I used to play a lot of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and other similar dance games, such as Pump It Up (PIU) and In The Groove (ITG). At one point, I was actually nationally ranked in the top 80 in arcade ITG, haha. However, life, women and training kind of pushed this habit aside for a while.
But I’ve been getting back into it again recently. I was surprised that I was able to (mostly) pick up where I left off. Anyone else play any dancing games? If so, do you notice any correlations between dancing game performance and triathlon performance?
I noticed that once you get at or above 10 difficulty on DDR and ITG, and say 12 or 13 on PIU, it’s a really sweet Z3 or Z4 workout, since it’s 1:30-2:00 of above LT exertion, followed by a short rest period while you pick your next song. I also noticed that while my in-song stamina still sucks (I don’t have much fast-twitch going on in my muscles) I am able to play more songs over the course of my entire session.
Anyway, I’m a big fan of dancing games. They are a really enjoyable way to get some fun exercise and socialize with friends. I prefer to play in the arcade, but the home versions are great as well, and it’s the original party game (before Guitar Hero and Rock Band, of course)!
My personal history to the game is that I played about once a week in middle school, and about once a month in highschool, and now never.
I got good enough to clear Max 300 (one of the easiest 10-footers I believe), but wasn’t interested in playing the songs a million times to get perfect combo’s, or be forced to grab the bar and look like an idiot. At that point it kind of fades away from the “dance” part of the game.
And yeah, it’s a workout, but it’s not very closely related to the muscles used in triathlon and I would much rather do some other non-triathlon activity like an ultimate frisbee game or something.
Sure, I’ve found if you play 5-6 times per week and keep in Z4 then you never have to do long rides, can cut your runs down to once a month and only swim on race day. As I understand it, this is how Lori Bowden trains.
My 9 and 11 year old skater boi’s play it, but take care to hide it away in the closet in case their friends come over. It’s pretty funny.
Guitar Hero/Rock Band is the same interface concept, but with toy guitars and drums. Now THAT is fun. We do whole-family jams. Not much of a workout, though.
My 11 yo scored a 98% on GH3, “Cliffs of Dover” – on Expert. If you know the game, you gotta be impressed. He played that one at Best Buy and had a crowd around him, cheering. The cool thing is, it got him interested in guitar and now he can play the real thing and is in a little band.
