One of the many ways that I have mentioned that I am increasing the amount of exercise that I am doing in my daily life is incorporating different fitness games using the Microsoft Kinect. There are a few things that a person should know before they even decide on what games to use on the Kinect. Often times people don’t realize amount of space that is needed, the clothes that work best while working out, and the lighting that is required for it to all come together.
Space
In order to start any game using the Kinect, in which you are going to be physically moving around, you need to make sure that you have at least six feet in front of the television or wherever the Kinect is mounted. It is actually better if you have eight feet or more. Make sure that you set up the Kinect any time that you move the Kinect around. It needs to be recalibrated to make sure that there is apt amount of space available still. I have also found out that it is extremely important to make sure that you have at least four feet in all directions available for any movements that the game may require you to make. It would be might embarrassing to have everything working and then find out that you are going to kick the coffee table because it is within the range of your foot.
Clothing
As strange as it may seem, I have found that if I am wearing any flowing material, that will continue to move beyond the initial movement, it will cause Kinect to not follow your movements as closes as you want it to. Sure the point of doing these different fitness games is to get exercise but all of them have some sort of instructor, or way of measurement, that lets you know if you are not doing everything correct. It is disheartening to be following the instructions on the game only to have the instructor tell you that you are not squatting low enough; especially if you are almost squatting to the ground. The best type of clothes are truly any type that you would wear to the gym; be it a tank top and short or pair of long pants and a shirt. Just make sure that you are always wearing some sort of shoes to make sure you have no accidents due to slipping.
Lighting
The most important thing to make sure that Kinect is picking up your movements is to have adequate lighting in the room. I have found that having some source of natural light does make it work better, but having a small desk lamp near where the Kinect is located at will suffice as well. If the room is too dark, it will lose the way that you are moving and can becoming annoying. Sure you can pause most of the games and fix the lighting but it is so much better to have it set up correctly before even starting. I find myself making sure that it is following my moves correctly before launching into a full fledge exercise routine.
I hope that these few tips will make working out with the Kinect even easier that before. They are not something that we have probably all thought of when we were getting ready to play the games, but if you do all three of these before you start then you won’t have to pause a game to figure out what isn’t working correctly. What other tips have you found out while using the Kinect for exercise?
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