UFC Personal Trainer 30-Day Challenge – Week 2

Hey everyone, welcome back to my training diary. As some of you will remember, last week’s entry covered my first 5 days with UFC: Personal Trainer. This week saw me push my body to the limits and experience both the highs and lows of an intense console-based workout.

For those of you who are joining me fresh this week, UFC: Personal Trainer is a fitness game available on Kinect for Xbox 360, Move for PS3 and Wii. Published by THQ, UFC:PT guides you through a basic but intense set of workouts to help cut you into that UFC body. This is done through a mixture of traditional exercises and MMA (mixed martial arts) based activities.

So this is what pain feels like?

Day 6 06/07/2011:

After Tuesday’s recovery day it was straight back into the program with the toughest workout I have had so far; the UFC staple of V-ups, squats and leg-ups were mixed with Arnold presses, bicep curls and a whole horde of lunges and holds, totalling a whopping 350 calories burnt in 20 minutes. Not much for some but this was more than enough for my considerably streamlined body (or not).

I had a small issue on day one of the program where UFC failed to save my data and I had to repeat a workout the next day. Well it decided it wanted to scare me again. Sadly when I returned to test a few features, my progress from the morning was no longer seen and I was prompted to restart the workout. Not to be deterred, I soldiered on and finished it for a second time in one day. Of course, the end of the final stretch was the point at which my Xbox 360 chose to freeze on me. This meant it – once again – hadn’t registered my progress. I finally finished it for the third time and triple-checked that I had seen the save icon. If there was ever a point I wanted to quit, this was it.

Total workout time: 1hour 30 minutes including warm ups and cool downs.

Just one more day

Day 7 07/07/2011:

Thursday was thankfully a relatively easy day compared to the previous… except for the PAIN! It wasn’t really crippling but it was uncomfortable enough to make even basic leg lifts awkward to complete. Wednesday had really worked me over but I slogged through and completed everything I had to, to pass.

My limited calorie diet is still going well. I’m making sure to stay hydrated. Keep my vitamin and nutrient levels up at the same time is the trickiest part but it is all falling into place.

Total workout time: 25 minutes.

Glorious rest

Day 8 08/07/2011:

On the 8th day there was rest…and plenty of it.

Back on the grind

Day 9 09/07/2011:

With 3 days of workout ahead of me I upped my game. Using the extra workouts available I increased my workout goal to a substantial 800-1000 Calories worth of workout per day. After my rest day I seemed to come out stronger, faster and most importantly, fitter and perfectly capable of doing this. The program assigned me a strong cardio workout with lots of core exercises and weight training, bulked out with a repeat of the 5 hit-the-mitts activities I had done earlier in the program. I finally finished off with a pre-built Mark Dellagrotte workout. This was very combo-heavy and intense on my lungs with its jumping jacks and tuck jumps scattered between.

This was to be the basis of my workout for the next 3 days; the only variable would be the intensity of the programmed exercises. I felt great having set a task and completed it. My muscles were aching but nothing matching the pain from the Day 6 incidents.

Total workout Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

“Let’s see how far you can push”

Day 10 10/07/2011:

As usual, I started the day slightly stiff. A good set of warm-up exercises had me pumped and ready to go in no time. The program started me off with a good mix of ab-intensive lifts and crunches and then moved me on to core and upper body with plank presses, the usual bicep curls and Arnold lifts. Having said I hated V-ups in the last edition of my diary, I think it would only be fair for me to mention my new hatred – leg wipers. Despite having the abdominal strength to handle them, these dastardly devils had me in a fair amount of discomfort the first time and they still do.

Again, I topped up with hit-the-mitts activities and the Mark Dellagrotte Cardio Combo 2. I finished the day aching slightly but feeling great for my accomplishment. Day 10… owned!

Total workout time: 1 hour 27 Minutes

They ain’t heavy, baby

Day 11 11/07/2011:

Today I dug out my weights. As my rest day was the following day I decided to experiment a little. I would use my weights with all the upper body and core exercises for the day. As some of them weren’t designed to be performed with weights I started light enough to not be an issue but heavy enough to actually give some resistance.

Hurray for me, the workout was a core-heavy routine with plenty of weighted functional exercises such as arm extensions and various curls and presses. Following on from these I pushed into my extra activities. Mark pushed me hard and fast as I improved my times. Tired and sweating, I saved my data and finished up my 3-day challenge.

Weekly thoughts

Day 12 12/07/2011:

That brings us up to speed with a week of workouts. My thoughts on Kinect-based exercise games are still pretty much the same. It is a great guide for keeping a log of your efforts but the movement tracking itself still lacks polish. There are a few moves that I still found almost impossible for the Kinect to pick up, like my forward twist and lunges. This may have been my method but others taking part in the 30-day challenge are reporting similar things. A common complaint is during ground-based activities like Plank Presses and Leg Lifts. As you can see from Debbie’s video, the Kinect sometimes fails to recognise that you are there when you lie down. This takes you back to an annoying menu where you have to move around until it recognises that you still exist. This is usually the crash point for me, so be warned.

All in all a successful week, despite the Day 6 Incident. My scales are actually broken at the moment after they fell off a shelf [yeah, yeah – Editor] but the last time I weighed myself on day 8 I was 112kg meaning I had lost 3kg in the week since I started training. Result, I dare say.

Check back with us next week for part 3 in my diary and a photo of my newly ripped frame, if you’re lucky.

*This may be a lie

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