Tag Archives: exercise

Official release date for EA SPORTS Active expansion announced

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EA Sports ActiveEA SPORTS announced today that the first expansion to their hit fitness game EA SPORTS Active will be released in North America on November 17th, 2007 (just in time for the holiday season).

As much as I’m looking forward to getting my hands on this particular little expansion I have to admit that the name leaves a lot to be desired.  When I first wrote about the “tropical” theme of the expansion I figured it would be something like EA SPORTS Active: Fitness In Paradise! or something along those lines.  Apparently my marketing mojo isn’t as good as I thought it was because the name for the latest addition to this franchise is a descriptive but less-than-imaginative EA SPORTS Active More Workouts.

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NewU Fitness First to be released in Europe

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newULogoOne of the games we heard about while poking around on the floor of E3 this year was NewU Fitness First Personal Trainer.  Touted as an “interactive training solution focused on well-being,” this new entry into the exergame field looked interesting but did not, at the time, have a release date or distributor.

Well it appears as though Ubisoft, distributors of lifestyle enhancing games like Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout and My Healthy Cooking Coach (not to mention somewhat more traditional games like Assassin’s Creed) has decided to add yet another fitness game to their arsenal.   It was announced on Tuesday that Ubisoft would be handling the distribution of NewU in all of the PAL countries except Italy, New Zealand, and Australia.

There has been no word yet as to whether or not Black Bean has found a distributor for NewU Fitness First Personal Trainer in the NTSC regions, but with the ever growing popularity of the fitness gaming market it’s only a matter of time if the game sells well in Europe.

Something interesting – According to the press release, NewU Fitness First Personal Trainer is only the first release in the “NewU Family of products.”   No other details were included, but it seems as though Black Bean is committed to releasing a whole series of lifestyle enhancing games under the NewU line.

Those of you who live in the PAL regions (essentially Western Europe) should see NewU Fitness First Personal Trainer for the Nintendo Wii in stores this September.

Huff Huff Huff

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Saturday, July 25th and Sunday, July 26th

I didn’t do any “official” exercise over the weekend.  Instead I counted the 8-10 hours of physical labor I put in on the new room as my workouts.  Pretty sure it’s a fair trade.

Monday, July 27th

5×5 Assisted Pull-Up – 160 pounds

5×5 Pull Down – 100 pounds *

5×5 Dumbbell Row – 50 pounds

5×5 Bicep Curls – 25 pounds

20 Minutes Elliptical

50 Minutes Treadmill

Tuesday, July 28th

5×5 Vertical Chest Press – 160 pounds

5×5 Pectoral Fly – 180 pounds (up 20 pounds)

5×5 Rear Deltoid Fly – 110 pounds (up 10 pounds)

5×5 Shoulder Press – 120 pounds

5×5 Complex Dumbbell Routine – 10 pounds (Upright row, Bicep Curl, Lateral Raise, Shoulder Press, Bent Over row)

20 Minutes Elliptical

Wednesday, July 29th

1×5 Assisted Pull Up – 150 pounds (down 10 pounds)

4×5 Assisted Pull Up – 160 pounds

5×5 Pull Down – 100 pounds

5×5 Dumbbell Row – 50 pounds

1×5 Bicep Curl – 30 pounds

4×5 Bicep Curl – 25 pounds

20 Minutes Elliptical

50 Minutes Treadmill

* Yet again, I have finally found the proper form on this exercise and needed to modify my weight down as I was cheating.

Daddy gonna work it out

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Thursday, July 23rd

5×5 Vertical Chest Press – 160 pounds

5×5 Pectoral Fly – 160 pounds

5×5 Rear Deltoid Fly – 100 pounds

5×5 Shoulder Press – 120 pounds

40 Ab Crunches

5×5 Complex Dumbbell Routine (Upright Row, Bicep Curl, Lateral Raise, Overhead Press, Bent-Over Row) – 10 pounds

20 Minutes Elliptical

Friday, July 24th

5×5 Assisted Pull-Up 160 pounds

5×5 Pull Down – 110 pounds

5×5 Dumbbell Row – 50 pounds

5×5 Bicep Curls

20 Minutes Elliptical

Workouts, boyeee

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Monday, July 20th

3×5 Assisted Pull-Up – 160 pound counterweight

2×4 Assisted Pull-Up – 170 pound counterweight

5×5 Pull Down – 110 pounds

5×5 Dumbbell Row – 50 pounds

5×5 Bicep Curls – 30 pounds

20 Minutes Elliptical

50 Minutes Treadmill

Tuesday, July 21st

5×5 Vertical Chest Press – 160 pounds

1×5 Pectoral Fly – 180 pounds

4×5 Pectoral Fly – 160 pounds

5×5 Rear Deltoid Fly – 100 pounds

5×5 Shoulder Press – 120 pounds

5×5 Complex Dumbbell Routine (Upright Row, Bicep Curl, Lateral Raise, Overhead Press, Bent-Over Row) – 10 pounds

20 Minutes Elliptical

50 Minutes Treadmill

Wednesday, July 22nd

5×5 Assisted Pull-Up – 160 pounds

5×5 Pull down – 110 pounds

5×5 Dumbbell Row – 50 pounds

5×5 Bicep Curl – 25 pounds *

20 Minutes Elliptical

50 Minutes Treadmill

60 Minutes Walking

* One of my co-workers pointed out that my form was way off on my curls and that I needed to keep my arms closer to my side to maximize the benefit I was getting AND prevent myself from getting injured.  Doing them properly has forced me to back off on the weight.

Brain Dump

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I started writing this post a few days ago.  I figure I’ll just go ahead and append on the end of it with the understanding that, perhaps, my head space is a bit different than it was when I first began this ramble.

Not only do I feel the need to break up the utter and complete monotony of posting nothing but my workouts here, I also have a compulsion to simply talk about a few things.  Get some stuff out of my head and out there in the ether as it were.  As a result this may end up being an incoherent post at times, so I apologize in advance.

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More workout updates

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Thursday, July 16th

5×5 Vertical Chest Press – 160 pounds (up 10 pounds)

5×5 Pectoral Fly – 180 pounds (up 20 pounds)

5×5 Rear Deltoid Fly – 100 pounds

5×5 Shoulder Press – 120 pounds

20 Minutes Treadmill

50 Minutes Walking

Friday, July 17th

2×5 Assisted Pull-Up – 160 pound counterweight (down 10 pounds)

3×5 Assisted Pull-Up – 170 pound counterweight

5×5 Pull Down – 110 pounds (up 10 pounds)

5×5 Complex Dumbell Workout (Curls, Rows, Kickbacks) – 2o pounds

20 Minutes Elliptical

50 Minutes Treadmill

60 Minutes Walking

Saturday, July 18th

20 Minutes Walking

Sunday, July 19th

Housework!

Long Workout Post Is Long

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Saturday, July 11th

51 Minutes Walking

Sunday, July 12th

45 Minutes Walking

35 Minutes EA SPORTS Active (Heavy)

80 Minutes Walking

Monday, July 13th

20 Minutes Stationary Bike

5×5 Assisted Pull Up – 170 pound counterweight

5×5 Pull Down – 100 pounds

5×5 Dumbbell Row – 50 pounds

5×5 Bicep Curls – 30 pounds

100 Pushup Challenge – Exhaustion Text (11)

200 Situp Challenge – Week 3, Column 2, Set 2 (21-28-21-21-28)

85 Minutes Walking

Tuesday, July 14th

5×5 Vertical Chest Press – 150 pounds (up 10 pounds)

5×5 Pectoral Fly – 160 pounds

5×5 Rear Deltiod Fly – 100 pounds

5×5 Shoulder Press – 120 pounds

20 Minutes Elliptical Trainer

35 Minutes Treadmill

77 Minutes Walking

Wednesday, July 15th

5×5 Assisted Pull Up – 170 pound counterweight

5×5 Pull Down – 100 pounds

5×5 Dumbell Row – 50 pounds

5×5 Bicep Curl – 30 pounds

20 Minues Recumbent Bike

50 Minutes Treadmill

100 Pushup Challenge – Week 2, Column 2, Set 1 (9-11-8-8-11)

200 Situp Challge – Week 3, Column 2, Set 3 (24-32-23-23-32)

60 Minutes Walking

Walking to Seattle

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Image by Ken Lund

Image by Ken Lund

Over the last few months I’ve been taking part in the Weight Watchers® Walk-!t Challenge.  The program is a partnership between Weight Watchers and Active.com that encouraged Weight Watchers members to sign up for and complete a 5K walk for charity.  As part of the program Weight Watchers provided trainers to those who signed up for the challenge to help prepare them for the 5k.  I’ve never taken part in any kind of event like this before, so while I already walk considerably more than 5k on a daily basis I thought it was a great opportunity to get some more exercise in to my routine and I signed up.

I got an email this morning from my trainer that got me thinking.  Amusingly enough it wasn’t part of the email itself but her signature that sent the wheels in my head spinning.

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Encouraging bad behavior

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Rush LimbaughAs much as we’d like to avoid it, the fact of the matter is that there are occasions when covering the health and fitness end of the news spectrum is going to lead us here at ShrinkGeek into the murky waters of personal politics.  On the whole we strive to be as politically neutral as we can simply due to the fact that we do not wish to alienate readers who may not agree with our views.  We want everyone to be healthy, regardless of where they fall in the political spectrum.

There are occasions, however, when something comes out of that ugly world that is so incredibly wrong it simply must be called out.  We must recognize those moments when Val Kilmer would have deemed a response as being a “moral imperative” and act accordingly.

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