Dance Central Challenge Tips & New Challenge – Week 2

The first week of the Dance Central Challenge has been completed and I have to say that I am really happy with myself. The first challenge can be found here . I did the workout 3 times and found that I was challenged enough but not to the point that I got frustrated. I am by no mean an expert on exercise and I do not want to come off as one but I am speaking from my own experience. I am planning on doing each that the Harmonix team does with Dance Central as it is a game that I love and I feel it is a great workout for me. Already with this first challenge I have been able to lose half a pound. Not much but it’s a start. The Frenchy Challenge was a great core workout and I could feel it doing so much for me. According to the songs that I would choose to do on the different days I could feel the different areas on my body getting a workout.

There were a few suggestions that I started to find out for myself that I wanted to pass on to you as the readers so here is what I figured out for myself.

• Make sure that you stretch before you start the dances. I found that if I didn’t do this, that my muscles were “screaming” at me by about the 3rd song and I wanted to quit.

• Make sure that you have water close by before you start. The first time I didn’t have water in the same room that I game in and I had to pause the game to head into the kitchen to get some.

• Put a favorite song at the beginning, middle, and end of the set list the you create. This really helped me to feel that I had some songs that I could work towards when there were songs that were not my “cup of tea” in the set list.

• When you are not sure of the dance step, keep moving, you are only a 4 count away from another one that will be easier to understand. I found that if I didn’t get a step that if I just faked it that I could get the next one and still keep my heart rate up and still get a workout.

• Find a workout partner to talk to during the week. This can be someone via Twitter, Facebook, in real life, or over the phone. It really helps to have someone else who is doing the Dance Central workout Challenge as well. Marcia Webb, a fellow writer here at The Married Gamers (you can follow her on twitter @JaXboxChick) and I talked to each other during the week encouraging each other on our workouts and it really helped.

• Change up your songs and keep it fresh. There are 20 songs that I was able to choose from and so it was important for me to make sure that I changed up the songs that I danced. Sure I picked some of the same songs each time, because I love them, but I put them in a different arrangement each time.

As we get ready to head into the next’s week, I am looking forward to seeing what part of my body will be getting a workout next. I would encourage everyone to not give up on the workouts that we have already set up in our saved set lists as we can save 20 different play lists on the game. This means that we can save 20 different workouts on the game. What a great way to never get bored. I know that this is something that I have been thinking about. I keep thinking about how I can kick it to the next level.

So here is this weeks challenge direct from Dance Central’s website,:

THE UNLUCKY 13 CHALLENGE

Pick one song from the Dance Central library (includes Dance Central, Dance Central 2, and DLC) and create a playlist that features your song choice 13 times. Then play the playlist on Medium or Hard. Since you’re playing this song 13 times in a row choose your song wisely!

So there you have it! They are asking us to pick one song and play it 13 times in a row. I know that I am planning on bumping it up a little and doing this challenge at least three times during the week because it is generally recommended that you do some sort of aerobic exercise 3 times a week when you are trying to lose weight.