yoga is that most postures work more effectively if they are not spat out by the instructor as rapid-fire commands. Maya went bam-bam-bam from one pose to another and hardly gave the relaxing effect Yoga seems most famous for. Regarding the postures, though: Some of the poses would seem more advanced and might be frustrating for novices, but with time and practice anyone should feel comfortable with them and consequently be much more flexible. (Too, considering that the cool-downs at the end of the regular workouts are practically nil, any extra time stretching out tight muscles is sure to be of help alleviating next-day cramps and the like.)

#4 - This last comment is not a negative regarding the game, itself, but more an expression of my own hope not realized. I think "Yourself! Fitness" could reach a greater level of interest and effectiveness if people could have the option of programming their own routines, instead of Maya dishing them out without any solid way of editing them (getting rid of repetitive, too-similar exercises in one workout and adding others, for instance). Granted, people would have to have a basic understanding of how the body works, what would be complementary within a workout and what would not be--and perhaps most people are not that aware of the field to be competent enough to do so, and still glean the desired results. Yet, if there ever is a "Yourself! Fitness 2", I think that would be a big plus--setting up four sets of bench presses interlaced with equal amounts of flyes and push-ups for your chest, for example. Considering that "Yourself! Fitness" is indeed a video game, I think that would be a neat way to make it more creative and engaging past its obvious interactive quality.

En fin, as a video game, the creators apparently took great pride in their work and truly seem to want to have a positive effect on the consumers who buy their program. The addition of suggested recipes to the varied exercise routines will undoubtedly be helpful to those who are unfamiliar with weight control and body shaping, and Maya is a very patient "personal trainer" with whom they can work with. For those of us with backgrounds in the fields of nutrition and physical fitness, however, the game might seem to be just that: a game. Entertaining, encouraging, but really not bringing much else to the table.

Varied exercises - with some sloppy programming

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 22 / 22
Date: April 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is a useful and fun way to exercise, but it does have some problems (asking you to use equipment you don't own, bad load times). I use it three times a week and would buy it again.

Pros:
- Measures your flexibility, upper body strength, lower body strength, core strength, and aerobic capacity to match the workout level to your body.
- You can adjust the workout level for each category (flexibility, upper body strength, lower body strength, etc)
- You see exercises being done so it helps with your form
- Tutorials on each move
- The workout has breaks, but they aren't too long or too short, usually.
- You open up new areas and music by sticking to the exercise program.
- Exercises chosen based on what equipment you have (step, dumbells, ball, or heart monitor)
- There's a Yoga section for Yoga fun. It gives you about 15 minutes of Yoga at a time.
- It has numerous meal plans based on how many calories you want to eat a day.
- The variety of exercises is good, but not great.
- Most of the exercises will work for woman and men, even though they are geared toward woman

Cons:
- The music is boring, and I doubt you will recognize any of it.
- Sometimes she has you use a piece of equipment she knows you don't own! Example, she tells me to use a ball of free weights to exercise my biceps, even though I don't own a ball and she knows it!
- The load times are disgustingly bad. If it changes songs during an exercise, then the game will come to a stop for several seconds. Then the woman will do one rep at an incredible speed you can't reproduce, then she will slow down to the regular speed.
- The exercises are clearly geared toward women. She sometimes has me do bicep curls without weights for about a minute. I would get more exercise drinking a pint of beer. I'm not even sure many women would get anything out of this exercise.
- Some of the stuff the woman says doesn't make sense. Example, "Get in your body." I wonder where she thought I was.
- Sometimes there isn't enough variety to the exercise. It seems like she only has two or three exercises for each muscle group at a given intensity level. If you don't progress to the next level, you will see that exercise again. And again. And again. Realistically, you can expect to see some of the same exercises in every workout for at least a month.

Wonderful!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 18
Date: May 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As someone who doesn't feel comfortable enough working out around other people, this program is *perfect* for me. I love how I'm able to customize practically everything so it's tailored just for me. I'm down 13 pounds so far and I'm actually enjoying my daily workout routine, something I haven't been able to say in a long time.

If I could change anything, it would be this:

-Less downtime, Maya sometimes takes a good 5 - 15 seconds to 'find the beat' to get back into routine if I had to pause the program.
-The ability to increase/decrease the difficulty of a single exercise. When Maya asks how I did at the end of a section - where half the exercises were too hard and half were too easy - what do I say? I would like the ability to give a thumbs down to a specific exercise, basically saying dump that but keep everything else.

Over all, this is the best PS2 purchase I've made in a long time.

I am impressed!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: January 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

All of the following reviews are right on the money. I ordered this game based on the reviews I read here and then sat by the window waiting for the UPS guy every day for a week. It came three days ago at 7:30pm. I got it loaded, my fitness evaluation done and a workout completed in the medetation garden by 9:00pm. I'm not extremely coordinated so the yoga is a bit over my head, but even still, that was more active than I had been in quite some time. Yesterday I ran home from work to do a 30-minute work out and then got up at 6:00 this morning to do another one. Here's what I love about this game so far:
- Every workout has been different so far, but the moves are extremely easy to pick up and are tailored to my difficulty level so I don't feel frustrated or bored.
- Mya is VERY motivating and not at ALL annoying. And as I get better at following the routines I can turn her voice off.
- The hand weights, small stepper, and stability ball I bought with other workout videos and then got bored of, are very useful with this game. Although my specific goal is weight loss, I am doing step aerobics, cardio kickboxing, strength training, and abs in my 30-minute workouts. The moves are easy enough for my obese self to do without too much strain on my back and knees but are also enough that I can feel my workouts everywhere.
- Not only are the workouts fun and motivating, but seeing the environments and music I can unlock for my workouts is even more inspiration to work out more.

So, It has been 3 days and 3 workouts and I am already down 1/2 a pound. And, I am having so much fun that I am starting to clear my calendar and make my plans around my workout times. I will check back in another week or so and see if I am still as engaged. But as it stands right now, I would STRONGLY reccomend this video to anyone who has ever wanted their own personal trainer. $40 is not a huge investment to have your own personal trainer whenever you want.

Totally worth your time & money.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: April 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Okay, so I'm a bachelor with no kids who could stand to be in better shape, so I figure what the hell, let's try this thing out. Quite honestly, this is one of the best things I've bought in a long time, and for about $35, it's a really good deal.

In about two weeks, I've noticed some big improvements. I look better, I feel better, and I have more energy than I've had in a long time. What's really cool is the fact that I actually look forward to exercising with Maya.

The creators took great care to make Maya fun & accessible to as many people as possible, and I think they did a good job. She's pretty without looking too perfect, she's intelligent without sounding like a know it all, and she even has a bit of a sense of humor. The writers and voice-actress did a very good job of giving her personality. I find myself awaiting to tell her how I'm feeling, or what I want to work on for the day, and when she tells me how good I'm doing, I actually feel pretty proud of myself. Yes, I know it's just the computer program crunching the data I'm feeding into it, that she's not "real", but the illusion of working out with someone who is a pleasant trainer is really effective. It's basically gotten to the point to where I say I'm going to work out with Maya, instead of saying I'm going to put in the Yourself Fitness game.

All in all, I really needed something like this to help me out. I wasn't really disciplined enough to workout consistently by myself, nor did I know all the styles and methods to use to workout all the various muscles in my body properly. I really feel like I'm finally becoming the physically fit man I've always wanted to be, and for only about thirty bucks! I'm happy I bought this.

...One order of crow, please...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: April 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I first saw this "game" in the console section of a store around the time I began considering that I needed to work out more. At the time, I actually laughed at it. I just couldn't believe that something like exercising to a game console was going to be any better than a video: What a waste of technology. I mean, exercise routines are all the same, right? Dull. Boring. Repetitive. Gimmicky. Painful in all the wrong ways. So, this had to be the same, right? What was this thing going to do that I couldn't get anywhere else?-besides a pixilated workout character who may not be all she's cracked up to be?

Well, after spending about another week passing up the usual exercise tapes and swallowing my pride to purchase this, I have had my question answered; and have been eating my words daily for the past two weeks.

Y!F is really almost addictive: The level of personalization and interaction in the game is really great for someone who is tired of being spoken at by a pre-recorded person on video. The workouts are very fun (and pretty painful, if you're not used to doing them--but in a good way!) and versatile. The extras (earning new music and backdrops; using extra equipment; meal plans; personal fitness tracking; fitness goal setting/customization; scheduling; etc.) really help you to get along to whatever fitness goals you may have, as well. Most of the exercises are easily adjusted for higher or lower impact depending on our ability...and of course, if you already do great on floor exercises, try it with the equipment and increase the difficulty and exercise time. You simply can't loose.

Maya, the personal trainer character is also very encouraging yet down to earth, which is great for someone like me, who usually equates exercise with annoying bouncy, bubbly video queens in pink spandex and legwarmers yelling at me to "Feel the BURN! Woooot!". In comparison to those types, Maya is much more realistic. The animation for her is pretty good during the workout sessions. If you pause, she will stretch, and walk around while waiting- she is never really still. Nor robotic, just like an actual person.

I like the fact that every day I log in to work out, I'm greeted and acknowledged. (and when I skip days that I've scheduled, that I'm acknowledged in having done that, too: commitment is good.) I have the option of choosing what kind of workout I would like to do, and then have the workout adjusted for me depending on my mood (which can be all over the place, and effecting most of what I do, especially things like working out) and how easy/difficult the workouts actually are once we get started. You can also adjust the time that you spend working out, which is good for those days when you don't have but 15 minutes, or when you think you could go for 1 hour or more.

Personally, my favorite part of this 'game' is the Meditation Garden. In this feature, you get about 15-20 minutes or so of yoga, also dynamically performed, like the rest of the workouts. The yoga is very useful for muscle aches from the regular workouts, and helps me to ease my pre-existing body pain. I would suggest that if you get this product, to use this feature at least once every other day. It's very enjoyable all on it own.

--and after two weeks of faithful application, I have been noticing marked improvements. I'm glad I got this instead of opting for another bland workout tape, or simply walking in the park once a week. It wouldn't have worked out for me at all. I've been down that road and back, many times in the past.

Y!F Has really helped me to enjoy exercising. I'm not perfect about it, but at least I feel like it's something I can do and enjoy for the challenge; and not something I'm doing in order to torture myself for the eventual, far off benefits. There are benefits, now, even this short into my long term goal of loosing weight.

I highly suggest this to folks who need to get out and move more, and/or to folks who are tired of the same old boring notion of exercise tapes. If you haven't seen the light, yet, you probably will begin to after giving this a try. Don't knock it till you've tried it.

5 stars, hands down.

Gets your Excited about working out

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: October 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have tried many pilates, yoga and exercise DVDs -- I'm excited about them for a few days/weeks-- and then I just loose interest. This one is different.

I Love it becasue every exercise I've done has been moderately different (either in the order of things I do or some new exercise). You can add new equiptment-- work on different areas-- and there is someone (a virtual someone) recommending what you shoud be working on based on your inputs for height, weight and your fitness test.

My boyfriend is using this program to loose weight. So far it has been beneficial for him. I am not trying to loose weight-- but attempting to stay in shape. I have always been pretty active--- I stopped playing sports after High School.. and-- after doing a few fitness experiements (yes.. I was a lab rat) in college... I was told that I was out of shape. I wasn't getting large or anything-- my cardio was just .. bad.

This program has helped me to get excited about working out at home. It also has yoga-- which is nice on your "sore" days... or mornings/nights for relaxation.

I started this program able to do 9 (very slow) pushups. In the end I was able to do 31. My focus area was upper body strength. I used 2, 3 and 5 lb weights - a step - and my stability ball. (I had all the extra little addons which helped to make the activities more difficult as I told Maya to do so).

There are just SO MANY options and things to unlock to keep you excited.... This is a great buy. Highly recommended.

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