EA Sports Active For Wii- Your Personal Trainer In Your Living Room… On A Screen

Update! – Also check out my new post on EA Sports Active, and win your very own copy, contest ends June 1st, so don’t miss out!

On May 19th, EA Sports Active will be hitting the shelves, and the home fitness theory that launched with the Wii FitWii Fit reviews may finally have a real champion.

EA Sports Active’s biggest plus may be the variety built into it. It comes with a special resistance band with handles so that it is easier to hold with your WiiWii reviews remote and nunchuk. It also comes with a leg strap which has a kind of “nunchuk holster” so that your lower body movement can be tracked. It also works with the Wii Fit Balance Board for many of the activities.

That opens the door to a lot possibilities already, and a lot of cross-training, and that’s without mentioning the personal trainer. Set out on the 30 Day Challenge, and your trainer will create new workouts for you which are tailored to your progress and goals. You move through your exercises with your trainer offering up instruction and motivation, and each exercise has a video introduction which shows you how to perform the movements properly.

When not going through the 30 day mode, you can select the individual exercises, pre-designed workouts which are put together by duration and focus (upper, lower, cardio, combo), or create your own workout by putting together the exercises you choose.

The main draw, I think, is that the variety of exercises and activities make the experience fun. The squats and lunge jumps might not exactly be a joy, but when you move on in your routine to inline skating, dance, tennis, batting, and several others, things never get boring.

I got a chance to try the game out last week at EA Sports HQ in Redwood City, CA (and at their Season Opener), and what was immediately most impressive to me were the ease of use, and the advancement in activities. Now that you have the nunchuk in the leg strap, you get realtime feedback on how your whole body is positioned. The little “you” on the screen moves along with you, and if your arms aren’t in the right position, or you aren’t squatting enough, you see it on the screen. This allows for a pretty serious upgrade from some of the “games” on Wii Fit. The idea now becomes a question of what physical movements can you do with a “game” excuse to them. Thus, we get activities like inline skating, which is basically a squat and jump exercise. Physically you feel like your exercising, but psychologically you don’t.

What makes EA Sports Active a real winner for me is the combination of variety, fun, and Balance Board functionality. While the Balance Board isn’t necessary at all (and I didn’t get to try it out), the additional possibility is a big plus. A big test of this combination, especially the fun, was seen at the EA Season Opener when Lauren Bernat (yes – Wii Fit girl) demonstrated EA Sports Active over and over.

That’s her.

As the day wore on, I watched her box, inline skate, and do all manner of exercises. Then I watched the hardcore gaming press take a shot at it. It was clearly fun, definitely exercise, and most importantly it was fun all day long.

EA Sports Active gives you control over your workout that you might not expect, while also giving you the 30 Day Challenge option which optimizes your efforts for your goals. It’s fun and challenging, and you really never have to have the same workout twice.

Here are a slew of pics and a video-

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Are You Screening?

Here are the sports in EA Sports Active (joystiq.com)
EA Sports Active & Wii Fit (the17thman.typepad.com)

Related Articles on Are You Screening?:

Tagged as: EA Sports, EA Sports Active, Electronic Arts, Fitness, Video Games, wii

treadmill_trainer

I'm not finished read this yet, but it's so fabulous 'n I'll back again when I was finished my job :D

mommyof3

i have a new born and want 2get back in shape, being able to be with him and excersise is great!

Happy mommy

I have to say that I love love love this. My husband has been laid off from work and is going back to school now, so our extra money is pretty much tied up into paying for that and making sure we don't lose our house. I work all day, so I go for walks and jogs, but my son goes to bed at 7:30, which keeps me home at night while my husband is at school. This has been great to add to my regular routine which was getting old and booring anyways.

Idayna

Wii Fit was a not as great as I thought it was going to be. I didn't really feel like I was getting a good workout. I loved Fitness Trainer. How does this game stack up?

Marc Eastman

Do you mean My Fitness Coach? They're still pretty different. My Fitness Coach has a lot of step things and stretching and so on. It's a decent title though.

Amber

I love this thing!

In Response

To some early commenters - are you kidding me? Are you really going to disparage any form of exercise in this obese country? Why do you presume that people have the time and money to go to a gym? People have kids at home, work, may not have enough money, may not have enough time, and may be embarrassed to go to a gym in their current condition. Why not give them other options?

By the way - I happen to be a mother, a professional and I go to my office gym and run 6 miles/day regularly outside. I just don't see the need to presume that everyone should do as I do. Many eons ago, I got into the shape I'm in by exercising to aerobics videos at home (would never have dreamed of doing it in front of other people back then). And I did get this game and I will have and will use it at night when the kids are sleeping. So far, it seems like it can be an intense workout if you want it to be.

colette Ernst

I am really interested in this product, I have been using Wii Fit doing the jogging and sticking my balance board on a step to make it more challenging for the step workout. Since I live in the north we get 3 months of weather we can "jog" outside in if we are lucky, so any option I can do all year long is great. The added versatility of being able to do something with a partner and the greater variety makes it more tempting than doing the Wii fit. Gonna have to look into this.

Marc Eastman

Well, I tried the email reply commenting, and that doesn't seem to have worked, so I hope this doesn't pop up again.

Thanks a lot for the comment. I know how it is with only so much jogging year available (not that I jog), and this is really a great idea to add in.

Now that I'm playing around with it home, the balance board additions are pretty cool as well, so if you have the balance board already, it's just that much more.

For everyone who has commented, and is hopefully following comments (and hopefully that works with the comment system change), I'll be giving away a copy in the next day or two, so stay tuned to the site for a new article and the chance to win.

In Response

[My comment wouldn't post so sorry if this is duplicate]

To some early commenters - are you kidding me? Are you really going to disparage any form of exercise in this obese country? Why do you presume that people have the time and money to go to a gym? People have kids at home, work, may not have enough money, may not have enough time, and may be embarrassed to go to a gym in their current condition. Why not give them other options?

By the way - I happen to be a mother, a professional and I go to my office gym and run 6 miles/day regularly outside. I just don't see the need to presume that everyone should do as I do. Many eons ago, I got into the shape I'm in by exercising to aerobics videos at home (would never have dreamed of doing it in front of other people back then). And I did get this game and I will have and will use it at night when the kids are sleeping. So far, it seems like it can be an intense workout if you want it to be.