Meet Anna, My Personal Trainer

Ok, I'm going off topic to introduce you to my personal trainer, Anna. That's right, she's all pixels and polygons. Sadly, a lot of women have entered (and left) my life that way (Ahh, Lara Croft, how I miss thee!). But Anna is DIFFERENT. Different, because she totally kicks my ass!

It started a few weeks ago. I decided I would need another exercise routine for the coming winter months. I already jog 3-4 days a week, and I was looking for something to do on alternating days when I'm not jogging. I don't like driving to the health club, nor the pricey membership. I've always preferred my own private work-out room in the basement, but haven't had one since we moved into the new house.

Don't ask me why I was in a gaming shop looking for exercise routines, but I saw this Eye-Toy: Kinetic (click the link for a great review by Dave Warner; images are reproduced here with his gracious permission). The game box was in a category called "exergaming". Thehre were no cartoons on the cover, just some actors gyrating in strange contortions.

We have an Eye-Toy, so I'm familiar with it. It's a a USB camera that hooks up to your PlayStation gaming console. I've played endless rounds of other Eye-Toy games with my kids: Anti-Grav, Operation: Spy and Nicktoons Movin'. But as I eyed this toy (bad pun, sorry) on the discount rack, I was skeptical. The cute, bouncy brunette behind the counter said Kinetic was a GREAT exercise program. For $5, I figured I couldn't go wrong, so I grabbed the last copy.

I've been working out with the program for about two weeks now. I'm a lot more out of shape than I thought. How can that be? I run ... three days a week! Surely I can't be THAT out of shape. Wrong. Eye-Toy: Kinetic has found muscles I didn't even know I had.

Because I run, I use the Eye-Toy program to work on upper body and abdominals. It shames me that my animated pixel trainer can do more full plank push-ups and bicycle crunches than I can, and that she doesn't even break a sweat or get out of breath while doing it. And there are a number of cardio routines that exhaust me in a way that running never has.

Anna shouts out encouragement from behind the TV screen, "Come on, let's really push it for these last 30-seconds. Go, go, go, go!" She also chastises me when I miss a training session. "Well, where were you yesterday? Let's make up for it, I really want to see good performance today."

I'm down 6 lbs, which really wasn't a goal. Still, I won't complain about weight loss! I'm also very achy and sore in my arms and abdomen, proof that I'm working muscles that haven't been exercised in a long, long while.

The best thing about Eye-Toy is that I don't need to worry about getting attacked by vampires while doing it, but that's a topic for a different day.