Fitness Gaming

I played videogames for hours yesterday. But don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds!

When I dropped my weight in high school, I attributed it to a few things. First was an elliptical trainer I got for my birthday and the Green Day CD American Idiot that I listened to in its entirety (around 50 minutes if I remember correctly) almost every time I went on it. Second was a belly dancing workout in Fitness magazine that I was convinced wasn't actually a work out. The actual workout can be found here. And the last thing was DDR, Dance Dance Revolution.

I will admit that you have to be good at DDR to get cardio benefits from it. So after a few months when I was finally able to progress from light to standard to heavy, I finally was racking up a large amount of calories burned on the workout mode that all of my DDR games feature. I usually burn about 20 calories for a minute and a half song, but for some of the harder songs I burn even more than 30 calories. So yesterday I played 3 out of my 4 DDR games on workout mode and totaled my calories burned to being around 1,300 calories. Not bad for a videogame, eh? I might eventually post a video of me playing, but until then, if you have never seen anyone play, youtube DDR (perhaps specifically the song Sakura) and you'll understand after you've watched it how it is such a great workout.

Workout Playlists

Studies have shown that listening to music while you exercise can help you go farther and work harder. Below I've listed some songs from my personal workout playlists. I will warn you that I have a totally random, often retarded, taste in music. Nonetheless, these songs get me moving.

• Reach for the Sky--Social Distortion
• Crazy--Gnarls Barkley
• Poison--Groove Coverage (original by Alice Cooper)
• Lovestoned--Justin Timberlake
• Let it Rock--Kevin Rudolf
• Fingerprints--Katy Perry
• You're Gonna Go Far, Kid--The Offspring
• Total Eclipse of the Heart--Nikki French (original by Bonnie Tyler)
• Push It--Salt 'N' Pepper
• Alone--Kim Sozzi (original by Heart)
• Around the World--ATC
• Somebody Told Me--The Killers
• It's Tricky--Run DMC
• Beast and the Harlot--Avenged Sevenfold
• No Reason--Sum 41
• Injection--Rise Against
• 4ever--the Veronicas
• Show Me the Money--Petey Pablo
• Lollipop (Candyman)--Aqua
• Bleed it Out--Linkin Park
• More to Life--Stacey Orrico
• Holiday--Green Day

In addition to these, Shape and Fitness magazines also have entire portions of their sites dedicated to workout playlists. They update these often and even include the playlists that certain celebrities work out to.

1. Shape Magazine Workout Playlists
2. Fitness Magazine Workout Playlists

I'd be interested to know what other people's favorite songs to work out to are. Post them if you'd like :)

Cheap Fitness

Gym memberships are expensive. Cardio equipment is expensive. Weight sets are expensive. Let's face it, fitness can be expensive. But it doesn't have to be. One of my favorite pieces of cardio equipment cost me about $6. The jump rope. Seriously. Try it for a few minutes and you'll feel it. Last year I rearranged my entire room at Centre Plaza so I would have room to jump rope. This year, I wouldn't dream of putting my floors in my old house through that, but there's always the park down the street.

Here are a few jump rope workouts I've found online, but even if you just jump or skip for ten minutes you'll burn major calories.

10-minute jump rope workout
12-minute jump rope workout
15-minute jump rope workout
Jump Rope Calorie Burner