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Toys Entertainment Games

New Gamepad Designed To Build Muscles? 441

Posted by simoniker from the be-strong-and-beautiful dept.
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."
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New Gamepad Designed To Build Muscles? More

New Gamepad Designed To Build Muscles?

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  • White House Approved Lifestyle (Score:4, Funny)

    by Eyah....TIMMY ( 642050 ) * on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:39PM (#8001004)
    We might need it as the White House recommends [yahoo.com] we eat junk food (usually the preffered gaming food) as long as we excercise.

    The World Health Organization recommends [who.int] eating better but they have probably never played video games.

    • Re:White House Approved Lifestyle (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mr Guy ( 547690 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:45PM (#8001099) Journal
      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.
      • 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.

      • BULLSHIT (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The US government doesn't care about obecity, and it is apparent to anyone who pays attention. Recently on C-SPAN there were lots of experts discussing it intelligently, while the FDA was absent. Actually, they sent someone there to share "his own" opinions, which translate to "obecity is a result of progress, therefore good". At one point he actually said something like "my argument sounds right because it is" and everybody laughed (including me) because it seemed like he was joking. He wasn't. The FDA rep

        • Re:BULLSHIT (Score:4, Informative)

          by 3terrabyte ( 693824 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @04:17PM (#8002196) Journal
          Yep, the American Heart Association (AHA) has their stamp of approval on every Sugar-Flakes cereal in the aisle!! How can you trust anything from them?

          Just because you fortify it, doesn't mean it's healthy!

          The main problem with today's health is the myth that "fat is bad". So they make all this fat-free foods that people gobble up. Their blood sugar spikes from all the carbs and they're hungry again too soon.

          Enriched flour is a terrible misnomer. It means that for the food companies to save money, they've taken wheat, ground it down to a powder, losing all the vitamins. Then fortify it with vitamins, and make cereal, bread, cakes, cookies, and pastas. The bad thing is, it's only 1 step above sugar.

          Complex Carbohydrates, protein, and fat all satiate your hunger for much longer than sugar and simple carbs.

          I'm no Atkins fan, but I did learn a lot from it. I only cut out simple carbs and counted calories when I lost my 150 pounds.

    • Re:White House Approved Lifestyle (Score:5, Informative)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday January 16, 2004 @04:07PM (#8002091) Homepage Journal
      Look, if you want to talk about what the government is doing wrong, you have to look at the Food Pyramid [gsa.gov], which codifies a government-sponsored lie in a convenient, triangular symbol. From the page:

      The small tip of the Pyramid shows fats, oils, and sweets. These are foods such as salad dressings and oils, cream, butter, margarine, sugars, soft drinks, candies, and sweet desserts. These foods provide calories and little else nutritionally. Most people should use them sparingly.

      (...)

      At the base of the Food Guide Pyramid are breads, cereals, rice, and pasta - all foods from grains. You need the servings of these foods each day.

      What they neglect to mention is that sugar and white flour might as well be the same thing. It doesn't matter if you consume 50g of carbs from sugar, or from flour, they rapidly become the exact same thing in your body.

      The biggest problem with food in america is that we have a tendency to eat preprocessed food, and preprocessed food tends to have huge amounts of sugar added to it for flavor. Personally, I have always hated overly sweet food, such as the pizza sauce at Domino's... But the fact is, all this extra sugar is making us fat. Any carbohydrates you take in become fat if you don't burn (use) them.

      What you need to read on this topic is a fine article in the NYT by one Gary Taubes entitled "What if it's all been a big fat lie?" Unfortunately, NYT moved that to an archive article and you have to pay $2.95 to read it now, because they are bastards. I mean seriously, I can see a dollar or something, but three bucks? In any case I condensed the article (sharply, I'm afraid) in an article I wrote for Everything2 entitled "How the Government Fattened America [everything2.com]". Please be gentle to E2, though it has moved to a new host it is still pretty fragile in terms of overuse.

      One of the important paragraphs from my article runs like so:

      The run up on fat began in earnest in 1977, as a Senate committee led by George McGovern declared that Americans should reduce their fat intake to curb disease, in the report "Dietary Goals for the United States". The National Institutes for Health summarily spent several hundred million dollars trying to prove a link between being fat and contracting heart disease -- which failed. On their sixth try, though, they found something they could use to prove that the previous money had not gone to waste; a study showing reducing cholesterol via drug therapy reduced the risk of some kinds of heart disease.

      The bottom line is that the government tells us to choke down the carbs. A bag of sugar (from C&H) says that "Sugar Contains No Fat" but eating fat doesn't even raise your cholesterol, eating fat mixed with a bunch of carbohydrates does. The emphasis on low-fat diets (which do not work for most people) causes many people to consume more carbohydrates. Problem is, the more carbs you eat, the more glucose ends up in your body at once. Glucose regulates hunger. Your brain will eventually build up a tolerance to it, meaning you have to eat more carbs to feel full. So, then you eat more carbs, which means you become more resistant to glucose - a classic vicious cycle.

      On top of all this, when you consume carbohydrates your pancreas produces insulin as part of the conversion process. The more carbs you take in, the more insulin is produced. The more insulin you produce, the harder your pancreas has to work, and eventually it will give up and you will become a diabetic. How's that for your carb-heavy payoff?

      So, in summation; The government says sugar is bad and other carbs are good, when in fact all carbohydrates (except fiber, which is indigestible, and cleans out your colon) have the same effect on your system. (The less processed they are, however, the slower they are

  • not new. (Score:5, Funny)

    by bludstone ( 103539 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:39PM (#8001007)
    Its called a dance dance revolution pad, and those have been around for years.

    (I obviously havnt read the article)

  • This would be more helpful (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) * on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:39PM (#8001011) Homepage
    This would be more helpful if worked with my everyday system taskes ( build, check logs, ect.. ).

    The faster I ran on this thing, the faster my compile would go. I'd buy it.

  • I can see it now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:39PM (#8001012)
    Geeky gamers with Popeye arms...

  • What the hell is this? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AntiOrganic ( 650691 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:40PM (#8001023) Homepage
    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?
    • Getting half an hour excercise per day can be hard.
      I mean, I have dogs, but you guys all sit inside all day and are pale.
      So instead of killing your boss (Virtually, in your mind, so you wont in rl) with your fingertips, youd have to work for it. Perhaps even for thirty minutes.

      THEN eat less, and sure nuff, youd loose weight.

      "/Dread"

    • Re:What the hell is this? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by canajin56 ( 660655 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @03:01PM (#8001341)
      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? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kiwimate ( 458274 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @03:02PM (#8001347) Journal
      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:What the hell is this? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @03:20PM (#8001526) Homepage
      "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.

      want to lose weight? go to a doctor and have him/her tell you what YOU need for weightloss and lifestyle changes. only a fool believes the line of yours I quoted.

      • Re:What the hell is this? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by haystor ( 102186 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @03:53PM (#8001920)
        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.

  • This is great (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:40PM (#8001026)
    Now I can give up my total reliance on masterbating for exercise!
  • what we need is not more muscle power, but better condition. Having a large bisceps can be trained in far more satisfying games than pumping a gamepad.
  • Bah - find me a machine that involved exercise, video games, a love life, advice on stocks, and beer and I'm interested.

    • find me a machine that involved exercise, video games, a love life, advice on stocks, and beer

      Exercise and video games: Dance Dance Revolution by Konami.

      A love life: The gathering of players of both sexes at arcades that have a DDR machine may lead to the beginning of a relationship.

      Advice on stocks: Buy Konami.

      Beer: Unfortunately, this is the only hard part. Most arcades I've visited do not serve alcoholic beverages, and I don't know how many bars have DDR machines next to their video slot mac

      • There's an arcade in downtown calgary, alberta is also a lounge that serves alcohol. Separate areas though. BUt you can enjoy a cold one and walk 20 feet and enjoy some DDR...

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:40PM (#8001033)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Change of tact? (Score:3, Funny)

    by KingDaveRa ( 620784 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:42PM (#8001053) Homepage
    So, we're constanly being told to go careful with mice, keyboards and controllers, to avoid RSI and Carpal Tunnel, yet this company is selling something which makes you do the opposite? Apparantly we'll all have massive arms and bodies, but not actually be able to move them.

  • So they're saying... (Score:3, Funny)

    by tuxette ( 731067 ) * <tuxette&gmail,com> on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:42PM (#8001063) Homepage Journal
    ...that I can get fit and strong by playing computer games the same way I can get a six pack while watching TV by wearing one of those electro-shock belts?

    Woohoo! Bring it on!

  • Please... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:43PM (#8001069) Journal
    This is just a gimmick to sell stuff. If you're serious about getting (and staying) fit, put down the controller for half an hour a day (or every other day) and do a physical activity.

    You don't have to go to the gym and work out - you could do a sports activity or even just jog down to the shops and back to get some milk - but it'll be ten times better for you than twiddling your already overdeveloped thumbs.

    Oh, and while you're at it, replace every other can of Coke/Mountain Dew/whatever with a glass of water. Your body will thank you for it.

  • This is silly (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:43PM (#8001072) Homepage
    You buy a game controller for one reason: to have maximum control in a videogame. Anything that interferes with that, including having to exert unnecessary muscle power, makes for a sucky controller.

    As Butt Head once put it so well, "If I wanted to read, I'd go to school."

    And if I wanted to exercise, I'd go outdoors.

    • While I agree that adding large amounts of resistance to a controller is a dumb idea, a controller can be used for more than simple control. Look at force feedback for example. While it's not implemented very well in a lot of systems, it provides good information that can help with gameplay.

      In a driving game, to pick the simplest example, the looseness of the wheel could be correlated to the slipperiness of the road surface, much as it is in the Real Life (tm) system.

      Controllers with no resistance at all

  • If you want a workout (Score:5, Funny)

    by ilsie ( 227381 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:43PM (#8001076)
    try playing Soul Calibur II with a Dance Dance Revolution pad.

  • Soon.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by vjmurphy ( 190266 )
    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.

  • Aha! (Score:2, Funny)

    by AgentOJ ( 320270 )
    Now we know how the characters from Final Fantasy VII got their physiques! To gain their popeye-esque arm structure they used this gaming pad!
  • Average age of people who buy excercise equipment: 31 years

    Average age of a video game buyer:
    29 years

    Number of years of wasted education trying to come up with a good excuse to play games all day long instead of work:

    Kernal Panic!
    We're hanging here....

  • Sweat (Score:3, Funny)

    by verloren ( 523497 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:45PM (#8001106)
    So now you get to be the sweaty fat kid in gym class, but in the comfort of your own home.
  • A lot of games require several moves of the joystick per second (fighting combos, etc). How many folks, even in great shape, can make gross (as opposed to fine) motions that fast?

    I'm a tall guy. Even if I was skinny, I'd be 200 lbs. That's a LOT of weight to move quickly, without hurting myself...

  • Problem the first: the tensile strength of any joystick/analog stick required is going to be much higher than in the regular el-cheapo controllers.

    Problem the second: overdeveloped thumbs and puny everything-else. :P

  • Most people (the fat guy in the picture in the BBC article, for example) need aerobic exercise a lot more than isometrics or weight training.

    As a poster above said, DDR will work a lot better at getting us all in shape.

    • Not really (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tuxette ( 731067 ) * <tuxette&gmail,com> on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:54PM (#8001245) Homepage Journal
      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...

      • Re:Not really (Score:3, Interesting)

        by djeaux ( 620938 )
        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...

        Actually, there's a genetic difference between sprinters & distance runners, which is why very, very few people successfully crossover between the two sports. And the difference in appearance betweens sprinters & marathoners is the difference between someone who can focus on "bulking up" muscles

  • If I had that when I was little, I'd be an ironman triathlete right now! I hope they can get the price to come down, I know a lot of overweight kids that play games all the time. If they could get one, they'd totally do it. Or, perhaps the DDR pad could be made compatible with other games.
  • The Yugo I drove in college worked on the same principle: The harder I pushed, the faster I could make it go.

  • Woo Hoo (Score:3, Funny)

    by Saint Stephen ( 19450 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:48PM (#8001140) Homepage Journal
    I for one welcome our freakishly strong forearmed child overlords.

    Seriously -- rememeber the Chris Farley Skit: "My God, these Hideously Oversized and Freakishly Strong Children Will Surely Rise Up And Destroy Us?"
  • Lessee here...this thing costs just shy of my PS2, XBox *and* GameCube. *AND* all the games I own for them.

  • Mudcycle (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Godeke ( 32895 ) * on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:49PM (#8001171)
    Best encouragment I made for myself to exercise was attaching a low power (386) computer with a terminal program to a stationary bike. Strap the keyboard in an accessable place and play muds for a while... amazing what motivation to not die in a dungeon will do for you.
  • I've always been enthralled by the idea of integrating technology into exercise so that people were more motivated to engage in cardiovascular activities. One of the best examples of this is the Dance Dance [ddrfreak.com] video game. One can't deny that getting good at the game is directly proportional to how in shape you are. In a market dominated by games where people hone skills such as shooting people, it's a refreshing change. Disney Quest [wdwinfo.com] also has some interesting video games that involve lots of physical effort

  • What's the point? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by HungWeiLo ( 250320 )
    It's $700. Case closed. Put down the joypad for 1/2 hr and walk around in circles if you must.

    Seriously, I know this chick that disconnected the power steering cable from her car so she can work out her arms while she's driving. It works - her arm muscles are spectacular, but I guess safety issues be damned.
  • looks like they got one on kiloWatt [powergridfitness.com]

    I hope they don't try to sue my friends [slashdot.org]
  • If we wanted physical exertion, we would go outside and play with the rest of the kids.
  • This controller does not involve a significant range of motion - essentially the controller involves isometric holds. This is just a $10 word word meaning that you push against a static object as hard as you can (e.g pushing against a wall - it doesn't move, but it still requires effort on your part). Isometric training is sometimes incorporated as part of a controversial training style known as "super slow" (I can't say if it works or not - I get the impression that the evidence is that at best, it's not a
  • had as first thought, -ooh- GT3, must... have...

    "/Dread"
  • is that your average gamer doesn't neglect exercise because he can't exercise, but rather because he doesn't *want* to exercise. If he does, then in that case he'll use equipment specially designed for such, but no one will want to use an almost certainly inferior gamepad just because it happens to also be almost certainly inferior exercise equipment as well. (The traditional "do one thing, but do it well", argument... whose applicability is debatable in the case of closely related and easily combined elect

  • Excuse the exercise, or a way to participate? (Score:3, Informative)

    by dexterpexter ( 733748 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:55PM (#8001261) Journal
    The system works on the principle of isometric exercise, which contracts the muscles without moving any joints. After just a couple of minutes of playing Gran Turismo with the joystick, you can feel the strain in your upper arms and shoulder muscles.

    This sounds to me like another item to add to the hundreds we use that cause carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive stress disorders. Now, instead of just mildly turning the joystick over and over again, there is resistance that will add to the strain. This doesn't see like its at healthy as it first appears. Exercise indeed, but what I believe these sports medicine professionals are missing is the fact that unlike lifting weights or other people who exercise for health reasons, gamers do not typically stop playing after a short one-hour workout. (Good, healthy workouts are usually about that long) Gamers sometimes sit in front of those games for hours and hours; having repetitive moments with muscular tension could actually harm the muscles instead of build them up. It would seem that this is a great idea for the health nut looking for an interesting way to lose weight as these people would play for an hour and stop, but this is not a particularly great excuse for gamers to exercise. The company should stick with the idea of putting these in gyms, but perhaps skip the idea of a marketing this to a hardcore, overweight RPGer.


    However, I think that if used in moderation, I suppose this is an excuse (note: I said excuse, and its not a particularly great one) to exercise. But perhaps they should look at marketing this, instead of as a piece of exercise equipment, as a way to physically enjoy the games. Anyone remember when Nintendo made the the large floor pad so that you could really run and control the track game? It was great not because of the exercise but because one got to really participate in the game. Maybe applying this to VR, anyone?

    .
    In the end, however, one thing holds true:
    This device makes a perfect symbolic comment on our culture.
  • 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,
  • 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!

  • I tried this thing at CES (Score:5, Informative)

    by ChristopherD ( 742302 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:58PM (#8001288) Homepage
    Some friends of mine and I took turns trying this device out at CES running Gran Turismo. It looked like all games should work on it, because it has a full complement of PS controls and buttons on it, including dual shoulder buttons. The consensus among the group after using it for a few minutes each? BLECH! I found it unintuitive as to how to move the device to control the car in a specific direction. It sort of made sense, but required hitting one of the gamepad buttons to put the car into reverse or to perform any of the other actions that games require during play. So, that meants that during your "strenuous" workout driving the car around, you would have to jump out of the workout abruptly to get the car back onto the road if you got turned around, then start back up again. I suppose if a game were built specifically for the device, then a continuous workout could be achieved, otherwise I thought it required too much switching between working out and playing the game. Having used this thing and DDR dance pads I can say with certainty that DDR integrates working out with fun gameplay FAR better than this device. If I may quote the horse from classic Ren and Stimpy, "No sir, I don't like it!"
  • This is completely useless. After doing the same excersize over and over it looses it's muscle developing affect because your body becomes used to doing the task and becomes more efficient at it (and becomes more prone to cheating, doing the excersize the wrong way that's much easier, like swinging an arm to lift a heavy weight).

    Maybe if their was some sort of all in one excersize machine controller, like a bowflex or something like that, that can connect to a PC or another game console. That would be a

  • Must Move! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DumbSwede ( 521261 ) <slashdotbin@hotmail.com> on Friday January 16, 2004 @02:59PM (#8001304) Homepage Journal
    Call me a snob, but I work out often, and I don't believe this isometric system will do much for overall health.

    I do three types of exercise:
    Free Weights
    Machine (Nautilus)
    Aerobic

    Now I'm not saying isometric is bad for you, just that I've never seen anyone build muscle with or or get good cardio vascular from it. It can provide toning when used in conjunction with other exercise types.

    I personally think people will be bored with isometric exercise, because you don't feel any movement (granted here you have game feedback). But motion is what really gets you the next immersion level. I used to do computerized rowing machine, and I really enjoyed chasing my computer opponent in the other boat.

    Isometric won't condition you for real athletic performance in the real world. The same reason I use a mix of machine and free weights. The free weights train your body for how to lift against real mass in the real world, and though you may not realize it, you will be be adapted to say helping your significant other move the couch around the room a dozen times until its "Fung Shui"

    I suppose its possible to get the heart rate up for cardio with isometric, but it seems unlikely for most. Again, motion is the key to health. Get moving until you work up a moderate sweat and maintain for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to really get cardio benefits.

    I like the idea of linking computer games and workouts, I have a friend that is hooked on Dance-Dance-Revolution and it works well for him. I just don't think this cheap-o scheme of isometric will catch on, or more importantly really give the advertised benefits.

  • York has a new fitness game for geeks... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 16, 2004 @03:01PM (#8001327)
    ...called 'Gravity Warrior.' Instead of a joystick, it uses a metallic bar as the gaming device. You load a series of 'mass regulators' onto each end of the game controller. It creates a very dramatic simulation of gravity that is much more realistic than some force feedback joystick. I've played Gravity Warrior until my arms could no longer move! Its most safely played with two players. The post-game ritual includes a series of high-fives and mutual butt slapping irregardless of who actually won the game as show of good sportsmanship. Gravity Warrior gamers greet each other with the secret code words 'whatcha bench?' in sign of community brotherhood.

  • I want Prop Cycle! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kisrael ( 134664 ) * on Friday January 16, 2004 @03:05PM (#8001377) Homepage
    Prop Cycle was a cool looking game that had a built in exercise bike...you're onscreen character was a flying bicycle glider thingy and you had to burst balloons. I was always surprised there wasn't a home console game that had hardware to connect to an exercise bike, seems like a decently written game could be pretty engaging, like Pilot Wings on the N64... ...better for people than the Donkey Konga hardware...

  • This is not a good idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by brundlefly ( 189430 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @03:20PM (#8001533)
    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.
  • I mean, don't most people who sit around and game all day basically have the motions dealing with lower arm strength all pat and down? After so many repetitive...strokes...they must have pretty strong brachioradials.

  • A PC version would be better... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @03:54PM (#8001943)
    I don't see this working out for a gamer that wants to perform well. Obviously you can twitch your thumbs a lot faster than you can push whatever weighted system they have implemented.

    Now on the other hand... I've always been surprised that no one had implemented a stationary-bike kind of setup for a PC workstation (that I've seen anyways - feel free to add links). It wouldn't even been that hard; off the top of my head, you could hook the mouse wheel to a sensor on the bike wheel, so you had to pedal to scroll while browsing. Backwards and forwards. Imagine you'd burn a few calories that way...

    Anyways, the invention is a compelling idea, but they should have bundled specific games with it... a MechWarrior kind of thing would be neat...

  • whatever... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by supabeast! ( 84658 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @05:29PM (#8003045)
    How do the guys who sell this junk even manage to get the product to market without dying from laughter as they bilk stupid investors out of millions of dollars? And why is it that investors still haven't caught on that specialty video game controllers without mainstream game support-lightgun games, ddr, steering wheels-don't make money?

    Funk dat!

    And people wonder why I refuse to invest in stocks...

  • Damn! I thought of this. (Score:3, Funny)

    by AlecC ( 512609 ) <aleccawley@gmail.com> on Friday January 16, 2004 @06:07PM (#8003392)
    I though of this years ago. Except I was going to take it at a lower level. And it was the bad old days of dial up with a 14.4K modem. Stop pedalling and your screen goes dark. Pedal gently to keep the screen alive. Pedal faster for net access - the faster you pedal, the greater your baud rate. Trouble is, I was frightened of a heart attack as you try to load pages from a slow site, not realising that it is their fault, not yours, that the download is slow. And the danger of downloading prOn is frighting ("just a bit fastaer and I'll see....").

  • Another right handed exercise.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by phelix_da_kat ( 714601 ) on Friday January 16, 2004 @06:15PM (#8003452)
    "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."

    Ok, you get a strong right hand, right arm, right everyting..

    There are other exercises you can do to achieve the same result :-D

    We should stick to Dance Revolution, at least the side effect is that you can pretend to have a fit.

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