An Expert opinion on an Amateur’s Journey.

Another week down and another blog entry to go up. This week was full of drama, action, comedy and even a little bit of romance. Well not really, it was pretty much the same as last week which is why I managed to call in a favour to get some qualified insight and opinion on the EA Sports Active 2 program.  But first the real reason you are all reading, to see if I am about to break down and cry again, the Stats.

Waist Measurement - 129cm (a loss of 1cm)

Resting Heart Rate – 74bpm (same as last week)

Weight – 139.8 (a loss of 1.6kg)

As you can see I am continuing to lose weight, I have a feeling that number would have been slightly larger without the packet of chips I shared with my family last night and the delicious Beef Ravioli I had today at lunch with my parents (hint: Italian restaurants, while they serve great food, tend not to be a great weight loss destination) so I am happy with my results.  Next week I will endeavour to resist the temptation and see what my true loss will be.

So onto the meat and potatoes of this week’s blog, my extra special guest and his opinions about the program.  A little about him, Jono (as he is called) spent 4 years at uni studying exercise physiology at the University of Wollongong. To help fund this study he worked as a personal rehabilitation trainer at a local gym dealing with workers compensation cases. Since leaving university he has been employed by the Liverpool hospital in Sydney as a Cardio diagnostician where his role was setting up, adjusting and maintaining pacemakers already implanted in patients and diagnosing heart problems and issues with patients. He has recently completed further study in Cardio electric science and has left the Public health system to pursue a career in the Private Sector. Oh and one final qualification, he is my little brother.

Yup, my baby bro is much smarter than me!

The only way for Jono to obtain an accurate opinion was for him to actually do a workout. So with the sensors readjusted for his much smaller frame and a towel and water bottle at the ready we started up the game. For this test I asked the trainer to create a new workout for our situation. We selected a Cardio work which had little arm work so Jono’s bad shoulders wouldn’t come into play (a legacy from a youth spent playing rugby league). So with a workout selected and a slightly apprehensive look in his eye we started the program.

As the workout started he was led through the warm-up phase. Jono commented that he felt the warm up was not long enough and a little more stretching should be introduced to enable the body to be ready for a high intensity session. After about 10 minutes I could see the sweat appearing on his forehead. His breathing had quickened and all body signs indicated he was working hard. This was confirmed by his comments in regards to “foot fires” and “squats” causing a burn in his legs. He also stated that he felt like a dick jumping around in front of the TV and had to fight the urge to close the curtains in case anyone was watching.

With the workout complete and my brother sweating up a storm, I quizzed him further on his opinions. “I personally prefer being in a gym or outside, however, this is a perfectly acceptable substitute and is great for people that cannot afford the gym or feel insecure exercising in front of others“ was his summarising statement.

We also discussed other aspects of the workouts and the program in general. First was the schedule of the workouts. Jono informed me that 4 workouts a week was a good number, however, he strongly encouraged activity every day if weight loss was my goal. Second was the resistance band. Jono was a fan of these bands, commenting on their flexible and beneficial nature in exercise. He did say that if muscle development was your goal free weights would achieve better results. Finally we discussed the amounts of exercises in the game. This is something he was really impressed with, bringing out the old cliché “diversity beats boredom” and the fact that I am still getting new activities after 4 weeks is great.

So all in all Jono seemed to be fairly impressed with what was on offer in the game. He had a few minor quibbles (occasionally an exercise wouldn’t register) but felt overall the experience offered an acceptable substitute to a gym. I feel that in some respects he was simply happy that his older brother was finally getting of his XXXL backside and doing some exercise and if a video game helped me, it was a great thing.

So that’s about it for this week. Hopefully having someone else’s opinion in this entry has broken up the boredom and given you another insight into the experience. I should have mentioned this earlier but if you have any questions in regards to my workouts, or if you want to clarify something please feel free to contact me in the comments section below or at @Hewso81 on twitter. If you have any questions for Jono I will try to get an answer for you as well (I can’t  promise anything though I might have used up all of my favours now.) So stick around for more video game fitness shenanigans next week.

Hewso’s Stat Tracker.

Workouts completed –  19

Hours of Exercise – 9 hours 50 minutes

Calories Burned – 6135

Distance Ran – 18.68km

Average Heart Rate – 130bpm

Maximum Heart Rate – 195bpm

Weight loss total – 8.6kg

Waist measurement difference -  -9cm