Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

GPS systems were featured heavily at CES, but only a few of the booths focused on the sports aspects of the tool. Most of the GPS systems focused on the automotive features, but NavMan had a whole section about fitness.

This unit is called the NavMan R300. It measures your speed distance and pace. It would work while running or on your bicycle. Unfortunately, there was no one at the booth to answer our questions about the product, so I have no idea about its performance in “urban canyons” and in heavy tree foliage.

It appears to be a little bulky on your arm, but no more so than an iPod Mini. Of course, it doesn’t play music, it just measures your progress. They didn’t have any units out that I could try on to see how they feel. All their products were behind glass, so I couldn’t even play with them to see if they were easy to use.

Without being able to get a close up view of them, I’m reluctant to recommend them. As always, you can track your course using the Google Pedometer, so that might be the best case scenario until something more portable comes along.

Click here to see the NavMan website:

• Sport.Tool R300 (Run) from Navman USA

Tacx, the maker of the virtual reality bike trainers, has released three DVDs that you can watch while you ride your bike on a normal bike trainer.

• Alpine Classic Marmotte – France
• Mallorca Tour – Spain
• Lombardy Tour – Italy

Each of these videos are $29.90, which is much cheaper than the $800 price tag for the virtual reality trainer for your computer. These DVDs might be a great compromise between true virtual reality and simulated reality.

Click Here for the Tacx Video Website:

• www.Tacx-Video.com

Mike and I were talking about people training for the Tour de France a few months ago. He actually suggested that it would be so cool if someone filmed video of roads and turned them into a game where you could ride your bike on famous bike courses. Tacx beat us to it and they have executed it well.

We talked about the Tacx VR bike trainers back in June, but seeing it in person really sells this product.

• Starling Fitness » TACX Virtual Reality Bicycle Trainers

You can choose your ride from a large selection of bike race courses. The screen shows you the elevation that you will achieve (it will increase the resistance on your bike when the elevation gets steeper). I chose a course in the Alps that is on the Tour de France.

Once you start riding on your course, you see a real video of the road that you would be riding on. You see cars pass you and the scenery is perfect. I was riding on a steep incline, so it was very difficult for me and got my heart rate far higher than it needed to be to get into the high intensity range.

I only lasted 3/4 of a mile at that intensity. There are easier courses, of course, but this gave me an idea of what it must be like for those cyclists to take on the mountains in Europe. The equipment seems well made. The bike trainer looks like it’s relatively easy to attach to your bicycle, even though it doesn’t have a quick release like my CyclOps trainer has.

I was really impressed with the Tacx employee demonstrating the product and I enjoyed playing with the software. They also make a trainer that includes the steering in the game, which is intriguing. I didn’t try that one out, but I watched another conventioneer try it. She dropped her player on his head. He just got back up on the bike and kept cycling. That’s the reason virtual reality is better than actual reality. A real wipe out on the trail involves picking gravel out of my bloody skin and hoping I don’t have a concussion.

Click Here to see the Tacx Website:

• Tacx – Discover a new way of cycling

I saw these dumbells at Target the other day. I’ve seen similar things at the NordicTrack store that had more weight and cost more, but these ones seemed interesting. Each dumbell can weigh between 2.5 and 12.5 pounds, depending on the weights that are added. Instead of adding plates and attaching a holder, they are all in one. At $59.99, however, they aren’t that great of a price.

I found the knob that you move to change the weight of the dumbell to be difficult to budge and one of the units at the store was damaged, so this isn’t something that I would recommend purchasing. Even more disturbing, I can find no evidence of their existence at Amazon.com or at the Reebok Store. It looks like Target got the last of them just in time for the New Year’s Resolutioners, hoping to get rid of them quickly.

I saw The Essential Guide to Pilates at the store and I picked it up, excited about the idea of a Pilates workout on my computer. I imagined something like Yourself! Fitness that would take me through a Pilates workout on my computer. When I turned the box over, however, I was disappointed.

Looking at the details at Amazon.com wouldn’t tell you anything about this, but what you need to know is what is on those “Interactive” CDs. One CD is the software that is installed on the computer. It shows you how to perform the various Pilates moves. It’s not a workout, but more like a list of little movies to show you how to correctly perform the moves. The other CD is an audio CD that takes you through two “workouts.” You put the CD in your player, press play and someone tells you which moves to perform. I had a workout LP record like this when I was in 7th grade. I worked out with it once.

Instead of a computer animated trainer, running you through a workout, this software is the worst of both worlds. There’s no way you can look up the moves on the computer in the middle of your workout. You might as well just get a Pilates DVD that you can follow along.

The Garmin booth at CES sported a bike signed by Lance Armstrong that had a Garmin product mounted on the handlebars. There was no information nearby about the little GPS indicator and the bike was mobbed by people just wanting to see Lance’s autograph. Can you imagine if Lance Armstrong had actually attended CES? I wouldn’t have been able to get near the booth.

I was more interested in Garmin’s new Forerunner 305. It’s a heart rate monitor and GPS tracker. The cool thing about this huge watch is that it’s supposed to work better in urban canyons and deep forests. GPS tends to have trouble tracking you when you are surrounded by huge buildings, but the Forerunner 305 is supposed to be better in that respect. Of course, the model that they had there didn’t work in the Las Vegas Convention Center, so I have my doubts about how much better it might be.

Here is a picture of the Forerunner 305 next to my Nike Imara. As you can see, the display is more difficult to read than my Nike watch, but the Forerunner also has the disadvantage of being huge. The Forerunner 305’s suggested retail price is $377, which is almost four times the cost my my Nike Imara. At that price, I’m sticking with my heart rate monitor and using the Google Pedometer to calculate my distance. It’s probably more accurate in the city anyway.

Click here to see Garmin’s Website:

• Garmin – Forerunner 305

After so many entries about the XaviX Console, this is the one that is the most exciting. XaviX was showing off a series of their prototypes for products that are due out within the next year or so. The two most interesting are the XaviX Health & Fitness Manager and the XaviX Stepper.

XaviX Health & Fitness Manager:

It looks just like a scale, but the cool thing about it is that it connects to your XaviX Console, documenting not only your weight, but also gives you access to all the information about the physical activity you have done with your XaviX machine. I tend to keep this information on an application on my Palm, but if XaviX was my primary exercise machine, I might be attracted to this product.

XaviX is the one thing that could bring the scale out of the bathroom and into the living room.

XaviX Stepper:

The XaviX Stepper was smack dab in the middle of the XaviX booth. All day long, they had a girl on it exercising. I told her I wanted to play with it and she eagerly hopped off, exclaiming, “I’ve been playing for 17 hours. I have lost two pants sizes since I got this job.” I eagerly took over for her and played with all the games. The software runs you through a variety of games that get you to use the stepper quickly for cardio-vascular training or use your coordination to step at the appropriate time. I played with many of the games. Most of them were the cutesy type that I love in Japanese gaming. Think Monkey Ball with a ferret and a stair stepper. That might give you an idea of what this game was like.

Even though it was a prototype, they had an idea what would come with the game. They have created wrist weights for the upper body workout and the stepper for the lower body workout. The stepper did not have a resistance setting on it, so if you got to the point where the stepper wasn’t doing it for you anymore, you would have to move on to something else. The game showed the girl on the stepper making movements with her arms where I was supposed to follow along. Just like with the Jackie Chan J-Mat, I had a hard time stepping correctly and moving my arms. That’s a part of coordination that I just haven’t gotten down pat yet.

The cool thing about the XaviX Stepper is that it’s small. It’s smaller than any other stepper I’ve ever seen, even the one from Brookstone that was so popular a couple of Christmases ago. That would make it very easy to store in the living room. The lack of a resistance knob, however, is a severe drawback to this product. My heart rate easily went into the high intensity range while I was playing this game, but if I did it every day, I might find that it’s a medium intensity workout. A resistance knob would extend the life of this workout product.

Just like the other XaviX games, this one keeps track of how much exercise you have done and allows separate people to enter their data.

The software for this machine was still in its beginning stages. It never crashed, but it did have some strange translations:

If only I knew what that phrase meant, I might not have to exercise so much. It’s kind of frustrating to think that the knowledge that I seek is right there in a bad translation…

Click here to visit the XaviX Website:

• XaviX Website

There was so much at the XaviX booth that I wasn’t able to try it all out, but I DID get to play with XaviX Baseball. The game comes with the Baseball game cartridge, a short bat, and an electronic ball to pitch. It’s available for $49.99 at the XaviX Webstore. The cool thing about this game is that it can be two-player, where one person can bat while the other pitches. The uncool thing about it is that it’s not aerobic at all. I barely made it into the light intensity range, so this game is just for fun and barely at that.

When I saw this game, I had fantasies about being able to play this and “practice” during the winter for softball, but after playing with it for a little bit, my hopes were dashed. The bat is a little small and doesn’t feel like a real baseball bat. Considering my clumsiness, that can be a good thing, but it does nothing to develop my muscles for the softball season.

Additionally, the physics of this game are off. When I tried to swing for a ball at the time when the ball would be over the plate in the “real” world, I struck out each time. I had to swing far earlier to hit the ball in the XaviX world. It only took me about five or six times to understand the new physics, but if I thought that playing with this game might help me a better player in the real world. I was sadly mistaken.

Still, it was fun to play. I could play it against a friend or play it alone. I could pitch or bat. After playing softball for a season, I KNOW that I didn’t hit that ball hard enough to get it out of the park, but that didn’t stop it from feeling really good when it congratulated me on my home run. If you’re looking for a workout, this isn’t your game. If you’re looking to increase your baseball or softball skills, this also isn’t your game. If you just want to have fun playing imaginary baseball, then this is the game for you.

Click here to visit the XaviX Website:

• XaviX Website

The next XaviX game I tried was the Jackie Chan Studio Fitness PowerBoxing. Unlike the other game, this one didn’t look like it was made specifically for Jackie Chan. The boxing looks like a normal boxing game and doesn’t involve any kicking, only punching. I found it to be quite fun, but it wasn’t very aerobic. My heart rate was only in the medium intensity range. I didn’t have to punch as hard as I did for the BodyForce controller. I think the intensity could be increased a little by adding wrist weights, but this game is basically a game that’s active instead of a workout.

The game comes with the XaviX game cartridge (including the boxing glove sensor) and two boxing gloves. It is available for $59.99 at the XaviX Webstore. The gloves are light weight. I noticed that XaviX also sells a different set of gloves with wrist weights attached in a “Power Up” set. You could do the same with a normal set of wrist weights.

The cool thing about these gloves is that they don’t fully enclose your hands, so they are less likely to get sweaty. If you enjoy the boxing game, full gloves would get hot and uncomfortable pretty quickly, but I didn’t have any trouble with these things.

As I mentioned before, the graphics on the XaviX machine are fairly simplistic, so don’t expect to play it on your HDTV and not notice the pixelation. No matter how primitive the graphics were, however, it still felt good to send that guy down for the count!

Click here to visit the XaviX Website:

• XaviX Website

Once you purchase a XaviX Console, you need to buy games for it. The first game I tried out was Jackie Chan Studio Fitness: J-Mat. This one really seemed to have the potential for high intensity exercise. It was a lot of fun. I was able to get my heart rate high enough for it to be high intensity exercise. The J-Mat consists of a wired mat that connects to the Xavix console, handweights and a game cartridge. The J-Mat is wide, white and has four spots to step. The cost is $89.99 at the XaviX Webstore.

The cool things about the J-Mat:

• You can set the intensity: The exercise program has enough intensity for it to be a high intensity workout, but can be reduced for beginners. I checked my heart rate monitor in the middle of things and it was well above the 128 bpm I need to get me into the high intensity range.

• Hand weights: The game comes with hand weights to work your arms. I tried to do the hand movements to follow along with what Jackie was doing, but that was really hard for me. I’m sure I would be able to do it with some practice, but for now, that was more coordination than I have.

• The Jackie Chan Action Game is fun: You run down the street, dodge things in your way and jump over barriers. Ninjas come at you and you need to step on them to get them to disappear. It’s not very realistic because the Jackie doesn’t run faster when you jump faster on the mat, but it got my heart rate higher than when I was playing in the Fitness Mode. I really wanted to beat up those ninjas.

• It can be played by different people: You can log in yourself, input your weight, sex and other important information. It will track your exercise and calorie expenditure separately from anyone else who logs in. The Xavix that they had on display had profiles for over five people, so your entire family can track their progress and high scores.

The limitations of the J-Mat:

• No stretching to prevent soreness: Just like DDR, the primary exercise is stepping, which works your calf muscles intensely, but the cool down doesn’t stretch that muscle, it just has you stepping a little slower to cool down. Unless you stretch your calf muscles on your own, you’ll end up really sore.

• You have to play barefoot: To prevent the mat from breaking, you really should play it without shoes, but that can be hard on your feet.

• Wide stance: The shape of the J-Mat has you stretching your legs out to reach the two furthest pads. I’m pretty short, so reaching that far was a little difficult for me. I think it would be just as hard for kids to reach. Without a wide stance, some of the moves are a little difficult.

• The J-Mat is white and will get grimy after a while: These mats were all still very clean after two days of continuous play, but if they are anything like my DDR dance pads, they will get grimy very quickly.

On the whole, the J-Mat seemed like a lot of fun. I was able to get my heart range high enough for it to be a workout and I enjoyed playing the game. There was enough variation that it would take a while to get bored of the game. I especially liked fighting the ninjas.

• XaviX Website