Wii Fit: Does it Work?
When I got my Wii for Christmas, I was so excited. I had been a regular user of the elliptical machine down in my basement because it offered the opportunity to catch up with movies I hadn’t seen in the theater while I exercised. The problem was, after having kept it up for about a year, I found it monotonous. I managed to break it up a little with running in the summer, and, having accomplished my first 5K in about 25 minutes, I’ve been feeling pretty good about my regimen. But something was most definitely missing; my activities didn’t include anything to keep my arms in shape, and everything I did I kind of pieced together from various exercises I had been taught in the past. I’m no fitness expert, and there was no way of knowing if anything I was doing was efficient or helping my body in the best way possible.
Knowing that I was going to at least get exposed to some new exercises, I eagerly opened my Wii Fit package to expose the two items contained within: the Wii Fit software itself, and a Wii Balance Board to be used in conjunction with the activities (4 AA batteries included).
It requires a Wii Console with at least one remote (or Wiimote, as it’s unofficially nicknamed). The instructions for setup are pretty straightforward, and it should be doable for non-technical people, especially if you’ve set up a Wii remote with your console before. There are no cables connected to the Wii Console at all; this is entirely a wireless configuration, hence, the need for the batteries.
When you first log on to the system, you’re greeted by an animated version of the Balance Board and asked to set up a profile. You’ll need to use a Mii that you’ve already created on your console in order to create a profile and track your progress. You’re then taken through several steps to record your height, age, weight and finally, BMI. I should caution that you take the BMI results with a grain of salt; they are not explained fully by the system, and they do not take into account any kind of body frame information. I am, for example, firmly in the “Overweight” category, even though I am below my doctor-recommended weight of 195 lbs. According to the system’s calculations I should be about 159 lbs, a weight at which my wife could probably blow me over. It doesn’t bother me too much that the software depicts my Mii as a little chunky, but I worry that in a society where so much emphasis is placed on looks, children would take this information more seriously than it should be (and maybe even a few adults who haven’t had a full work-up by their doctor). See here and here for articles related to this very problem, and talk to your doctor to find out what your true weight should be.
Once you’ve set up your profile and have gotten your BMI, you’re given a basic body test, which measures your balance, not so much your fitness. After all of this is complete, you’re given your Wii Fit age, which isn’t fully explained but seems to be based on how well your balance and weight measure up to a certain standard of performance the system has contained within it. You’ll then see a screen with tracking tools that you can use to measure your progress over the course of time, and see where you’ve split up your acivities among four areas: Yoga, Strength Training, Aerobics and Balance. From here you can go into the Training module, where the Wii ‘experience’ begins.
Once in the training screen, you can select from one of the four areas I mentioned above to begin your training. For each area, there are several activities from which to choose. Initially not all of the areas are unlocked; you have to play with the game a bit in order to get to some of the more advanced poses and health games, and for someone who is already fit, this could be a bit boring. But for people who might just be getting into keeping in shape, the reward of new activities as they progress into better shape could be just enough to keep them motivated.
I usually begin my workout with the “Yoga” area, which has 15 activites that are probably familiar to those of you that practice Yoga on a regular basis; for others, like me, most of the activities were completely new because I was never a Yoga guy. When you start a new activity, it’s demonstrated to you by an animated 3D trainer (who can be male or female, as you choose during setup and can change any time throughout your training) before you actually try out the activity yourself. The Balance Board is good at making sure that you keep your balance in the right area throughout the activity, and the trainer occasionally speaks words of encouragement or constructive criticism, depending on how it interprets the feedback coming to it from the Balance Board. You can most certainly “cheat” on this in order to achieve a high score, but if the goal is fitness, why would you?
After getting into some poses such as the “Triangle” (big pain), “Downward Dog” (nice stretch), and “I-don’t-wanna-talk-about-it Dance” (or just “Dance” as it’s known in the system), I then tried my hand at the “Strength Training”, which has activities that don’t use weights to build strength. There is a strong focus on core muscles in the exercises, but you get a pretty good workout for the rest of your muscles too.
The “Aerobics” area of the Fit is probably the most fun for me, with 9 activities centered around keeping your heart rate up while working different areas of your body. Certainly, if you are a 40-minute or more a day treadmill user, then you’ll probably be disappointed by the activities here; most are not long and not extraordinarily challenging. However, if you decide to try out the hula-hoop, or as you earn your way into the boxing “expert” level, I think you’ll find yourself sweating and pumped by the exercise even after only the 3-10 minute interval that the Fit offers you. You can also combine or repeat activities in order to get your heart pumping, and for the boxing portion specifically, uncoordinated people like me will appreciate the Wii Fit methodology of easing you into the advanced levels by starting you off with a slower tempo and easier moves. As far as I’m concerned, though, the step is almost *too* easy and while running is a workout, I don’t think it’s anywhere near the kind of workout you’d get from strapping on a pair of running shoes and hitting pavement.
The “Balance” area of the Fit provides a series of games that score you based on your ability to evenly distribute your weight throughout the game. I’m a particular fan of the skiing activities, including a ski jump where you’ll travel a greater distance the better your balance, and a downhill skiing race that has you racing between flags as you ski towards the finish line. In fact, most of the balance games represent a “fun” side of Wii Fit, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy them too.
But does it work?
So all of this is fine and good, but the big question is whether you’ll be better off with it than without it. My answer is unquestionably yes. There are a few tangible pieces of evidence that I can point to as well that prove this point to me. First, I’ve noticed over the last month or so I’m getting better and better at the balance games. One might say it’s just from practice and I’ve just figured out the system, but one game in particular, in which you must shift your balance to head-butt an on-screen soccer ball proves otherwise to me. I used it in the first week and scored in what was considered the “Unbalanced” range for the system, the lowest rating I could get. I steadily did the exercises but didn’t continue on with that particular activity, and came back to it only about a week ago. I scored significantly better, resulting in a “Professional” label, just shy of the highest “Champion” rating. Now, I had not practiced the game at all in between, so the only thing to which I can attribute the change is the Wii Fit and Balance Board’s ability to teach me proper posture.
I’ve also noticed better posture throughout the day, and I have noticed that my core muscles just feel like they’re in better condition. Though I haven’t lost any additional weight, I do feel leaner and my clothes fit me a little better. And, though I don’t think the BMI or Wii Fit Age truly measure a realistic starting point, I do think they provide good information on how one progresses, and over the month I have noticed the progress I’ve made.
The Wii Fit also does its part to try to encourage you through each exercise with, granted, canned responses that can get repetitive after a while, but I think they’re better than trying to continually motivate yourself, and certainly better than the retpetitive nature of a fitness video.
The fact of the matter is, if you’ve never exercised before or if you’re an exercise fiend, the Wii Fit could certainly provide some sort of fulfillment for you if you can’t make it to the gym or just prefer the comfort of your own home for exercise. To me, it provides a perfect blend of exercises that I wasn’t getting on my self-imposed regiment, and for that I think it adds a lot of value to my routine.
How to be Better
I think there are a lot of areas where the Wii Fit certainly falls short. First of all, there are certain activities in which you’ll hear your virtual trainer say, “you’ve got excellent balance,” when you’re not using the Balance Board at all. This is just plain stupid. I completely appreciate that encouragement is an important part of motivation, but if there’s no way for the system to read my balance, then it shouldn’t be programmed to comment on it.
It would also be nice to have some sort of “circuit” set-up, so that you don’t have to select an individual exercise as you’d like to perform it. You lose a lot of time after each exercise as you exit out of one, select another, wait for the system to set itself up and then finally being the next step in your workout. In a circuit, you’d just move from exercise to exercise automatically after selecting them all in the beginning. Your heart rate would stay up and you’d be able to set up a couple of plans that focus on particular muscle groups without having to worry about what you did the day before.
Another thing that would be nice would be the ability to download new exercises as the ones you’re currently using get monotonous. The Wii Console comes now with wireless networking built-in; why not take advantage of it with a program like this and keep the game fresh with regularly-released exercises that encourage people to keep it up?
Additionally, there’s a big emphasis on working out with other people, but to my knowledge, there’s no way to do so online — you’re restricted to the people that use it within your own house. Why not have an online community that challenge each other to, say, get the highest score in boxing, or have a running-in-place race, or even a hula-hoop contest? There is huge value in this game system for both kids and adults because it encourages them to move even in cold winter months…why not make it a little more social?
The Final Word
There are lots of sites out there that have beaten me to a review of this system, but I was hoping to be able to add my own unique view to this discussion from the standpoint of how it worked for me. To me, this wasn’t so much a video game as a system that gave me the opportunity to see a variety of different exercises that I could use to supplement my existing regiment. The activities may not be the most rigorous or challenging to those who are already in good shape, but for someone like me who wouldn’t be as diligent about exercising if it meant packing up a bag and heading to the gym, it’s gold.
The price tag for entry (about $350 for the Wii Consol and Wii Fit) is a bargain even if it isn’t the hardest workout you’ll ever have, especially when you consider that developers out there can now use the Wii Balance Board for other fitness games *and* possibly for non-fitness games that get you moving. A gym membership is probably about $30/month and a treadmill is anywhere between $700 and $5000, so the console doesn’t look so bad.
Do you have a Wii Fit? What’s been your experience with it? Are you considering a Wii Fit? Did this review help you at all?
Please share your thoughts!
Do you own a Wii Fit?
- Yes, and I love it! (100%, 1 Votes)
- Yes, and it's okay. (0%, 0 Votes)
- No. (0%, 0 Votes)
- No, but I plan on getting one! (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 1
Loading ...If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment