Dance Aerobics is a good excuse to break out your leg warmers

destructoid.com:

With every year that goes by, I am in worse shape than the year before. Not that I’ve ever been the picture of health, but I do fine. I walk (ten steps) to work. My diet is well-balanced (pizza). I get plenty (an excess) of sleep. However, after getting on anti-anxiety medication a few years back, I gained a few (40) pounds and haven’t been able to shed a single one of them.

I’ve tried all the hottest exercises: Wii Fit, Ring Fit, uh… walking my dog, getting out of bed, making tea. However, they all tire me out and take time out of my busy napping schedule. So, I thought, “what would get me to commit to a workout?” Obviously, that’s going to be if it’s part of an 8-bit retro game. That’s something that can definitely get me to commit (for maybe an hour.)

Dance Aerobics was originally released in 1987 in Japan as Family Trainer: Aerobics Studio before reaching North America in 1989. Family Trainer sounds hilarious to me. It’s like a class you’d take your uncouth family to in order to teach them the proper use of a salad fork.

It was made for use with the Power Pad, which was originally designed and released by Bandai. Nintendo brought it to North America and published all the games under their name. The Power Pad is a plastic-y mat that you spread out on the floor. There are two sides, and Dance Aerobics uses side B, which presents you with a four-by-four grid of buttons to step on. If you’re thinking of those Dance Dance Revolution mats for console, you’re extremely close.

If you’re unfamiliar with aerobics, it’s a type of exercise where you move. I don’t know how to describe it otherwise. As the name implies, dance aerobics ties dancing into it, but not in a fun way. It works! It was popular in the ‘80s and is still