Excercising with Nintendo Switch

Before the COVID pandemic, I really enjoyed spending time with friends, going to coffee shops, travelling around Japan and going window-shopping in Tokyo. During the pandemic however, all of these activities became stressful and I spent a lot of time at home. This means I was a lot less active than I used to be. I used to go to a gym called 'Curves' from time to time before the pandemic started. The main clientele of Curves are middle-aged and elderly women but I still found it was a good workout for me. I went there a few times during the pandemic but, because most of the people there were in the most at-risk group of getting severe COVID, I found it stressful to go there out of fear that I might unknowingly have COVID and give it to someone. So, I cancelled my membership. It was a hard decision as I did actually want to continue going there, but the risk and the stress was a bit too much for me. I guess I was not the only person feeling overwhelmed by the whole relentless situation.

So, while going to a gym was a bit too difficult at that time, I still really needed to be doing some exercise. My partner and I had recently invested in a Nintendo Switch, which has some great exercise games on it. My favorite is the 'Just Dance' series, a new version of which is released each year, eg. Just Dance 2019, Just Dance 2020 and so on. Each Just Dance game contains about 40 songs, some of which are hit songs, others are somewhat obscure and unknown. Each song has one or two video clips depicting an animated character dancing to the song. The purpose of the game is to dance along to the choreography of the animated dancer while holding onto one of the controllers. The controller measures the accuracy of your movements and scores you accordingly. Basically, it is just a really fun way to exercise while grooving to some funky tunes.

Another exercise game I have been playing is 'Fit Boxing'. In this game, an animated fitness coach takes you through various boxing routines. This game includes rather unnecessary features like being able to choose the clothes and complexion of your coach. However, for those who will feel more motivated to exercise with a scantily clad animated coach, this feature may indeed be of upmost importance. Overall, this game gives you a pretty good workout but I would prefer it if it was kickboxing rather than only boxing. However, they probably decided to include only boxing to avoid incidents involving people accidentally kicking their TVs.

The last fitness game I would like to write about is 'Ring Fit Adventure'. I have already bought this game but I haven't actually tried it out yet. This is a rather unique exercise game as it is actually a role playing game (RPG) which means you play a character in a story. It is common to face battles with various different enemies in RPGs and Ring Fit Adventure is no exception. However, instead of simply pressing buttons on a controller to fight these battles, you have to instead complete various exercises, like squats and so on. It is a rather novel idea and I am really looking forward to giving it a try.

Belinda