My Fitness Coach is a ported version of the PlayStation 2 game Yourself! Fitness for the Wii console. I was hoping for something fresh, but it\'s pretty much the same game without the recipes and meal plans. There are a couple of new additions like Group Workout mode and a couple of new scenarios but the rest is pretty much the same. If you already own Yourself! Fitness, keep that. Everyone else, read on! When you first run the game, it will go through a “fitness evaluation” where it will collect your height, weight, resting, and non-resting heart rates. The game will also want you to do push-ups, 2 minutes of jumping jacks (hard when you’re out of shape), crunches, and flexibility stretches. The results will determine what your fitness training focus will be. You’ll have to repeat this evaluation after every ten workouts. There are user profiles and a guest pass so your settings will stay unique to you. You can work on:
• Cardio
• Core-body strength
• Flexibility
• Lower-body strength
• Upper-body strength
• Weight-Loss
• Yoga There are so many options to help you meet your goals. You can set up a commitment schedule where you can determine how often and how long you want your workouts to be. My Fitness Coach integrates with workout equipment you may already have such as: hand weights, stability ball, step, and heart-rate monitor. Unfortunately, the Wii Balance board is not implemented other than possibly being a stepping board for aerobics. The workouts themselves are pretty formulaic but different each time. You’ll start out with warm ups like step-touch, shuffles, and light kicks, and you’ll then go into tougher things like karate kicks with a squat, hops, jumping jacks, double jacks, and more. After those, you’ll work on your focus area and then a cool down with quad and hamstring stretches along with the occasional neck stretch. There are cool downs and water breaks along the way. As you progress to the next phase of your workout, Maya the trainer will ask you how you’re keeping up. Depending on your answer, she will adjust the difficulty accordingly. Each Workout is unique and they\'ll throw in new exercises to mix things up. At the end of the work out, it will tell you what new exercises were introduced and how many calories were burned. The interface is very easy to use and navigate through. On the bottom of the screen there is a time countdown and the workout modules scroll across from right to left. The exercise segments vary from 5 seconds to 1 minute or more, but are typically 15-30 seconds each. As the exercise and break modules line up on the bottom of the screen, you can see what’s queued up and coming at you. If you keep meeting your commitments, you will unlock new music genres and workout locations. The workout locales range from a Dojo, Forest, Mountain, Desert and Island retreats, and a yuppie high rise. Each location is relaxing and has some background activity like hot air balloons, helicopters or bicyclists passing by. The scenery looks passable. Maya\'s animations are fairly lifelike, as she does natural things including fidgeting, tying her shoes, adjusting her pony tail, and other things to help her not seem so artificial. There are many music genres available but to be honest, they are quite forgettable and pretty much all sound the same. You can choose from dance, Latin, hip-hop, house, and techno. Maya’s movements are tied to the music’s beats per minute, and she will sometimes pause to find the beat before moving on. The voice acting is pretty well done but it doesn’t give her that much of a personality. They tried by giving her a couple of cheesy lines. When it comes to graphics the Wii version shows that not a lot of effort was put into this area. The PS2 version looks so much better and not only is Maya more realistic looking, she\'s prettier too. Other than the Wii beating Maya with an ugly stick, you\'ll notice many jagged edges as well. I’m not really one for Yoga but there is a meditation garden area where you can do some twenty minute yoga routines with Maya. Some of the stretches have questionable names or references like the moon goddess pose, etc. Other than that this game is pretty clean. If you’re looking to tone up, lose weight or stay motivated I would highly recommend this title. This game is much better fitness-wise than Wii Fit in my opinion. I haven’t really tried the yoga, but the workouts are pretty good. I did notice a difference and my muscles got toned. There were some days where I was sore, but it was a good experience. If you like better graphics or want to try some new recipes get the PlayStation 2 version instead. Otherwise, this one fits the bill, and offers a group workout mode if you want to do this with friends.