Slashdot Mirror
The DDR Workout - It's Official
webster1 writes with a followup to a recent Ask Slashdot question. "An AP news story just released says that Dance Dance Revolution is becoming the weight-loss routine of choice for many young gamers. One quote says '"At first I was playing it for fun, but when you see results you're like, Yeah!" said Matt Keene, a 19-year-old from Charleston, South Carolina, who used to weigh more than 350 pounds and wear pants with a 48-inch waist.' It's for grown-ups too. Even Jason Enos, product manager at Konami Digital Entertainment-America, which distributes the game in the U.S., has lost 30 pounds playing the game. There's even a site for DDR wieght loss fans: www.getupmove.com - My wife and I have been playing for months now with this goal in mind, though we aren't yet seeing these results." (A post from a few months ago talks about getupmove and gives some calorie-burn specifics.)
i used to get a workout from playing old-school arcade games, the ones where you had to press buttons 10 times a second. on the other hand i'm sure eating pizza and drinking soda more than counteracted any sweat i produced.
That's right Jenny Craig, you're going down! Quickly buy your own DDR and get rid of that stair master!!!
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Kay
It's too bad im an uncoordinated computer geek...
He say 1 and 1 and 1 is 3, got to be good lookin' cause hes so hard to see...
I'm not sure how it could NOT work.
If you do DDR for 45 minutes, 4-5 days a week, you'll be losing about 2 pounds every 3 weeks.
Worked for me, and my daughter.
You should be getting up to about 180BPM near the end of your workout- not sticking to some 130BPM songs.
For me, having the Xbox version, and downloading new songs was a lifesaver- otherwise I would be completely bored of the songs.
And finally- you won't lose anything if you are using the controller! Get a good dance pad!
No reason to lie.
Man, since this is Slashdot wouldn't you expect the article be about computer memory when you see 'DDR'...
This is the perfect time to plug StepMania, an open source version you can get here. I'm not a developer, just someone that enjoys short techno songs and a frantic workout.
You zap the moderators with a wand of humor! The moderators resist!
If he's anything like most people who want to lose weight, no. No he couldn't. Why not? Because chances are he doesn't like exercise for the sake of weight loss. Evidently he does like exercise for the sake of video games, which is what makes the weight loss work.
Having said that, my reaction to Dance Dance Revolution remains "oh, dear God, that's disturbing".
"up-up-down-down-a-a-b-a"
This konami code reference from the 'department' bar is horribly wrong. Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start is the correct code.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
I'm not saying DDR can't work for weight loss, or that getupmove.com or the AP story aren't valid. However, the site is run by RedOctance, a DDR pad supplier. Check out the contact information for getupmove.com or the suggested pads under 'Get Started.'
Again, I'm not denying the posibilities of using DDR for weight loss. After the Ask Slashdot thread I downloaded StepMania and am seriously considering buying a pad and USB adapter becasue it does look like tons of fun. I just think it's important to be concious of where you're getting your information...
-Trillian
I'm sure he could, but where's the fun in that? The whole reason that this DDR workout and similar programs are taking off is because they're fun and hard work, as opposed to a "low impact exercise regime", which is as boring as it sounds. Sure, a regime like that would be better, but for most people, they'd rather have fun doing a sligtly less effective workout, than to be bored to tears being effecient.
this isnt that surprising really, video games are a lot more interesting to some kids than sport. Its great to see some measurable positive results from gaming. Next we could have super fast text scrolling across our screens to 'train' us in speed reading.
Do you need a website upgrade?
There is a free software version of DDR, written in Python. It used to be called PyDDR but now it's called PyDance.
You can play it with a real dance pad, or just play it with your keyboard. I suspect you will not lose much weight if you play it with your keyboard, however.
http://icculus.org/pyddr/
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
It's true! I used to laugh, say I would never play this game. And now, 2 months of DDR have me not only looking better, but feeling better as well. I am active in general - Football and Wrestling - But DDR has something neither of those have. The biggest problem with exersize is it's repetitived nature. But when you can practice a form (specific Dance) and recieve real time data based on your accuracy, it encourages it to repeat. So far, my only health conern has been the sheer addictiveness - I landed wrong on an ankle after a 4 hour marathon session, and was out for a week. But in general, the experience has been nothing but positive. Hope the next one is online - how about a /. competitive league?
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
Just imagine, not only will you be sweating off those 3 extra big macs you ate for lunch, but you'll also be providing hours of endless laughter and entertainment those around you!
Most slashdot readers probably already have atleast an original Playstation (and if not, used ones can be had for around $20 to $30 or the computer version of DDR can be used). Throw in the cost of a good dance pad (~$50) and the game (another $20 to $30), and your workout system only costs you ~$100, including the cost for a Playstation.
I suggest a dance pad like the one above, because the form insert really helps cut down on the strain on your joints (a must if you are going to be DDRing often as a workout)
Ultimately weight loss is not about how much you eat or how much you exercise. What you need is a negative energy input, on in plain English: You must burn off more calories than you take in.
The reason this works for some and not for others may well be the fact that people naturally increase their energy input (eat more) when their energy output (exercise) increases.
But regardless of if you loose weight or not, any activity causing your pulse to rise will make you more fit. Which is a good thing.
.: Max Romantschuk
This will be placed right along side the Atkins diet! It's all a conspiracy by the neo-Zionist Christian Communist Right to get geeks to slim down! Soon there will be no more fat geeks, and then the geeks will marry, and then what will happen to Slashdot!?
Karma whorin' since 1999
Yeah DDR is/was fun for me.
I still enjoy playing it occasionally, but about 6 months ago I hit a brick wall where I stopped getting any better.
I played for about a year, and there's only a few songs on Extreme (arcade version) I can't pass (most of the 10-footers except for Sakura, Bag and Paranoia Survivor which are quite achievable with practice).
The problem is that it's really expensive if you want to get good. I've pumped at least AU$300-400 into DDR both at lock-ins (ie. 6 hours of unlimited play for AU$13 etc.) and just normally (AU$2 for 4 songs).
No doubt about it being a good workout. After playing for 6 months I went down from about 85kg to 74kg.
I stopped playing and started eating pizza again and I've put so much weight back on (ie. almost 20kg).
It kinda got boring for me as I found a new game (Beatmania IIDX).
By all means, don't just pass DDR off as lame like many of my "friends". God knows the number of payouts and sexual preference innuendo I've received from them for playing it ("not that there's anything wrong with that!").
It is fun in moderation, and if you're determined to get into it (and you have a lot of kesh), it WILL keep you fit.
Good endurance songs (not necessarily difficult):
So Deep (Heavy)
Can't Stop Fallin' In Love/Speed Mix (Heavy)
Rhythm and Police (Heavy)
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Read the first goddamn line of the writeup. Specifically the part where it says that it is a followup to the story you linked to. Yes, slashdot is sponsored by a fucking game. You figured it out.
The biggest problem for most computer gamers I know, is that they drink cola with sugar and eat candy bars. Their biggest arguments for not drinking diet coke are: doesn't taste well, aspartam is dangerous for your health.
:-)
They simply don't get the priorities right - being overweight is much more dangerous than drinking diet coke! The only way to lose weight is to consume less kilojoule (4,18 Joule = 1 Calories for those Americans who don't understand the metric system) than you spend on living. If you want to continue drinking sugar-cola and eat candie bars, you really have to do a lot of exercise!!! - more than most people with that kind of weight problems can or will do.
Personally I lost 15kg in 5 months without doing any exercise, without any special plan for what I eat, just by replacing coke with diet coke and removing all fat and sugar from my meals, replacing food with low-energy and diet products. At Christmas 2004 I expect to have lost 30kg, and spring 2005 I expect to have lost 35kg, and then I have reached my ideal bodyweight and will have to do something to keep my weight up
It certainly helps, but if you still eat too much, that will certainly not change radically. I'm in the US since a month and weighty people is a stunning reality.
For my own person (and it engage only me) I see some bad habits (that I begin to take):
- not eating at regular schedule and eating all day long
- piece are so huge!!
- go to work by car ; it is known that walking
every day (1/4 jour or half an hour) is very
healthy.
Link to that I read an article about a doctor that
sold a slim method that worked: instructions specified just 2 things:
- take the pil after the dinner, at around 8PM,
- don't eat anything after
nothing more.
After a period of time, 2 facts have been revealed:
- treatment was working
- the doctor was prosecuted, because he was selling a placebo.
Indeed the doctor played on the fact that people was still eating after the dinner during all the evening.... quite smart.
my 2 cents
Sometimes I like the Old Fashioned fun of getting outdoors and riding my bike. Of course, I have a GBA duct taped to my handlebars so I can have some real fun. It's fairly low impact... most of the time.
I've been doing martial arts for years and still find these games a challenge and I sure work up a sweat.
A challenge is right! Not too long ago a friend and I fed the boxing arcade machines way too many quarters because we just couldn't get past the first two guys. Most people would give up if a game was too hard for them that early in, but I go to the boxing gym 4 times a week and am involved in the amateur circuit, and my friend was a Los Angeles County champion in Karate (and is currently serving in Iraq as an Army Ranger), so we were completely embarrased by 10 year old kids kicking ass in the game while we were struggling.
At one point it finally dawned on us that fighting like fighters was our problem - whereas in a real fight to avoid getting punched in the face you might duck your head and raise your fists, for the boxing arcade you move your fists away from the screen, to either side or below. In the real world, that's the equivilant of moving your hands as far away from blocking position as you can get them. So the game was reading our real world fighting technique as just standing in front of the punches.
I won't deny that they're a good time, but if you kick ass in the video game don't expect to be able to kick ass in an actual fight... kind of like how a good DDR player shouldn't expect to steal the floor at prom, I suppose.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
I've been playing various versions of DDR (as well as Stepmania) for about two years. I couldn't even jog a mile, heck I couldn't walk it without cramping up, but since then I've been able to pass pretty much every song (sans Paranoia Survivor Max Oni), and through this, I can now run a mile in less than seven minutes. I wasn't ever fat to begin with so unfortunately I don't have any I lost 100 lbs story, but wow, having not done any other physical activity besides type on a computer for close to 6 years (when I quit soccer due to lack of being in shape), I can run a freakin 6:40 mile. Hail DDR in all its nerd-refining glory!
Bull Smith
BS Newswire
In the news today, teenagers have discovered that moving around alot helps you to lose weight.
"I tried the pizza dieet, the deep-fried pork diet, and the ice cream diet. Nothing worked until I spent hundreds of dollars a week playing Dance Dance Revolution!" said one formerly husky girl
Adults were a bit confused by the whole affair. One fit mother exclaimed "You mean they pay to dance? I've been doing that for years without paying a dime!"
This phenominon has already spawned a whole new industry. Entrepenurs have in the works a dollar bill treadmill/slot machine combination for gambling adults as well as a bicycle that takes credit cards and which commuters can rent by the day in order to get fit on their way to work.
Sapere aude!
No, but there are hidden codes, at least on older mixes.
On 3rd mix, to play Maniac difficulty (called SSR for Step Step Revolution), you had to do "left left left right right right left right" on the select arrows before beginning the game. Then you probably wanted it on vivid (rather than the default of flat) which was "left right left left right right left right" on the actual pad.
There's a whole bunch of other hidden options too (hidden, sudden, stealth, turn, etc). The codes are readily available, but can be hard to remember, especially if you normally play newer mixes (DDRMAX and newer have an options screen) that don't need them.
I agree with you but why stop there?
I recently decided to stop drinking soft drinks and go for water (Mountain Valley Spring Water), and I also noticed that I had much more concentration, my sleep schedule became more normalized and my attitude was generally more positive.
It's not just sugar. It's the myriad of chemicals that we put in our bodies in massive quantities that screw up our body chemistry. Dropping sugar may help with caloric intake, but it doesn't address the more serious problem that we're constantly poisoning our bodies with chemicals.
You don't have to be a vegan, but you can choose to shop where they sell meat and produce that isn't bathed in pesticides, antibiotics and other things.
Anybody who thinks they will immediately lose weight playing this game is kidding themselves. This game at best provides a moderate intensity workout with the added twist of being challenging and perhaps addictive.
One thing I have always observed with "I Lost Weight!" articles is they almost always pass over the DIET - that is generally the diet gets an obligatory one line comment (if that) somewhere after most of the information of the article has been devulged.
Anyone who really knows what they are talking about in terms of weight management will tell you that the most important thing in losing/gaining/maintaining weight is your DIET. Your exercise is merely there to burn excess calories you consume over your maintenance calorie level - and of course to promote cardiovascular health and whatnot. (that is, the number of calories required to maintain your current body mass). Easy to understand how you got fat in the first place when you consider what happens when you excess calories are not burnt off
I think you made a very important point. The problem of pathological shyness is often related to the neurotic anxiety that could be described as "OH MY GOD I'M GONNA TO LOOK SILLY IN PUBLIC AGAIN". I think every geek and nerd has experienced this kind of panic at least once. It's like when a gorgeous girl approaches you and says "Hi, how are you?". If you are too much afraid of looking silly in public, you'll get that kind of panic, the panic will eat your tongue and you will probably mumble some uncomprehensible "Um... errr... ahem... nice... I mean, fine... I mean, ok... I mean, cough, how are you....". Then you'll start to realize, that the fear of looking silly in public made you actually look silly in public and then you will feel very silly. In public. So the panic will incrase and you will look even more silly (in public).
But if you get rid of that fear and STOP being afraid of looking silly in public, you might just have a friendly laugh with the gorgeous girl and say something like "Now, that was surely the Guiness top ten of the worst small-talk ever... speaking of Guiness, can I get you something to drink?", and the problem will be gone. You would no longer look silly, because you HAVE LEARNED HOW TO ENJOY IT!
No.
The actual gameplay concept DDR is basically a cross between playing the drums with your feet and jumping like a jackrabbit on amphetamines. The only thing the game grades you on is how close to the beat you are (the highest step grade is within about 30 milliseconds).
I'm a hardcore DDR player... I can pass just about all the songs on the game and with a good grade, but my dancing sucked awful before I started and it hasn't got any better (trust me. There's bad dancers and there's people the bad dancers point and laugh at).
DDR's really good fun and all but I strongly recommend you don't try and bust out Max 300 on an actual dance floor. Although, to quote a guy on a DDR messageboard: "You wouldn't DDR step in a club, but then you wouldn't mosh in a ballroom either". Dancing has a fairly broad definition... but even so it does tend to involve some upper body movement. A lot of expert players just clamp their upper body to the support bar behind the dance stage so that they can hit 10 steps per second and still stay upright, although I personally find this to be bad form.
Me: *slightly slurrish* Hi, howsh thingsh? ... *eyes slowly, and very floppily blink* ... Shpeaking of Guinessh, reckon there's any chance I'll get a lay outta you tonight? Like, if I buy you one or ... *hic* ... shomething?
:/ Next morning I woke up naked next to the pub's seventy year old bar hag.
Gorgeous Girl: Go away. Not interested you drunken son of a bitch.
Me: *laughs heartily* Well, that was shurely the Guinessh top ten of the worsht shmall mrshnahmblah
And that's all I remember
Thanks a lot man.
When I started dieting, I also got a copy of DDR for my playstation. The game actually has a "workout mode" that keeps count of calories burned. I would play it everyday, for about 30 minutes to an hour. I noticed improvement after the first week: when I first started, I couldn't play for more than 5 or 10 minutes without getting winded. After a week, I was able to play for 20-30 minutes. I stopped playing it a few months ago. In the end, I dropped around 85 lbs. I feel much better doing it this way (a traditional program of diet and exercise) than going on, what is IMO, a "fad" diet, like Atkins.