Yourself! Fitness with Maya (virtual trainer)

[Guest guest]

According to the manual, Yourself Fitness is an interactive, unique

and customized fitness program, where no workout will ever be the

same. I have the PC version and run it on my laptop. I think you

can also get it for xbox and playstation. There are a lot of options

available to choose from with this program, but since I'm not

following it long term, I chose the " guest pass " so I could get right

to the workout. If you use the " client " option you need to do the

fitness test and input your age, weight and fitness level. Maya uses

this information to customize your workouts and keeps track of your

progress. She also checks on you during the workout to see if the

difficulty level needs to be changed, as well as asking for another

fitness test every 10 workouts to see how you are progressing. There

are different workout environments and music to select from, and you

earn more options in client mode as you complete more workouts. I

think she also has recipes and shopping lists, too.

To start the workout using a guest pass, you can choose your focus,

workout length, environment, music, and equipment. Options for focus

are Lower Body strength, Upper Body strength, Core strength, Weight

loss, and flexibility. Workout lengths can be 15, 30, 45, or 60.

Music has three choices – 80's, Hip Hop, or Latin. For equipment,

your choices are HR monitor, weights, stability ball, and step. When

I did upper + lower during the same workout, I needed to start at the

beginning and select everything again to move on to upper body, as I

don't think there's a way to combine them. I chose stability ball

and weights for my two 30 minute workouts. There is a scroll bar

across the bottom of the screen that's nice for letting you know what

exercise is up next, and what equipment to use.

Lower body starts out with a short warm up (~3 min) – marches, kicks,

side steps. Basic stuff, and she mentions you can make things more

difficult by adding a hop, but doesn't demonstrate. The first

exercise is a single leg donkey kick, which made my laptop almost

impossible to see from the ground, lol. Then, instead of going to

the other leg with donkey kicks, she goes to a set of lunges, then

squats. THEN back to the donkey kicks for the other leg. Weird.

When I did lower body today, I think she totally forgot about going

back to donkey kicks for the other leg! Reps range from 8-12 for

each exercise. She changes it up. There are also 15-30 second rests

between each set, and sometimes she calls for a water break. During

the rests, sometimes she does a stretch here or there, sometimes she

plays with her hair or her shoe! The weird thing is she doesn't

usually talk to you until you start again. Not a big deal when I'm

taking notes during rests (lol) but I noticed the silence more today.

The rest of the exercises go like this:

Two count squats – 2 sets

Plie squats with front lateral raise – 2 sets

Plie squats with upright rows – 2 sets

Plie squats with shoulder press – 2 sets

Plie squats with upright rows – 2 sets

When you have about three minutes left, she starts the stretching. I

used very light weights for the upper body moves, since I was doing

upper body next.

Again starts out with a short warm up, same stuff as before. The

rest looks like this:

Plie squats with bicep curl – 2 sets

Plie squats with lateral raise – 2 sets

Plie squats with upright row – 2 sets

Plie squats with shoulder press – 2 sets

Plie squats with bicep curl – 2 sets

Stability ball (SB) chest fly – 2 sets

SB push ups with quads on ball – 2 sets

SB dumbbell pullover – 2 sets

SB reverse delt fly- 2 sets

Standing shoulder press – 2 sets

Standing bicep curls – 2 sets

SB bicep curls – 2 sets

SB overhead tricep extension

Tricep kickbacks – 2 sets

SB crunches – 3 sets

She follows with the short stretches again, and tells you did great

at the end. They also offer a calories burned at the end, which was

odd since I didn't give it any information at all to calculate that

from. I used much heavier weight for the upper body exercises here,

and I definitely felt it for the next two days.

The 15 minute core workout I did was odd, so I'll try to be brief

(ha – too late!). There was a warm up – 4 min this time – then some

karate kicks into a squat, double crunches, SB crunches, pulse

crunches, and one she called a leg stretch that was like a straight

legged bicycle crunch. And then you stretch for 3 min. I don't

think I got much from the core workout.

Anyway, in summary I think if you could select body part workouts I

would really enjoy this program and use it more often. That being

said, I did get a decent workout from it, though it wasn't all that

balanced. I'm going to do a longer upper body workout on Fri, so

maybe she'll give me more chest work. Though, since it's designed to

use your feedback, I can't really judge it fairly just doing the

guess pass, I suppose. I also did the 60 min lower body today, and I

swear that 35-40 min was LUNGES of all types. Argh. I think there

was only like one set of squats. So that wasn't very fun for me.

But 40 minutes in, I was getting a bit bored, and really sick of

lunges. But, I did tell her I had a step in addition to weights and

the SB, so she did incorporate that. But usually for using it to do

lunges, lol. I can see how someone who has the attention span to use

this several times a week could be motivated to keep it up, if only

to see what Maya will have you do next. The manual says she knows

over 500 exercises (half must be lunge variations!) and says you can

check the website to learn more, but I couldn't find the list. But I

didn't look very hard. I'm going to do the Mc's workouts with

Maya next week, so it will be interesting to compare!

Sara

[Guest guest]

Sara wrote:

> According to the manual, Yourself Fitness is an interactive,

unique

> and customized fitness program, where no workout will ever be the

> same.

wow! excellent review sara!!! thanks!

:*carolyn.

[Guest guest]

This sounds really good Sara, despite all the gazillions of lunges! I was surprised (and pleased) by the level of difficulty on the Mc's videos so I would imagine this would be similar, plus the way you can customize at the checks she does sound really great. Maya's breaks as she's waiting for the next exercise cracked me up on those too. Brushing her hair, sometimes stretching, too funny. I'm going to have to keep my eyes out for this. Thanks for the very thorough and very interesting review!

Yourself! Fitness with Maya (virtual trainer)

According to the manual, Yourself Fitness is an interactive, unique and customized fitness program, where no workout will ever be the same. I have the PC version and run it on my laptop. I think you can also get it for xbox and playstation. There are a lot of options available to choose from with this program, but since I'm not following it long term, I chose the "guest pass" so I could get right to the workout. If you use the "client" option you need to do the fitness test and input your age, weight and fitness level. Maya uses this information to customize your workouts and keeps track of your progress. She also checks on you during the workout to see if the difficulty level needs to be changed, as well as asking for another fitness test every 10 workouts to see how you are progressing. There are different workout environments and music to select from, and you earn more options in client mode as you complete more workouts. I think she also has recipes and shopping lists, too.To start the workout using a guest pass, you can choose your focus, workout length, environment, music, and equipment. Options for focus are Lower Body strength, Upper Body strength, Core strength, Weight loss, and flexibility. Workout lengths can be 15, 30, 45, or 60. Music has three choices – 80's, Hip Hop, or Latin. For equipment, your choices are HR monitor, weights, stability ball, and step. When I did upper + lower during the same workout, I needed to start at the beginning and select everything again to move on to upper body, as I don't think there's a way to combine them. I chose stability ball and weights for my two 30 minute workouts. There is a scroll bar across the bottom of the screen that's nice for letting you know what exercise is up next, and what equipment to use.Lower body starts out with a short warm up (~3 min) – marches, kicks, side steps. Basic stuff, and she mentions you can make things more difficult by adding a hop, but doesn't demonstrate. The first exercise is a single leg donkey kick, which made my laptop almost impossible to see from the ground, lol. Then, instead of going to the other leg with donkey kicks, she goes to a set of lunges, then squats. THEN back to the donkey kicks for the other leg. Weird. When I did lower body today, I think she totally forgot about going back to donkey kicks for the other leg! Reps range from 8-12 for each exercise. She changes it up. There are also 15-30 second rests between each set, and sometimes she calls for a water break. During the rests, sometimes she does a stretch here or there, sometimes she plays with her hair or her shoe! The weird thing is she doesn't usually talk to you until you start again. Not a big deal when I'm taking notes during rests (lol) but I noticed the silence more today. The rest of the exercises go like this:Two count squats – 2 setsPlie squats with front lateral raise – 2 setsPlie squats with upright rows – 2 setsPlie squats with shoulder press – 2 setsPlie squats with upright rows – 2 setsWhen you have about three minutes left, she starts the stretching. I used very light weights for the upper body moves, since I was doing upper body next. Again starts out with a short warm up, same stuff as before. The rest looks like this:Plie squats with bicep curl – 2 setsPlie squats with lateral raise – 2 setsPlie squats with upright row – 2 setsPlie squats with shoulder press – 2 setsPlie squats with bicep curl – 2 setsStability ball (SB) chest fly – 2 setsSB push ups with quads on ball – 2 setsSB dumbbell pullover – 2 setsSB reverse delt fly- 2 setsStanding shoulder press – 2 setsStanding bicep curls – 2 setsSB bicep curls – 2 setsSB overhead tricep extensionTricep kickbacks – 2 setsSB crunches – 3 sets She follows with the short stretches again, and tells you did great at the end. They also offer a calories burned at the end, which was odd since I didn't give it any information at all to calculate that from. I used much heavier weight for the upper body exercises here, and I definitely felt it for the next two days. The 15 minute core workout I did was odd, so I'll try to be brief (ha – too late!). There was a warm up – 4 min this time – then some karate kicks into a squat, double crunches, SB crunches, pulse crunches, and one she called a leg stretch that was like a straight legged bicycle crunch. And then you stretch for 3 min. I don't think I got much from the core workout.Anyway, in summary I think if you could select body part workouts I would really enjoy this program and use it more often. That being said, I did get a decent workout from it, though it wasn't all that balanced. I'm going to do a longer upper body workout on Fri, so maybe she'll give me more chest work. Though, since it's designed to use your feedback, I can't really judge it fairly just doing the guess pass, I suppose. I also did the 60 min lower body today, and I swear that 35-40 min was LUNGES of all types. Argh. I think there was only like one set of squats. So that wasn't very fun for me. But 40 minutes in, I was getting a bit bored, and really sick of lunges. But, I did tell her I had a step in addition to weights and the SB, so she did incorporate that. But usually for using it to do lunges, lol. I can see how someone who has the attention span to use this several times a week could be motivated to keep it up, if only to see what Maya will have you do next. The manual says she knows over 500 exercises (half must be lunge variations!) and says you can check the website to learn more, but I couldn't find the list. But I didn't look very hard. I'm going to do the Mc's workouts with Maya next week, so it will be interesting to compare!Sara