Supposedly, the new EASA will also be able to download new content for the PSP version. No work yet on whether the Wii version will also be able to do so. I’m hoping so, otherwise Wii owners who play EASA will be up in arms.

Other improvements I’d like to see, but that weren’t mentioned in the article…

• More stretching exercises. A lot more stretching exercises, in fact.
• More warm up and cool down routines. The EASA More Workouts only has one routine for warm up and one for cool down, and doing those for six weeks straight got old real fast.
• Yoga routines. With the new wireless leg and arm remotes, I think this would be the ideal time for EASA to incorporate yoga into it’s workout options.
• Bring back some of the old games from the original version of EASA, including the baseball, basketball, tennis and volley ball games. I put together entire workouts that were nothing but those sports games and they gave me a real workout. I’d love to see them brought back.
• An option to pre-program EASA for a certain number of workouts a week based on what the user wants. The 6-week challenge demands you do 4 workouts a week for six weeks straight, which can be a little tough to work in if you do other forms of exercise during the week. I would rather have done 2 regularly scheduled workouts in addition to my water aerobics classes, karate classes, and other Wii workouts. Granted, I can still do that by picking the 6-week challenge workouts on my own from the menu and going through them in order, but the pre-programmed function would have been nice to have.

Keeping that last comment above in mind, I’m thinking of working EASA back into my morning workouts, maybe twice a week, interspersed between Gold’s Gym Cardio, Wii Fit Plus and DDR or the new Just Dance game that I’ve ordered. I don’t like to get bored, obviously, and mixing things up like this will give me plenty of ways to keep active.

If anybody has comments on working out with any of the above games, or with any games I haven’t mentioned, post them below. I’m interested in hearing what others have to say about working out with the Wii.

I’m talking about my exercise band snapping apart, of course. The original EASA came with a wimpy elastic band that I wore a hole in pretty quickly. It definitely wasn’t made to last. But I had a much heavier band on hand and was easily able to use that one with the handles EASA provided. It worked pretty well too, until Friday.

I was right in the middle of doing some squats when suddenly SNAP! The band ripped apart just a couple inches below one handle. The long end snapped right into my leg, thus the sting I mentioned earlier, while the left end just hung there, a now useless stub. I had to pause the game to fix the matter, swearing as I struggled to undo the handle from the short remnant of elastic band. When I had the handle reattached to the remainder of the band, the whole deal was a good six inches shorter. That was great for the exercises where I frequently had to double up the band to get enough resistance, but not so much for a lot of other exercises where the original length had been just right (i.e. providing enough to make me sweat). In fact, I’m seriously afraid that the band is no longer good for some exercises, like the shoulder presses, because too much stretching on the now truncated band may cause it to snap again.

Sigh. I guess I’ll hunt down a new resistance band, or a set of them, and maybe some extra handles too so I can swap back and forth between resistance levels. I’d like to find something sturdier than what I’ve been using, but I don’t know if I’ll have any luck with that. If I do find something, I’ll be sure to post a note about it here.

I’ve only got one more week left on the 6-week challenge, and I should be finishing up my final workout in that on Wednesday. Once I do, I’m going to evaluate the final results and maybe rethink my exercise routine. EA Sports Active has definitely provided me with a workout, but it may be time for a change.

Enjoy your Monday and go work up a sweat!