On Kinect Nike+ Fitness (more) and Heart Rate Monitoring

I had some hiccups this week with the fitness program.  Mainly that the game is FLAKY AS SHIT.  It will lose connection to the Nike servers, which it needs to even start your workouts.  Also, I had made a mistake when selecting my workout days.  I had intended to pick Sun/Mon/Tues and Thurs/Friday.  I had somehow picked Mon/Tues and Thurs/Fri/Sat.  So, on the Thursday workout, before starting, I decided to fix that via an option on the menu.  Except, when I did that, the program said 'Congratulations on finishing your first week of workouts'.  The only way to fix this was to start a brand new program right from the fitness test.

So basically, by using the program's own option, it pretty much wiped out 2 days worth of workouts.  Weird.  Anyway, I just did a couple 'a la carte' style workouts that they had, and I restarted the entire program on Sunday.  This time I picked the 'Get Lean' option, which is much more cardio-oriented.  There are still a couple strength workouts, and one of the workouts combines strength and cardio, so I should be good here.

Also, at one point during a tutorial to teach you how to do a specific exercise, the audio just stopped.  The fitness trainer guy's lips stopped moving.  But he was still making these hand gestures like he was talking.  It was weird.  Being taught an exercise by an Ex-Football Player/Mime is just weird as hell.  It came back for the next exercise, though, so that's good.

Also, starting this week, I decided to pick up one of those watch heart rate monitors, just to see what was going on with my heart rate while doing the workouts.  I kept track on Sunday's workout and today's.  I would have for Monday's, but I overslept and never actually did Monday's workout.  Yeah, I suck.  Bite me.

Anyway, I opted for the Sears special at 29.99, which was a good fit for me, because it doesn't have one of those freakin' chest bands, which I'm sure would never have gotten around my moobs (read: man-boobs) anyway.  To measure your heart rate, you just push your finger against the metal bezel on the face of the watch, and it seems accurate enough.

Here are Sunday's readings (which, again, was the fitness test, because the game is FLAKY AS SHIT):

• Start:  114 (this seems high, but ok)
• After Flexibility Tests:  140 - these aren't really strenuous...just tests how far you can stretch.
• Mid Cardio Test:  171 - ok...this is getting high
• End Test:  193 - HOLY SHITSNACKS HOW DID MY HEART NOT EXPLODE THROUGH MY CHEST?!?!?  (actually...I just say this because the watch said I was at 99% capacity.  I'm not even sure how the watch knows my capacity.  We're not friends or anything.  We've never hit a TCBY together.  Actually, I've never been to a TCBY.  I'm a man.  Men don't eat frozen yogurt.  Frozen yogurt is like Soft-Serve's whackadoodle red-headed cousin that everyone knows is in the family, but no one acknowledges.  And I'm assuming my heart-rate capacity, but I mean, the watch already seems to assuming a bunch of shit about me.  Maybe it's my capacity to eat chicken wings.  Or my capacity to watch all those horseshit 'reality' shows on TLC and the history channel about rednecks doing redneck-y things.  Which if that is what the watch is considering, it's sorely mistaken.  My capacity for that is around 9.  Or blue.  Or whatever the scale is for that.  Where was I?  Oh yeah.  Me and the watch are not 'bros'.)

And here are today's readings (a full-on cardio workout):

• Start:  78 (this seems more in the realm of reality)
• After Warmup:  174 (as I said before, the warmup is pretty strenuous)
• After 1st Round:  180 - interesting, I'm staying pretty stable here...this is good
• After 2nd Round:  177 - Wow, so...basically...I kept my heart rate in the 170-180 range for a solid 25 minutes.  That's good, right?
• Finish:  146 - this is after a couple minutes of stretching, or what I call "Things Jason does while sitting to injure his groin".

I really don't have any idea what these numbers mean.  But alot of fitness nerds talk about them, and I like shiny watch-y gadgets, so I'm happy.  Also, from last Sunday to today, I've lost 6.5 pounds or so, so I'm good.