Wii Fit: Two Weeks Later
As gamers, most of us have been bombarded with talk of Nintendo’s Wii console and its popularity with the casual crowd. We’ve heard about nursing homes using Wii Sports to keep their occupants active, and moms who wait in lines and frantically call game stores in order to score a Wii system. Now Nintendo has taken it even further with Wii Fit, a bundle which includes both the Wii Fit software and the Balance Board, a peripheral that looks a bit like a bathroom scale. The board uses several sensors to detect how a user is distributing their weight, and while it sounds simple, it allows for a variety of different game types and applications. Nintendo is marketing Wii Fit as a fun and easy way to get in shape and lose weight - something that the stereotypical “hardcore gamer” has little or no interest in. Having purchased Wii Fit about two weeks ago, I thought it might be fun and informative to give a quick report on my progress and give some impressions of both the Balance Board and the Wii Fit game itself.
When you start up the game, you’re asked to pick your Mii and input some basic data, such as your height and your age. The board takes an initial measurement of your weight and calculates your BMI (Body Mass Index). It lets you know if you’re underweight, normal, overweight, or obese, and then you can set your goal, either in pounds or BMI, as well as a target date. From this point forward, you can do daily training in four categories (yoga, strength training, aerobic exercise, and balance games) as well as take your daily body test. This test measures your weight and uses two balance exercises to determine how good your posture is and how well you can control your balance. After the test, you’re given your “Wii Fit Age”, which is similar to the “ages” given in Nintendo’s other training games such as Brain Age. You can also view charts of your weight, BMI, and Wii Fit age over the course of weeks or months.
The core of the game is the training exercises. As mentioned earlier, they fall into four categories. The yoga exercises require you to hold various poses while the balance board determines if your form is correct. Strength training involves various exercises such as push-ups and planks, lunges, and tricep extensions. Activities such as step aerobics, boxing training, and a hula hoop game fall into the aerobics category, and balance games (such as ski jumping and a game where you lean left and right to head soccer balls) tend to be light on exertion, focusing more on subtle control over your balance. The game does not feature any sort of pre-determined exercise routines, instead letting the user determine which games to play and for how long.
The game is really good about giving you advice as you do the activities. It can detect when your form is off and when you are leaning too far in one direction or favoring one leg over the other. It also lets you know during weigh-ins that your weight can fluctuate within 2 pounds over the course of a day, and if your weight jumps up suddenly on a particular day, it even lets you pick an explanation (or an excuse) such as having a late-night snack or skipping out on daily exercise.
As for the activities themselves, I found the yoga poses to be surprisingly taxing. They require a lot of focus and target muscles that you may not use very often. The game is pretty good at showing you the proper form and monitoring you as you do the poses, though of course it’s not quite the same as having a live trainer working with you. The strength exercises can also be fairly challenging. Push-ups, planks, and jackknife exercises can be tough for the average gamer who might not be particularly active. The aerobic section includes some of my favorite activities. The hula hoop game is surprising in terms of how much it gets your heart rate going and your stomach muscles burning. Step aerobics and boxing training require you to step on and off the board in rhythm, and the boxing game adds in punching with the Wii Remote and nunchuk. Step aerobics isn’t too taxing, but boxing adds in arm movement and seems to be a little more effective at getting your heart and lungs working. The balance games are a lot of fun, but they don’t really do much for you other than hone your ability to adjust your balance, often very subtly. They seem more suited as a fun diversion between the more serious exercises.
As I mentioned, I’ve had the game for two weeks, and I’ve only missed one or two days over that time period. Some days, I managed to get a good 30 minutes of exercise done, whereas on other days, I only had time for a quick 10-minute workout and a weigh-in. At my initial weigh-in, I had a weight of 165.3 pounds and a BMI of 25.06, which is just past the threshold of normal (25.00) and into overweight. Two weeks later, I’m at 164.9 pounds and a BMI of 24.99. However, at some points over those two weeks, my weight was above my initial weigh-in or below my most recent weigh-in. As for the Balance Board itself, it seems very well made, and for the most part, it’s quite accurate and precise. In some activities, the responses to your movements seem to be a little delayed. It’s most notable when you lean left or right to catch a hoop during the hula hoop game, but once you get acclimated to it, you can account for it and it ceases to be a problem.
So, is the game a comprehensive weight-loss program on its own? In my opinion, not really. Think of it more as a tool that can be part of a fitness program. If you’re serious about weight loss and fitness, you’ll want to supplement your Wii Fit usage with other exercise and, potentially, a change in your diet. What Wii Fit gives you is a fun way to track your progress, along with some activities that can give you a bit of aerobic exercise and more awareness of your posture and balance. In my opinion, Wii Fit is a “gateway drug” into the world of fitness. It gives you enough guidance and fun things to do that it very well might increase your interest in being more active and losing weight. It’s also worth mentioning that the Balance Board is already supported in the recent release We Ski, and it will also be supported by future releases such as Skate It and Prizefighter. In the end, whether Wii Fit is worth your $90 will depend on how much dedication you have to using it on a frequent basis and whether other people in your household will use it. You’ll definitely want to think it over before you buy so that you don’t end up with a nice, shiny Balance Board collecting dust in your closet a month after you buy the game. However, if you’re serious about it, Wii Fit can be a really useful and motivational part of your exercise program.