Ring Fit Adventure Fitness Log Week 54: Damaging My Body For Content

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Why I took a week off... which I should have kept doing.

Hello, and welcome back to KoopaTV's Fitness Fridays. If you're reading these live as they're published, you'll notice that there was a two-week gap between this and Week 53. Let's talk about that, especially since it falls within what the fitness logs are about.

On Sunday the 21st, I had a fair amount of the day dedicated to moving and lifting a big, bulky leather (RIP) recliner out of a castle with my own bare claws. Then on Thursday the 25th, I moved that same recliner up into another castle. With stairs and vehicles and everything. Basically, that's not only already physically tiresome, but it does a number on one's wrists and being able to grip things. Since Ring Fit Adventure is dedicated to gripping the Ring-Con, having sore arms/claws/wrists is quite disadvantageous! And physically unpleasant and painful. On top of that, I had persistent pain on my left hip for basically the whole week starting on the 22nd to the 26th. It's terrible.

At first I thought I'd be playing Armando's story arc, but World 54: Fitness Master Lv. 309 is actually based on World 31: Extra Fitness Lv. 204, which is solidly part of Abdonis's story arc. That means the world is focused on my abs, not my arms. Still... I mean... my back could be better, too (and it certainly wouldn't be a good experience for my hip!), and the fact remains that arms are a critical part of interacting with the game since they're still gripping the Ring-Con. SO I TOOK A BREAK FOR A WEEK. I just wish I could've used that break to play Pokémon Shining Pearl, but nooo, that couldn't happen either. (Well, not counting the weekend.)

Finally, I went to play Ring Fit Adventure again on Sunday the 28th. My arms are fine. My hip isn't perfect, but it probably will never be. Unlike, say, Americans, I didn't eat inappropriate food portions during the week I wasn't exercising. I definitely put focus and effort into the dynamic stretching to start things off, if only because the game expects me to be in pretty good shape. Apparently. Oh, and stupidly enough, I'm insisting on having the game at the highest difficulty level of 30 despite my body being a disaster, which will be a reoccurring theme in this log.

My muscles aren't hot at all. They've been cooled for over a week.
(This is the only line of dialogue to start the world.

Regardless, I ran through the first level, Gutterflow Temple. Well, and squatted, since this reintroduces the squat-powered railcarts. I was hoping Ring might provide a warning about how it's bad to exercise outside in the rain, but... there's still time for that later. Onward to Drench Trench! ...And I went through it. Not much to say here. Within its vicinity was the Crate Crasher (Novice) Game Gym, which I cleared for a Dragon Fruit. I got a new high score of 26000, too. Doesn't make a difference since it's all an S rank anyway, but...

We went to the next level—Talisman Trail—after the Town (and I unloaded some money there), and there's dialogue again. ...It's Ring asking if we need to go a specific route again to get to the end. I happened to have forgotten the particular details of that, so let's just plow ahead through Talisman Trail. Ring realises that since it's raining, that means Solar Plexia, the local... goddess, is crying somewhere. However, I'm not crying going through the level, since there are wild Pumpkins growing here, and with an ingredient-doubling smoothie, I harvested TWELVE of them. Pumpkins are important for Pumpkin Soup, which will double one battle's money drop! (You need two Pumpkins for one Soup.) And maybe to underscore that this level is important, we found a Treasure Chest with an Onyx stone.

Check out the World 8: Tears of Solar Plexia Fitness Log for Solar Plexia lore.
She's a childlike deity that cries a lot, and when she cries, it rains.
Abdonis's mom is a Solar Plexia priestess.

The right road means going into a warp zone, where the first thing is a four-round Battle Gym. The second wave had a rare situation where the Megaphauna actually revived its fallen comrade (well, technically summoned a brand-new one as backup) with full HP, proving Megaphauna can do things besides buff its party. My hip is fine to the point where I can spam Overhead Hip Shakes at the final wave of enemies just fine without feeling bad. I'm back! Yippee! ...And with that, I'm ending today, since we got through 38% of the world and I need to shower and welcome the holiday of Chanukkah. Little did I know that doing all of this on Sunday would be a trap for the rest of the week.

On Monday... my hip ISN'T fine and it's paaaainful. Still... maybe I'll feel better if I exercise. Or I might make it worse. Let's find out. Today, having entered the warp zone and cleared the Battle Gym, the layout is a circle, pretty much. I went north to check out the Thigh Rider (Novice) Game Gym, which is a great and fun minigame that should help me feel better. And the prize for clearing it is awesome, too: five Black Tea Leaves. Black Tea is the only other smoothie in the game that will double your money from a battle like Pumpkin Soup. Obviously, the game wants me to make some right away since the next thing in the circle is a Gold Hoplin fight, and they're all about dropping 500 coins per Hoplin. It'd be a waste to do that, though, since there was only one Gold Hoplin. (Late-game fights have FIVE at a time!) So it's not efficient and there's good reason to hoard them. Behind the Gold Hoplin was the Bank Balance (Novice) Game Gym, which gave me one measly Defense Drink for completion.

Next in the circle is... the Dangling Overhead Pass. All I've done in the previous paragraph are two minigames and one two-turn fight. This is an actual course you gotta run through with two fights and Overhead Ring Pull pulleys and Squat springs to venture in. So... that's a lot harder with a hurting hip. And then foolishly I used the Leg Scissors Fit Skill on the first enemy group of three since it's a three-range Fit Skill, and my performance was terrible since I couldn't use a full range of motion sitting down criss-crossing my legs repeatedly... because it was painful to do so. There was also a Treasure Chest with one Strength Drink in it that you gotta Squat five times or so to open. In the second and last enemy group, I used the Bow Pull and Overhead Squat Fit Skills. The Bow Pull because it doesn't involve my hip at all... and the Overhead Squat because I'm a masochist idiot. (Now instead of feeling pain in just my hip, I feel pain all over. ...Including my hip.) So I ended my night after that, despite accomplishing far less than I set out to do.

I took 1000 mg of acetaminophen (I haven't taken any pain relief medication this or last week until now) on Tuesday... and I don't think it had any effect with my hip. Massaging it didn't help either. I'm really afraid something is outright broken! And I'm wondering why I couldn't continue feeling okay like I did on Sunday. Anyway, today I really need to finish that warp zone, which has two levels. The first is the filler Springload Shrine. As the name implies, there are a lot of squat-activated springs to go through. Surprisingly, Tree Posing with a damaged hip is sort of soothing for it, though the pain returns after the Tree Pose is complete. Afterwards, I picked up an Onyx from the overworld Treasure Chest...

Well, yes, that would make things a lot more simple.

...And then the last level of the warp zone (and for today) is dealing with Abdonis at the Secluded Shrine Approach calling me lazy for wanting to get his miniboss fight over with. He thinks I gotta put hard work in to get masterclass abs. I just want to get through this content before the week is over without creating too much pain! Abdonis declares he will flex the laziness out of my soul! ...And then implies he's kidding about that and I'm not actually lazy, he just wants me to work hard. I dunno. He's a nut. Coloured like one, too.

I refuse to draw out the maximum power of my abs, so I'm not going to use Abs Fit Skills.

Because I don't want to engage my... hips, I actually avoided using any Abs Fit Skills and instead drank smoothies that would change the colour of my other Fit Skills to yellow, so I can masquerade as Abs Fit Skills and still get super-effective damage. All was going according to plan until Abdonis used his SUPER ATTACK, daring me to chisel through his sculpted six-pack. This unfortunately involved maintaining a Seated Forward Press for 30 seconds... which sounds like it would be hellish on the hip, but it really wasn't. In fact, I beat Abdonis in just three turns with an Overhead Press (Arms), Overhead Arm Twist (Arms), and Tree Pose (Yoga), or 4 minutes and 35 seconds in-game time. That's extremely quick, which probably demonstrates that Abdonis has very little stamina. He then took credit for my victory over him, insisting he trained me well. That can't be true, since I didn't engage my Abs at all, so it was other people's training that helped, not his. Either way, I finished playing on Tuesday much faster than I thought, but I'm done anyway. Somehow, the game knew to give me this message at the end:

But what if exercising and doing stretches will help me feel better?

On the theory that exercise (at least not cardio) won't help me, I didn't play any videogames at all on Wednesday! But I did take two 200mg pills of ibuprofen at noon and two more before going to bed.

If I want to finish World 54 this week, I gotta force myself to play. I think the ibuprofen helped. I mean, the pain has partly gone away, but whatever is wrong with me physically is still... an existing and unresolved issue. When I started playing on Thursday night, Tipp actually asked me if my muscles are feeling sore. (This isn't a regular question.) I answered yes, and he suggested not to exercise more than I should and to take a break. ...And then I went on to dynamically stretch anyway. The break was a suggestion, not a command. Now, going back to the main part of World 54's overworld, there was an overworld Treasure Chest containing an Apricot Coffee (which increases Yellow Fit Skill attack power by ↑↑ and changes all Fit Skills to be yellow-coloured... which is a potent combination). There's two courses to clear: the first is Solar Plexia Archway. I wish the river rowing section in the middle of the level was the majority of it, since I'm much rather do abdominal press and twists than running in place, which upsets my hip. The level did end in a river rowing section... it was just about ten seconds long.

The second course to clear is the world's second and final Battle Gym, bribing me 500 coins for an A rank or better completion. Bringing Warrior III Pose was a stupid idea of mine, since trying to stand on just my left leg is a horrible and painful idea since it puts the weight on the hip. I did end up cheating for the reps where they want you to do that. Besides that, I cleared the Battle Gym, got the 500 coin reward, got another 508 coins from enemy drops, and also earned another Onyx stone from an enemy drop. All that's left for the world is Dragaux. ...And I'll see him on Friday, along with someone else.

On Friday, I took a trip to my chiropractor. His theory on my hip pain is that I have bursitis, meaning a bursa (a fluid-filled sac between muscle and bone) around my hip has gotten inflamed. He said what'll help this is... time. And doing light stretches, as opposed to heavy exercise or strenuous tasks. He suggested doing six to eight squats in the morning. (Probably not the heavy, demanding squats that Ring Fit Adventure demands.) Putting ice to the affected area helps as well, and ibuprofen is good to alleviate the pain. Though I should be careful not to mask my pain to the point where I'm doing harmful things and won't even realise it. (He also says my hamstrings are very tight.) My chiropractor also did some minor-sounding adjustments to my hips that will apparently “accelerate” the healing process.

...And yet I'm still going to fight the world boss even after receiving all of these warnings (including from Ring Fit Adventure itself) not to do that sort of thing. I mean, it's just one Dragaux boss fight. Surely I can handle that? Onward to Solar Plexia's Shrine! ...Spoiler alert: Solar Plexia doesn't appear.

And when I got to Dragaux (and I had to do far more than eight Squats to get to him with the several squat swings in the course), he was lying down, asking if I'm taking rest days. Sheesh, even he wants me to rest more. Ring said yes, but not too much resting because we don't want to lose our gains. Dragaux agreed that balance (between... exercise and rest?) is good.

Literally everyone and everything in this game wants me to stop playing it!
(Except Abdonis, since he considers it lazy.)

...And then started our fight where it's more than just Dragaux... it's Dragaux plus a Yellow Matta Ray+, a Yellow Scuttlebell+ (held by Dragaux), a Scuttlebell+ (also held by Dragaux), and a Yellow Megaphauna+. I wiped out his entourage within three turns (two turns for the yellow-coloured enemies because they have weaknesses; three turns for the normal Scuttlebell+). Once those were wiped out, Dragaux threw a tantrum returned to his favourite refuge of throwing wooden boxes at me. That was... ineffective. Then it was a normal one vs. one fight with Dragaux he couldn't possibly win. In the end, he dropped a Topaz stone, so I guess we're out of the part of the game where the dropped stones are Onyx. I hope I have enough.

Dragaux flew off and mentioned he needs to shower and get... prune fingers? I don't know what that even means. (I looked it up and it's slang for what happens when you wash your fingers so much they get all wrinkly.)

I guess I'm not going to play next week.
I shouldn't have played this week, but I needed this done this week!

Ludwig still needs to... recover and not strain his body and damage it further, so Week 55 won't (or shouldn't) be published on December 10. Even if this one will for sure focus on his arms, which aren't impacted by his bad hip. He'll need to schedule another appointment for December 10, probably. This is KoopaTV's 2300th published article.


KoopaTV's Fitness Logs returned two weeks later, venturing into World 55 and Armando's dojo.