Yourself Fitness: Upper Body Workout

Yesterday I did the Yourself Fitness Upper Body workout (30 minutes) and then Yoga (10 minutes). Who would have guessed that 5 minutes into the workout I would break into a massive full body sweat? It was awesome and I'm thoroughly impressed.

One of my good friends, Anthony, is a personal trainer and did weekly training with Dear Husband and I a few months before our wedding last year. Maya, the Yourself Fitness animated personal trainer, isn't as effective as a human personal trainer but gives a similar feel to personal training sessions. The benefit of Yourself Fitness, so far it seems, is that the trainer is basically guiding through a workout class, like one you would attend in a gym, adding gentle reminders about form to keep the workout as efficient as possible.

Here's the problem: I hate workout classes. I'm not coordinated enough! It takes me a few steps to realize what I'm supposed to be doing in each move and by that time, the repetition of the moves is almost over. That being said, regardless of my lack of hand-eye coordination, I got a good enough workout to have mild muscle soreness this morning.

The other issue, however, is that Yourself Fitness feels like a series of workout videos rather than an exercise class or sessions with a personal trainer. I possibly could have had Anthony videotaped for a series of our workout sessions and then just followed along and gotten a similar result. But I didn't because I like either being in an environment where everyone is working out or outdoors running with scenery whizzing by. But let's be honest, I wasn't doing either and the convenience of the video game console in my living room is actually getting me up and moving.

It does beat a workout video a little bit though, because of the difficulty checks during the workout, each subsquent workout will customize to the user's difficulty level. And, let's not forget that though a workout video can't track how consistent you are, an animated personal trainer named Maya will.