My New Experience With Exergaming

I have begun using the Wii personally for exercising, I was never a big exergamer before, but have recently joined the growing trend and have found that I enjoy it very much.  I actually think using a video game for exercising is a good fit for me, or anyone for that matter, because it is cheaper alternative to a gym membership I probably won't find the time to use or buying all kinds of gym equipment that would just clutter up my house, which I don’t really have room for anyway.  I have found myself addicted to the Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout for the Wii. It gives you a really great cardio boxing workout and pretty much after your first workout with it your upper body, stomach, and side muscles are sore. I find it amazing that doing something so simple and fun without the actual equipment needed for the sport  (punching bag and boxing gloves) could have such and impact on the body and muscles. After a 30-minute workout with this Wii game, I am sweating and tired. I also have my 13 year-old son doing it and he has lost 7 pounds since we started. I can’t say that I am as lucky at this time, but hopefully it will help me get into better shape than I have been in a while and I will lose some weight along the way.  A friend of mine has recently started using the game for exercising as well and it has given us a way to stay connected too. We have a little competition going on. We text every day to see who’s punch count is higher, who worked out longer, etc. She says she feels more toned in her arms since she started and likes the convenience of being able to exercise with her Wii right in her living room, which I have to say is a great benefit for me as well. 

Pedometer to Provide Incentive to Increase Activity Level

This is the first group that we have tried out the Omron Go Smart: The Pedometer With a Brain. I had intentions of asking several students to switch out wearing it for 30 minutes at a time, however I had one student come to me and ask if she could be the next participant to wear the pedometer because she was curious about the steps taken and calories burned when playing DDR for 30 minutes as opposed to playing Decca Sports or Punch Out on the Wii for 30 minutes because she felt that those Wii games were more of an upper body workout and not a lower body workout so she wondered if they would count steps. I was impressed that she was thinking those things through – those are the things that we, as researchers are thinking about so I had her wear the pedometer for the entire exergaming session. Because she was wearing the pedometer, her motivation to put more in to the exergame was greater. She played the DDR for longer, she played it alone when there wasn’t anyone to play with her because they were busy playing other games, and she played with great energy and enthusiasm. Research has show that wearing pedometers can provide an incentive for people to increase their activity levels in other activities, so maybe it is true in exergaming too.

Study Finds Physically Fit Students Post Higher Academic Test Scores Than Less Fit Peers

The Childhood Obesity Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reports a study conducted by New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DMH) and Department of Education finds that physically fit students perform better on academic tests than their less fit counterparts, as first reported by UPI. The full report is online at www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/survey/survey-2009fitnessgram.pdf. It lends additional weight to the recommendations that youth should get an hour physical activity and eat well. While the recommendations encourage limited screen time, swapping passive screen time for more active screen time may also be an important consideration.

Gamercize Family Fit

Gamercize fills an important niche for traditional gamers looking for ways to become more active. Their collection of steppers and bikes are tied to the power supply of a traditional gaming console or computer, so that the player can continue to play the games he or she loves, but only as long as they step or bike or move. Much of the exergaming "movement" includes finding ways to get the general audience moving more, many of whom do not game. However, for the gamer who spends a good deal of time sitting and playing, Gamercize has great solutions.

Their latest offering, the Gamercize 3-in-1 Family Fit acts as a rower or cycle and folds to save room. It plugs in to the Wii, PlayStation 3 and xBox. Shipped from the UK, it costs £794.90 (That's about $315, including shipping).

Learn more about the machine and their other offerings at the Gamercize website.

High School Students in the Game Lab

We started our first session with high school students in the game lab yesterday. We have 7 students, with only 1 being a girl. So far everything is running smoothly. The students are very enthusiastic about trying out games they have never played before and very interested in the exergames. We had day 1 of exergaming today and it was a hit. The kids rotated on several games and being that there are so few of them, they had the opportunity to spend a good amount of time playing each game. The most popular exergames with this group were DDR, Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout and Active Life: Outdoor Challenge.

We also had one student try out wearing an “Omron Go Smart: The Pedometer With a Brain” for and hour so that we could track his steps, calories burned, grams of fat burned, and miles walked during the exergaming session.  We needed the students weight to input his data and he gave us his estimate so based on that the Omron calculated that he walked 2013 steps, which is .88 mile, he burned 39 calories and 2.1 grams of fat. During the hour the student wore the Omron, he played Yourself Fitness and Eye Toy Kinetic on the Play station 2, Let’s Yoga on the DS, and Wii Fit on the Wii.

We are going to try it out again with more students on Thursday, which will be another exergaming day. I hope to have them wearing it while engaged in more intense exergames to see how it compares to today’s data.

This group seems to be putting a lot of thought into their blog answers and I look forward to what the rest of the week will bring.

Engaging adults in gameplay

This can be such a hard thing to do sometimes. Some adults are completely against technology, particularly video games, and others are just intimidated by "new" toys and feel that they are just too old to ever "get it." My experience with adults playing games, especially exergames, has shown that in order to get them to play, sometimes the teacher/moderator/facilitator needs to be as encouraging as possible, explaining that he/she isn't the expert at this either and is willing to go first and demonstrate the games for them. If you play the games first as a demonstration you can show them that you don't mind making a fool of yourself. I've realized that this helps break the ice quite a bit and allows them to see the game in play, and realize it's not too difficult. Also, it helps to play the games with them. This is the same with the kids. It helps not only to show that you are involved and can often be more fun with more players, but you are also right on hand to help with any tech difficulties and allieviate the stress that can come with that. Most importantly, making positive comments, especially when the can't figure something out, is crucial. I always let them know that I am constantly trying to relearn the games and figure out what I need to do to play and I sometimes need to ask for help -- often from younger students. And this is the TRUTH, so I really want to show them that it's ok to be learning as we go and we will definitely need help occasionally.

It's also important to select games they can play with one another, at least at first, so they can help each other. Games that generally use one player at a time, including the Wii Fit, can still be used cooperatively. The hula hoop game in that is great to encourage competition and turn taking. But games within Wii Sports that can have four players, are great places to start.

Exergames with Adults - Day III

Today the adult participants played more exergames, some different, some the same. Similar to the other exergames day, exergames really engaged them - some trying out games for a good 20 minutes or more a piece and even though they worked up quite a sweat on one game, they jumped on another one right after, with just as much, if not more vigor. Today's games that really stood out as engaging included Jillian Michael's Ultimatum 2009, EA Sports Active, and Dance Factory, a dancing pad game. We also used some older eyetoy games, including Operation Spy. The favorites today were Gold's Gym Cardio workout and Active Life: Outdoor Challenge, again! These games showed the most potential to engage the player for longer periods of time, and get them to work up more of a sweat.

More exergames with adults

After about a week and half of playing games in the Learning Games Lab, many of the adults have become familiar with the game playing process and are even seeking out extra playing time during lunch for some of their favorite exergames. Some of the most hesitant in the first few days, have surprised me with how relaxed and excited they are about some of these games. Some are even thinking about buying games for their homes.

Some of the exergames that have garnered some positive reactions from the adult group include Active Life: Outdoor Challenge. I was struck by this game because some of the participants gravitating to this game and it's more simple mini games, like jumping rope, kayacking and log roll (jumping over logs).

Playing racing games on a recumbent bike was also a big hit. Participants commented on how much of a workout they got, but still enjoyed playing the game, despite it making them work hard.

Tomorrow we will do another exergame day so it will be interesting which games seem to get the most positive feedback.

Adults and Exergaming in Games Lab

Today was our first day of exergames in our first adult game lab session. All the adults seemed enthusiastic about today and were eager to try out many exergames they had all heard something about. We have a mixture of health outreach professionals, physical education teachers, commuity and elementary educations, participating in this session. The majority of the group had never played exergames before this session, and a few had only been exposed to Wii Sports. Some of the games were so popular that it took a while for participants to sit down and eat lunch and even after they did, they got up immediately to exergame again. I anticipated some trepidation for todays events since so many participants were new to video games, however, everyone played and seemed really intersted in the possibilities these games offered for their programs or classrooms, which is more than I could ask for. Everyone played at least 4-5 different games. The favorites today were as follows:
Wii Fit - especially the balance games and hula hoop
EA Sports Active - many participants loved how much of a sweat they worked up on this
Wii Sports - Boxing and Tennis
DDR - I was suprised that so many people really liked this quite a bit.

Other games that were played included the following:
DS games: Let's Yoga, Let's Pilates, Quick Yoga Training, My Weightloss Coach
PS2: Kinetic with Eye Toy
Wii: Golds Gym Cardio Workout

We have set up another exergame day to look at several more games in this category.