New Gamepad Designed To Build Muscles?

Robmonster writes "The BBC are reporting a story about a product designed to address both exercise and videogaming in one fell swoop. According to the piece: 'A new type of gamepad from a US fitness equipment company aims to turn the couch potato gamer stereotype on its head. The Kilowatt controller by Powergrid Fitness is designed to build up muscle while playing a PlayStation 2, Xbox or PC game." The article explains: "In a racing game like Gran Turismo, the harder you push on the joystick, the faster a car goes, while pulling back slows down the vehicle."

What the hell is this?

[AntiOrganic]

Do these people really think that this is going to have a substantial impact upon the overall fitness level of gamers everywhere? It's not. You want to lose some weight? You stop eating like a fatass and you go outside. We're not even talking Atkins diet here, just "stop eating when you're not hungry, not when you're full." This combined with half an hour of exercise a day is all you need. Mild muscular tension is not an appropriate method of weight loss.

Why all the gimmickry?

Soon..

[vjmurphy]

The nerds and geeks, with their low carb diets and new, isometric gamepads, will become a force to recon with!

At the beach, no longer will we have to feel the humilation of the muscle-headed jerks kicking sand into our faces when we are chatting up the bikini -clad hotties! We'll be doing the kicking.

Rather, we would be, but we have to get past the next track in Project Gotham Racing 2, back up our clan in Socom II, and hit level 65 in Everquest.

Re:White House Approved Lifestyle

[Mr Guy]

Nice FUD. The argument is over whether it is possible to be healthy and still eat foods high in sugar or fat. The US position is that diet is dependent on lifestyle and thus occasional splurging is fine for a healthy person if they exercise to burn it off. This is perfectly rational.

The WHO basically ignored factoring in lifestyle, saying instead that certain diets were optimal for everyone. The WHO isn't wrong, they are just being overly stringent with their guidlines. The US prefers to emphasize that a healthy lifestyle can also be an enjoyable lifestyle.

I don't see anything wrong with that. Calories are Calories, the only difference is quantity.

Re:Nintendo had this in the 80's, it was a flop.

[ilsie]

RTFA. The article is about an isometric controller. The Powerpad just had a bunch of buttons. Dont get me wrong, I still think it will be a flop, especially at $700 a pop.

Re:White House Approved Lifestyle

[Mod Me God]

Or the WHO recognises people do not get enough exercise, so recommend a diet better suited to this lifestyle, and the White House is looking after the interests of massive US corporations, rather than the general population.

Not really

[tuxette]

While aerobic exercise is good for aiding in fat loss, muscle-building exercise is better in the long run, as muscle increases metabolism and fat burning, even when you're not exercising.

The traditional way of doing aerobics (low impact long duration) only burns fat for the duration of the session but it doesn't do anything for after you have exercised. It has been shown in lots of peer-reviewed studies that high-intensity interval training (mix of sprints and lower intensity running/cycling etc) is superior for fat burning because after a workout session, your body continues to burn fat, whereas you do not achieve this during a low impact low intensity workout.

One thing to think about - look at sprinters and look at marathon runners. Sprinters are lean and mean. They train for explosive power. Marathon runners on the other hand, while skinny, are rather flabby...

While everyone is saying "go outside"

[Dracolytch]

So, I'm reading a lot of reponses that are angry people saying "WTF is this? Go outside if you want exercise". Well... I guess it's time to relate what's going on with me.

I don't like gyms. They're expensive, and between going there, getting my exercise, and coming back, they take up too much of my time. Oh yeah, they're REALLY boring, which means I won't go.

I hate jogging. It sucks, especially in the winter. It's boring, and it's not safe in my area (thugz & moron drivers).

I ~love~ swimming, but I can only do that during the summer. Swim at a gym? See gyms above.

I'm a dedicated gamer, and I'm a bit overweight. I've been wanting to change that, and I have.

Every day, after work, I come home, and I put in Dance Dance Revolution Max 2. I'm getting up to "normal" difficulty, and am now burning 600 calories a DAY. As I get better, I may increase that, or I just may do my 600/day in less time.

I've already 6 pounds lighter since the first of the year. The only change I've made in my diet is a reduction to 1 soda a day (instead of 2-3).

So, while I read a lot of people sitting back and yelling "Go outside fatass", this fatass is giving y'all the finger, staying home, playing videogames, and getting fit.

~D
http://www.dracosoftware.com

Re:White House Approved Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be tiresome, having to live with all that paranoia and not being able to form free thoughts of your own.

Kill your Playstation?

[FreshFunk510]

The phrase often used about 10 years ago was "Kill your TV" as response to the mindlessness of people who watch TV like drones for several hours a day.

The fact that they are developing this for, what would be my guess, a substitute to "real exercise" makes me wonder: Have we gone too far?

Will people 10 years from now be saying:

Kill your Playstation!
Kill your Computer! Kill your Internet Connection!

Re:What the hell is this?

[canajin56]

Yeah...not only is this bs made to make people feel better about not getting any exercise, it's probably BAD for you. I mean, playing video games can give you RSI and so on. Making the joysticks stiffer will just amplify it...instead of repeatedly pushing lightly, you are repeatedly pushing heavily. This will cause a LOT more wrist damage, I would expect.

Re:What the hell is this?

[kiwimate]

I agree. I can see this working your muscles somewhat, as you say, and possibly resulting in some minor weight loss. But (and I am speculating here, so correct me if I'm wrong) it seems to me it misses a fairly important component of general health, and that is cardiovascular fitness. I doubt it'd cause much of an elevation in heart rate or get you puffing.

Re:Excuse the exercise, or a way to participate?

[teneighty]

In a society that strives to remove effort from anything that might seem like - the horror - work, we need every excuse to exercise that we can get (most people don't even get out their car to open the garage door, after the quick run down to McDonald's drive-thru two blocks down the street).

Let's face it - if we don't carefully diguise the exercise as fun, few people will do it. This is why obesity is a growing problem (pun intended). So game controllers that involve genuine exercise are definitely something we ant to see.

That said, the device in the article isn't going to help, and yes, I agree it has potential to cause injury.

The reason this will flop

[Dracolytch]

DDR, the boxing game at some arcades (name escapes me), and a couple others have shown that it is possible to have a commercial success when blending games with exercise.

But this thing is still gonna flop. Why? Very simply... It gets in the way of the game.

Unlike DDR, or the boxing game, the controller hinders the users' ability to play the game effectively. The controller gets in the way of the game, instead of enhancing it. It is for this reason that people will ditch it... Not because it's a bad idea, but because it's a bad gaming device.

~D

This is not a good idea

[brundlefly]

Practically speaking, repetitively working a muscle is NOT the same thing as exercise. Not only is this "exercise" anaerobic, but it also opens up a huge potential for injuries resulting from RSI. Imagine a mouse with a button which required a 1/2-pound of force to click instead of 1/20-ounce. Or a keyboard with such 1/2-pound buttons. We would all be crippled by now if we had been using these instead of our current devices.

Re:White House Approved Lifestyle

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the WHO believes that people cannot be trusted to make personal choices about food and lifestyle and that they must be told what to eat.

Re:Please...

[*weasel]

You'd think gyms would pick up on this sort of thing. Network all those exercise bikes into something like a crazy taxi-styled competition.
Or stairclimbers into some sort of bizarre-o Mega-Man game.

I feel the patent office calling my name...
[j/k]

Medical conditions are not the norm

[Anonymous Coward]

"stop eating when you're not hungry, not when you're full."

a very un-insightful statement there.

many people that are overweight do stop eating when they are not hungry. their insulin-intolerance causes a insulin spike to last too long making them hungry too long.

Maybe if you knew much about the human diet and medical conditions that are common to cause obesiety you would have not made such a stupid remark.

Lumpy, while it is true that the parent's post is a bit simplistic you are erring on the other extreme. While there certain medical conditions that cause people difficulty in losing weight, to insinuate that this means AntiOrganic's advice of "everything in moderation" is a 'stupid remark' is just not right. We all know what we have to do to eat healthy and lose weight. Eat less saturated fat. Eat more vegetables. Get some regular exercise. Don't eat so fuckin' much. Really, this is sound advice and it's something we all know. You can probably find people who have certain medical conditions that cause them to have more difficulty than the 'average' person in losing weight. But that doesn't mean that reducing caloric intake wouldn't help these people tremendously.

Re:What the hell is this?

[haystor]

A very small minority of people that are obese actually have medical problems that caused them to gain weight. Some do have problems which make it very difficult to stay slim, but there are certain laws of the universe that govern the conservation of mass which imply that if they eat less, they weigh less.

Most people will just finish the portions they are served.

Stop being an apologist for all those poor fat people that have everything stacked against them. If they are 5'3" and 270lbs from eating at McDonald's every day, it's not the fault of McDonald's, it's the fault of the person that didn't figure it out when they were 200lbs, then 210, 230, 250, etc...

Hell, I'm overweight because I sit on my ass all day and eat too much. I finish all my fries even after I'm no longer hungry.

I read a study once that fat people don't remember what they've eaten as well as thin people.

Re:We need a total body workout

[GTRacer]

It does not build any muscle.

Tell that to my legs...my calves and thighs are incredibly toned and solid after many moons of DDR and not much else exercise. I used to have the typical pasty flabby geek legs - now they're pasty beefcake geek legs!

GTRacer
- Also uses hand weights to balance out the toning