#oneaday, Day 80: Lift! And down. And lift! And down.

I started “playing” EA Sports Active again the other day, having got out of shape during my abortive attempt to return to classroom teaching. And yes, I blame the latter for the former. Partly because the 80-mile round trip daily commute I was doing meant I got back too late to go to the gym, and also that the stress caused tiredness and lack of motivation. Finding myself currently with relatively little to do (it’s the Easter holidays, so I’m going to have to wait for supply teaching work) I decided to start it up again.

Those who have known me a while know that I used to keep a blog here. I’m thinking I may start using that again, as it was an excellent self-motivation tool. Even if others weren’t particularly interested in reading about how many chest presses I’d managed that day, the act of writing that stuff down helped.

EASA takes a similar approach by constantly offering you feedback and achievable goals. God, I feel like an obnoxious management-type just saying those words, but it’s true. For once. Start on the app’s “30 Day Challenge” programme and you’re automatically set some goals – a number of calories to burn in your first week, a total number of hours to achieve in the month and a number of workouts to successfully complete in the first week. You can also create your own goals, which is nice – though I’m quite happy with the ones it’s set for me so far. There’s also an Achievement-like trophy system that rewards you for completing workouts, burning certain numbers of calories, completing certain exercises several times – it’s surprising how motivating adding these “game-like” elements is.

EASA also has the benefit of actually working. Unlike Wii Fit’s all-you-can-eat buffet of exercise with no structure whatsoever (though I understand the Plus edition fixes this), EASA gives you a decent structured workout to do that isn’t the same each day. Some days you’ll be concentrating on the lower body and doing things that will make your thighs hurt for days afterwards. Other days you’ll be using the included twangy red band to work on your arms. The band itself isn’t very strong, so I’ve taken to wearing wrist weights while undertaking the workouts. They’re not THAT heavy, but they add enough additional challenge to be able to feel the strain a little bit.

EASA will also get you breaking a sweat quite quickly. Again, unlike Wii Fit, whose only really challenging portion came in the bizarrely featureless monochrome world of the yoga and muscle exercises. Today I had a lot of jumping around, which looked ridiculous, but which was also genuinely hard work. This is good. If I come off a workout feeling tired, then I feel like I’ve achieved something. It may not be the most pleasant thing to be sitting there sweating, but hey.

Anyway, I shall be continuing with my 30 Day Challenge and seeing where it takes me. I’m also going to try and pick up my gym routine. Motivation!

Now, if only all this stuff I was doing was earning some money, I’d be sorted.