Clearly I pick out really great Christmas gifts for Vero and what better year than 2021 when I bought her the 21st century equivalent exercise equipment!
Ring Fit Adventure is a video game for the Nintendo Switch that also combines the user actually doing physical exercise instead of just sitting there and clicking buttons on the controller. There is a ring I hold in front of me and there is also a controller I strap onto my leg.
How it works is that it mimics what I’m doing in real life and has the avatar also do it. I have to lightly jog in place to stroll through a forest. I need to push in on this ring I hold if I want to shoot a burst of air to hit a target. I need to really get my knees up high if I’m running up stairs.
It’s pretty easy when I’m strolling through the forest. I’m not feeling that I’m getting much of a workout.
BUT THEN I ENCOUNTER A MONSTER! Ho boy, I’m still sore the day after! If you encounter a monster you have the choice of different exercises to do (at Day 2 I’m limited to things like squats, overhead presses, and…ab crunches? I can’t remember what it’s called). Let’s say the monster has 100 hit points. Every time I do a squat I deliver damage to the monster. I didn’t realize that the better I actually do a squat, the more damage I give to the monster. It’s directly related to how well I’m doing an exercise. This was a really key point for me to learn on Day 2 because at first I was thinking “Boy, these squats aren’t too hard.” but I was only dealing 3 hit points of damage to a monster at a time. But if you actually squat really low you could take off 20 damage in one shot! I thought this was a genius gaming mechanic of tying in actual fitness with game results.
I was really invested in damaging monsters. In real life, I don’t want my exercises to take forever. So in the gaming world, I also don’t want a monster fight to last that long. So I was starting to really focus on doing the exercise in a way that delivered the most damage and afterwards I realized that it was forcing me to actually get some exercise in a proper way.
Like most fitness regimens, I’m not sure if this will stick. But I can say this…it seems to have kept my interest more than me just following a YouTube workout where the person is saying “Ok, give me ten more squats!” I can’t quit at this because the monster is still standing and the only thing left to do is actually give ten more squats to get through the game. That was the first time I had really powered through some exercises.
So…if you have Switch and are looking to have fun while getting fit, give it a try!