SuperFitness

Gym Help from the Pros: CD-ROM Personal Trainer

How would you like having Mr. USA, Shane Minor, or Liz West, star of Dance Hits USA, as your trainer in a local gym? If you are willing to accept their likenesses and advice through the miracles of multimedia, they are available on a new CD-ROM software product called Active Trainer. The Toronto-based multimedia firm, LaserMedia, has released an interactive program that tests, designs, and teaches a fitness program to meet your specific goals.

The package uses the metaphors of a testing facility, a weight room, an aerobics studio, a stretching area, and a cafeteria to help you meet your training goals. The package even includes a fat measurement skin caliper and tape measure to track your progress for better advice. As you put your measurements and goals into the testing facility, you get a training program for the weight room, aerobics studio, and cafeteria.

The instructors for the CD-ROM are Shane and Liz. They talk you through most of the testing and introductory material. There are 11 warm up stretching routines. The exercises the system suggests are also displayed in video clips. You can see the forty-six possible exercises from three separate cameras to understand how the muscles are being worked.

The package has more than 85 minutes of digitized video material. There are 215 screens of information on which to focus the training that your body needs. The 333 QuickTime movies show you what to do as well as talk you through needed testing. The music score has six original songs. The glossary has more than 200 entries, and the index has more than 650 references.

The display highlights the muscle groups worked by each exercise so you can feel the correct effect when you try them yourself. There are six advanced bodybuilder techniques, and the advanced theory even includes material on the types of muscle fibers being worked.

The system has a personal cardio trainer. You can select from more than twenty-five different activities to get in your aerobic work. Depending on your goals, body fat, and general health, the system will recommend a personal exercise intensity guide. As you progress, you can move automatically from level to level.

The Cafeteria element gives you sample menus, advice on reading labels, a system for calorie counting, food recipes, and information on the USDA food pyramid. The program also prints everything from a things-to-do list to your detailed workout schedule. The system stores data as you progress so you can easily spot those sticking points and find new techniques that work.

The dual-platform Mac HFS/ISO09660 CD-ROM supports both the Macintosh and PC compatible markets. For the Macintosh, the package requires Mac OS 7.0 or higher, a 68040 or higher CPU (or PowerPC), a double-speed CD-ROM drive, 4.5 Mb of free RAM, and 3 Mb (minimum) hard disk space. The system needs either a Macintosh with an integrated sound system, or one with an add-in sound card.

The PC compatible requirements include Microsoft Windows 3.2 or Windows 95, an 80486 33 MHz or faster CPU (or Pentium), a double-speed CD-ROM drive, 4 Mb of RAM, 3 Mb of hard disk space, a sound card and a local bus of PCI video card. The system comes with its own fonts, and it wants to support only certain color performance on the computer.

We found the system very slow on a double speed drive on both the Macintosh and PC. The fonts supplied were not as clear on the PC compatibles running either Windows 3.2 or Windows 95, as they were on the Macintosh. The product is written in Canada, and the spelling does not conform to styles of the U.S.A. Questions or orders can be sent to LASERMEDIA@AOL.COM.

Contributed by C. W. Mann, who also writes the syndicated newspaper column, SuperFitness.

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