Experts Rate “Exergames” for Consumers
Exergaming (Active Gaming) combines video games and exercise to provide a physically challenging but enjoyable experience. Traditionally, laboratory tests have been used to determine exertion levels and mainstream journalists review and rate a game’s game-play. The Exergame Network (TEN) has created a next generation rating system which is ready for world wide release. TEN’s ratings system evaluates the holistic experience of an exergame in it’s Exergaming Experience Rating System (EERS) TEN is a non-affliated, non-profit Games for Health exergaming advocacy. Its website portal...
read more2010 Shape of the Nation Report
Reading over this report reminds me of the abysmal condition of health and physical education (HPE) in Australia. The status of PE in the US is appalling, it hardly seems possible that it could be worse in Australia. How can the health and wellbeing of Australian children be relegated to a lower priority than English, Mathematics or the Arts? The first two stages of our new national curriculum do NOT include a HPE component, it is not considered a priority by the Federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard or the current State and Territory Education Ministers, incredible! Chair of the National...
read moreGroup Fitness for Adults, Kids Everyone!
Group fitness has been around for decades with it being popularized in commercial gyms around 1989 with the introduction of Step Aerobics. Today we can see simple varieties of Group Fitness ranging from traditional step classes to Les Mills “Body” sessions, Fitness Boxing, Pilates, Spin or RPM, to Zumba and outdoor and indoor boot-camps. Group Fitness can utilize a multitude of equipment from bikes, to body-building plates and bars, weighted bags, resistance bands or simply just lots of floor space. Most group activities include music and an instructor or some rhythmic component...
read moreHealth, Fitness and Games: Serious Fun.
The G4H 2010 Boston conference is over and has already been hailed a tremendous success. This is the 6th G4H conference, with this year’s event being split across two main venue areas. The outside area encompassed the specialised “Exergaming Zone” created by our US partner Exegame Fitness USA. The Exergame Zone was incredibly popular plus being integral to demonstrating the physical ‘real world’ incarnations of Exergaming. A contest, ‘One Million Steps’ was instituted to raise money for charity and to energize participants at the conference. The...
read moreExergaming: Playtime for Adults.
PLAY. This is certainly not a word that requires further explanation, at least it shouldn’t be! I personally think PLAY has become something of a 4 letter word, at least for adults. Us ‘grown ups’ would not normally associate play with an adult activity, children play and adults, well what do adults do? We hardly promote “I’m off to the gym to play” or “I’m off to play in my mixed martial arts class” nope we ‘workout’. Even our play is a derivative of work. Do we actually just play anymore, indeed, was there ever a time when adults we were allowed to play,...
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