10 Minute Solution: 10-Minute Cardio Workouts for a Knock-out Body

I am not very good at video games-that even inclues Wii Fit but enjoy the variety and try to use the Wii instead of parking it on the couch.

This game features Jessica Smith and has some really cool exercise games on it and lots of music, venue, and level of difficulty options! The games include:

Three levels of cardio kickboxing

Frisbee

Defender (dodgeball)

Badminton

Pugil Stick

Three levels of step aerobics

This game is customizable and you can mix and match each 5 minute segment to your hearts desire! You can also choose your music, your venue, and your trainer (supportive or bossy). I chose bossy and she wasn't that bad! Jessica Smith comes up on the screen while your game is loading with a helpful healthy tip.

Some of the games use the balance board but some do not. The first time I played this I chose: 2 kickboxing segments, Pugil Stick, and step aerobics, I worked up quite a sweat in 20 minutes and the next day my lats were actually SORE!

The step aerobics were fun! I really enjoyed myself-the steps will be familiar and easy to catch onto for anyone whos taken a step class: A step, over the top, basic, knee left, repeater, etc. The kickboxing also included your basic kickboxing moves: jab, cross, uppercut, hook, sidekicks, front kicks, knee raises, blocks, and bobs.

The pugil stick was tricky for me and I will def have to give this one another try. Im not sure that I was doing the moves right. Some of the moves on pugil stick and kickboxing didnt register but Im not sure if that was operators error or not? I still got a good w/o though. Im not competitive and didnt expect to score well so those things arent important to me.

Overall-the price is good, the format is good, and I worked up a nice sweat. It has a lot of variety and even if I dont figure out the pugil stick game I enjoyed the kickboxing and step enough to make this a fun exercise game option. I need to try the other games out and see how I do.

10MS Part 1.

As a background for me, I do a number of Wii workouts. I enjoy Gold's Gym Cardio Kickboxing and find it responsive and enjoyable.

Oh.my.goodness. What a poorly executed game. First, there are no basic guidelines that I could find. It didn't even tell you what you should have in your hands, a Wiimote, both Wiimotes, a nunchuk and a Wiimote, a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates. Nothing with a capital NO.

There are "signs" up at the beginning of the game while it is loading to get tips from Jessica. Granted, I might be the only person in these United States not to have a wide-screen, high-def TV, but I found the type face of these important rah-rah statements virtually impossible to read. They use what looks like a hollow letter font (those font fiends must excuse my lack of knowledge as to names of the actual font) and then it appeared as if the letters touched each other, making it more difficult to read.

Then you get to pick all sorts of options, or they make it seem that way. Really it is just normal or advanced and then some music options and then venue options.

I picked normal, but then clicked on advanced. Well, when I clicked on advanced, it changed my music for me. Huh? I can't have my first music choice with advanced? And I chose the incredibly descriptive "Workout music" option.

When I finally convinced it I wanted my original music choice, we then got to choose venue.

All of the venues sound lovely, but again, they were indistinct and fuzzy looking. Again, my paleolithic TV may have been the culprit, but it doesn't appear this way on GGC, which seemed to me what they were channelling, or trying to.

Then when the workout started I mimicked the position of "what" I am pretty sure was supposed to be me, as in her back was to me and I could see through her to the solid-looking blond I am assuming is supposed to be Jessica.

I positioned my legs the way hers were, holding a Wiimote in my right hand and a nunchuk in my left hand, nothing registered. So I thought, well, okay, and I took the nunchuk off. Well, no, it didn't like that at all. I was going to pick up the second Wiimote, but I couldn't figure out how to hold a nunchuk and a Wiimote in one hand since it didn't want me to disconnect the nunchuk.

So by this time I am being instructed to jab and bob. Okay. Nothing registered. Nothing. So I got to thinking, well, maybe I am the blond that is in solid form. But wait, she is holding the sparring pads so I can't be her, right, if I am supposed to be throwing punches. So then I decide, can't do worse. Sure enough, it read me better when I moved the hands she moved.

So now I am totally stumped.

But then the bobbing begins. Well, this was singularly unsuccessful, but by this time something has happened and it is kind of sort of, maybe, not quite sure, reading the punches I am supposedly throwing, but not really. Huh? Lackluster flailing reads, but my incredibly well-placed, well-timed punches and smoothly fluid bobs ;), do not?

So there I am bobbing, punching and praying for the five minutes to tick off, because regardless of the name 10 Minute Solutions the workout segments given are five minutes. You do two to make up the 10 minutes.

Well, other than childbirth, this was about the longest five minutes of my life (except for one particularly horrible bio test in college, but I try not to think about that).

So it is time for the second five minutes and I am torn. Do I do the second five minutes or do I pull out my toenails. Being summer and all, I decide to keep the toenails.

The second session is a one-way dodge ball massacre, errr, I mean, game, I think. But then again I am supposed to hit it back to her, so that makes it kind of like volleyball, but not really since she throws a new one every time. Then I notice the word "Defender" at the top of the screen. Maybe this is a game called "Defender." And I am standing in what may be a sand pit, I think, but I am not sure.

Jessica (she really should have retained character approval if that is supposed to be her) is throwing a ball at me. I am told which side to hit on, left, right, in a little label at the bottom of the screen, except it took me a couple of minutes to figure that out. So after absolutely nailing me between the eyes more than once, I see the word "Bob" underneath "me" and I figure, oh, that is a verb, not what they think my name is.

So I begin to bob when told to bob. Boy, that was sad. At one point I just dropped the nunchuk/Wiimote to the ground because my all but flattening myself to the floor didn't do it. Well, dropping the equipment didn't do it, either.

As pathetic as it sounds, I began to flinch at this ball being zoomed toward me. It was very strange, like I could feel the imprint of the ball on my shoulder.

Then Jessica started saying something like "Can you handle four?" And I am thinking, oh, my goodness, I can't handle four of those things coming at me. If I am having virtual phantom pain from one of those nailing me up side my head, four will put me in a virtual body cast.

But no, she didn't throw four at one time.

Then she started saying "Can you handle eight?"

Umm, sure. Why not.

Again, no difference.

The time is ticking by so incredibly slowly. But about two minutes into it, it starts again, like a hiccup. The time didn't change, but we were out of the game, and then we popped back in. I still have no idea what that was about.

Review of 10MS Part 2.

Woke up this morning in a great mood, decided to try it one more time.

Put it in, chose Instant Workout.

It gave me a cardio boxing element. Once again, I couldn't really tell if what I was doing actually influenced what my character did.

Once again, it did not read my bobs and rarely read anything I did with my left hand, well, for the first two minutes. Then it started reading the left very nicely, but still no bobbing.

First five minutes accomplished and it takes me to a Pugi Sticks.

These are those padded bars that you use to attack and then to block. Looked fun.

Excited to try. Well, it wanted to make sure I could bob. I can bob, it can't read my bobs. I moved all around the workout area, trying to make it read it.

It never did. Bless her heart, she was very patient with me. I took about seven minutes, trying to get it to read my bobs. Never did. Just reset.

Then I decided to go into custom workout. It gives you a choice of cardio boxing, then games like Defender and Pugi Sticks and then, surprisingly, step aerobics.

So I chose what looked like a Frisbee, so assumed it was a Frisbee game, and then the fifth step icon on the step aerobics.

The first thing it showed me was Defender, the ball game I already got totally nailed on, not the Frisbee game. Did Defender. Did much better this time, now that I know what I am supposed to do. But again, any movement of bob didn't register.

Then it took me to the step portion. It was very impressed I started with level 5. For this I had to pull out the balance board. She showed me how to do a repeater on the left side and then a squat. Then we did it. Did a set of three repeaters and then did a squat hold for four. Well, while I am doing the squat she tells me to make sure I keep moving and to make sure I use my arms. I don't know how to move during a squat and what exactly am I supposed to be doing with my arms. She did this repeatedly.

About two minutes in, we suddenly switch to the right side. Ummm, okay. Then we do left tap and right tap. There is a score counter in the top left during all this, but no score registered so I don"t know if that means they don"t score steps or if I just didn"t get any credit for what I did.

At one point the feet just stopped on the indicator, even though we still had a minute or so to go on the time. So I just continued the step tap.

Then I decided to see if I went to the Frisbee game if I could get it this time, and I did.

Basically Jessica throws the Frisbee to you while you step on the balance board. I don't know if the balance board was used because it was on and in front of the set or if you have to use the balance board for this game. It also had a score indicator in the top left, but this time it activated.

You have to step to their pattern while reaching your hand out to catch the Frisbee, I think. Frankly, I didn't extend my arm a number of times and still “caught” the Frisbee, so that made me think maybe the stepping is what I needed to do to “catch” the Frisbee, so I stopped stepping and stopped sticking my arm out and still caught it a few times.

But I finished it up going through the motions.

Then I did the badminton game. This is just done with a Wiimote, no balance board, no Nunchuk. This was fun. It was amazingly accurate, seemed to read every arm movement. Racked up a high score.

Jessica was most impressed.

So then I just stopped and sat down on the couch. I enjoyed the game that Jessica and my avatar had without me. I didn't move my arms, didn't even hold the Wiimote, and they played a lovely game for four minutes without me.

That's it. I am done.

I can deal with not reading the movements. I can deal with the same phrases repeated in the same pattern. I can deal with lousy graphics.

I can't deal with the game playing without me. It reminds me of when DS was three I would just plop him in front of a video game at the pizza place and he thought he was actually playing when the graphics were going through their paces. He loved it. But I am not three.

I guess I could have made my review a little more succinct by saying "Just say No," but I am not known for my succinctness.