Nike+ Kinect Training Review
Developer
Publisher
Platform Xbox 360 Kinect
Release Date Out Now.
January is traditionally the time of year when people try to shake off the excess of Christmas and lose those extra winter pounds. All the Gyms are jam packed with people for 3 weeks then the hassle and cost of hitting the gym everyday soon starts to take its toll and they are empty again by February.
Imagine a hassle free, subscription free workout program with your own personal trainer who will motivate you to get up and get in shape in your very own front room. That’s what Nike + Training promises
The Kinect does its usual scanning and tracking to get set up on its own, but you do need to clear a big area to allow you to safely bounce around without falling over anything and of course put the cat outside so you don’t collide with him.
When you boot up the game for the first time you get to meet the two personal trainers and you get to select one. This then starts your journey, the first step is to monitor your flexibility with some stretches. You roll your hips, try touch your hands behind your back, stretch out your legs and arms etc and all the time you are closely monitored by the Kinect.
Once this is out of the way you are measured on your fitness with another number of fitness tests. Jumping from side to side quickly, running on the spot with high knees and all the other lunges and squats that it uses to push you to the limit and it really does take a lot out of you if you are not used to exercise.
The game then takes all this collected information tells you where you are falling short, it knew my left leg was weaker and promises to work on that to balance you out by selecting a tailored program designed for you depending on the goals you want to set. It gives you a score and promises to test you again in 4 weeks to track your progress.
You have three workout options, 1) Get Strong which will build explosive strength, 2) Get Toned or 3) Probably the most commonly used one Get Lean which will burn fat and build fitness.
Most sessions involve a short warm up and cool down on either side of some hard interval training that involve short burst mixed with short rests to keep your heart rate up and burn all those calories.
The first cardio workout was very difficult but I managed to finish it, the second workout two days later was strength orientated and again it nearly killed me. It was much harder and worked the whole body.
The exercises get a bit easier as the muscles start reacting to the sessions. Form gets better quickly as you are forced to do all exercises properly so the correct muscles get worked. This is one of the biggest advantages the Kinect has over either of the other two consoles or even a gym. You are never doing exercises incorrectly and wasting your time or worse doing some harm.
Overall: An impressive workout regime that is quite effective, it is pretty easy to set up and includes good tutorials for each exercise. Having the Kinect monitor you actually maximizes the workout. The sessions are quite short starting out at between 20-30mins so it easy to keep going with your planned sessions all week.
If you are super fit it is probably not going to help a lot from a product like this but if you are looking to get fit in your own home and build a solid foundation then this really does a great job.
SCORE 8/10
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