I'm very disappointed that respondesign has not made a single comment about an update or expansion pack or anything about Yourself!Fitness. It's a continual question on the forum, yet they never bother responding. I'm assuming no news is bad news in a situation like this. I simply can't continue waiting to hear if something is going to be released, and it's very obvious that nothing is coming soon. I loved working with the program and I felt I got a good workout. However, it was too easy to unlock all the environments and music, and after hundreds of workouts (I lost count after 300, as my Xbox died and I had to start over), the program has become tedious. No new music, no new steps, no new environments. The "no two workouts are the same" feature really isn't true for me anymore. It's become very repiticious and I've run out of ways to try to make it more interesting... (the short multiple 15 minute workouts running thru each "concentration", the close your eyes and pick an environment so you'll be surprised, the changing the arm movements to an exercise just for a change up).
I always thought that Yourself Fitness was a great first attempt at this type of program, but there was a lot of room for improvement. For example: you really shouldn't use the program everyday. She has you do the same weight baring exercises every single day, even tho' common practice is to rest a muscle group at least 48 hours. The amount of lunges in the program is completely unbalanced (again, to have them every workout is not a good idea. If Maya can keep track of my workouts and knows if I missed a day, then she should know that I worked out the day before and shouldn't have me do the same weight exercises two days in a row).
The weight loss concentration spends too much time on weight training, and not enough on cardio. To lose weight the idea is to burn more calories than eating. While weight training is an important part of weight loss, it shouldn't be 63% of my workout. It should be the other way around. In a one hour workout, 40 minutes of cardio, followed by 20 minutes of weight training makes more sense than only 20 minutes of cardio followed by 40 minutes of weight training. Here's what Maya suggestion for me to lose 30 lbs:
5 days a week, 45 minutes:
- Monday: cardio this is the only workout that I got a larger volume of cardio compared to weights. It's a 30 minute cardio with a 15 minute general weights... Usually a lot of lunges
- Tuesday: upper body 15 minutes cardio followed by a 30 minute weight training workout (that always included lunges)
- Wednesday: core body 15 minutes cardio followed by 30 minutes of core exercises, but always included was some lunge exercises
- Thursday: day off
- Friday: lower body 15 minutes cardio followed by 30 minutes of lunges. That is not an exaggeration. Most of my lower body workouts where just different lunge exercises
- Saturday: flexibility 15 minutes of cardio followed by pilates and yoga styled strength training exercises... and yes, that does include some lunges
- Sunday: day off
Now, as you can see, it's actually a balance workout (except for the amount of lunges) and I still think that there's a lot to be said for the workout. However, I don't think it's enough for weight loss. You'll also notice that Maya actually never had me do a weight loss concentration workout. I think the workout is great as a start, but as a person develops their cardio capacity, they need more cardio to lose weight than this program suggests.
I don't want to discourage anyone from using the program, as I think there are a lot of really great things about it, but I wouldn't let it be my only workout, as I had done for a year. It's just not enough if you're trying to shed those last 30 lbs. I think it's more geared to people who do other cardio work and are looking to add a strength training routine to their regimen, because I just don't think the program is designed to be used every day (notice the lunges keep popping into conversation around here).
So I'll give the EyeToy: Kinetics a try. I'm not sure it's gonna be my taste. They've incorporated more "gaming" into it (typical eyetoy stuff... you have to punch and kick things) and you're actually scored on if you do it right. eh. We'll see.
