Eyetoy:Kinetic Week 12 - DONE!

I just finished the full 12-week EyeToy:Kinetic training course. Phew!

How'd I do? I mastered most of the games on medium difficulty and some on hard difficulty. Physically, my legs are in fine shape from all those squats and lunges during the warmups and from playing Protector. My cardio fitness is good due to surviving Pulsate, my shoulder flexibility is good from playing Arcburst, and my balance is excellent from playing Equilibrium.

However, I've lost a little muscle tone (compared to my prior exercise regimen) in my mid and upper body. This is largely because I stopped doing the "optional" segments. As my training progressed the main game portion got longer and more intense and I started to feel like I had neither the time nor the energy left to do a full toning segment. The Kinetic toning segments are so hard as to be daunting - they go on for quite a while doing substantially similar exercises in sequence with minor variations and little rest time. I'd prefer to do a couple of sets in one area, move on to something else, then come back to it. Rather than start a workout segment I know I'd have to bail out of, I just skip right to stretches.

I think it would be more motivational if:

• The segments had staged difficulty - started out easy (ie, short) and increased on subsequent workouts
• The trainer "recommended" a specific segment for each day rather than leaving it totally up to me. ("None" would still be an option, but it wouldn't seem like the default choice.)
• I knew in advance how long my day's workout was expected to take.
• I had the ability to commit myself to an "optional" segment at the beginning of my workout (when I am optimistic) rather than at the end (when I am tired).

Anyway, it's been a lot of fun, even with the occasional frustration.

Anna, my Kinetic trainer, recommends I immediately start a new course on the expert level, but I'll probably hold off a bit and use some other programs for a while.

In related (though not actually new) news, there is an official Eyetoy:Kinetic blog. They update at least weekly and talk about general fitness as well as that specific program.