I’m intrigued by the fitness potential for the Wii, and am considering buying a Wii. Do you know anything about the Wii Fit?
Actually, I should probably expand this to “Using Wii For Fitness” in general. I’m clueless where to start.
I have Wii Fit, and I use it on occasion - more in the winter than the summer.
My take on it is that if you’re really out of shape, it’s probably pretty good.
It’s also good for mild strength & stretching.
The aerobic part tends to be pretty short - 5 or 10 minute bursts at the most - and thus kind of hard to really get your heart rate up in, at least for me. But I’ve been in pretty good shape since I bought Wii Fit, so take that into account.
I pretty much use it on winter days when I don’t feel like exercising. I can string together some strength/stretching/aerobic stuff to keep me going for 30 minutes and feel like I haven’t been a couch potato all day. And it’s fun as well.
I’d like a more intense version, for sure. It has no comparison, aerobic-wise, to DDR for example.
I have Wii Fit and EA Sports Active, and prefer the latter- I need structure and the Fit doesn’t give you premade workouts.
The Fit is interesting in that it’s very focused on things like balance and posture. They have “Balance Games” that involve extremely subtle to more dramatic shifts in your position on the board - these could make good “party” games with friends, too. These involve ski jumping, moving to catch/avoid objects, or shifting a puzzle board to drop a marble through a hole. Other exercises include Aerobics (“hula hooping”, jogging, step class, etc.), Strength (lunges, that kind of thing), and Yoga (individual poses done in repetition, no sequences). As you do more exercises you unlock advanced versions.
You can choose between a male or female instructor, who will demonstrate yoga and strength exercises for you, and then work out on those as you do. You are designated by a “Mii” which is a very cartoony, customizable figure looking a lot like an old Fisher-Price Little People figure.
The Fit tracks your progress over time - how many days have you exercised, your weight/BMI changes (the board works as a scale), how much exercise you did each day.
EA Sports Active can work with the Fit’s balance board but does not require it - as far as I can tell, it’s definitely an optional component. It comes with a “holster” for the Wii’s “nunchuck” controller (a little curved unit that plugs into the standard “Wiimote”; this wraps around your mid to upper thigh and will hold the nunchuck during exercises (like lunges) where the Wii wants to track your relative upper vs. lower body position. They also give you a resistance band with handles. A common complaint about this band is that it’s pretty wimpy, so you may want to get another one elsewhere later on to give a better upper body workout.
This has more standard exercises, many of them rolled into minigames like “kickboxing” or the like, to make them interesting. You can pick individual exercises, create custom workouts, or do their preset “30 Day Challenge” (with 3 intensity levels), which varies the exercises each day.
You can also pick from a male or female trainer, and create a more realistic character to represent you. The trainer will shout encouragement or critiques during your exercises. Also, the game has various genres of music and you can choose for all kinds to play (on random shuffle) or select just one.
It tracks your time spent exercising and estimated calories burned, but does not (as far as I can tell) use the balance board to weigh you and track weight loss.
I tend to agree with the above- the Wii Fit software can be fun, and if you don’t mind the frequent breaks in the routine, the exercises can be a good workout. Unfortunately, the way the software is structured, it can be a bit of a pain in the butt to build continuity, and I expect this to be improved as the system evolves.
The “balance games” section does make for great party activity, and the balance board itself is an awesome piece of tech. We also bought the Raving Rabbids TV Party game specifically because of it’s compatibility with the balance board, and that is an absolute blast to play, and the dancing portions are a good aerobic workout as well.
Would any of you recommend buying a Wii specifically for using EA Sports Active? Or do you primarily use the Wii for sitting gaming?
I’d recommend a gym membership if you want to get in some kind of shape. The Wii here is primarily used for other video games, but does get very heavy Wii Active use. My girlfriend plays it, and she likes it.
I guess I’m wondering whether a Wii is more motivating than working out to an exercise video, due to its interactivity.
The Wii chides you for doing the exercises incorrectly.
Also, when you first set it up, it measures your BMI by some method, then makes your Mii really, really fat.
The EA Sports Active will pause and show you onscreen (with arrows and stuff) a repeat of how to do the exercise if you screw up. But if you’re doing fine, you get encouraging comments from the trainer.
For both, I like the game aspects of many exercises, and that helps me a lot. Plus you can choose what exercises to do in order to focus on certain areas. Even on the EA Sports Active’s 30 Day Challenge, you see a list of the exercises for that day and can de-select ones you don’t like.
Did you need the Wii Fit in order for it to know if you screwed up?
No, the Wii checks the positioning of the controller to help figure out if you’re close. The Wiimote + nunchuck duo is either held in your two hands, or the Wiimote in your right hand and the nunchuck in the holster, strapped to your right thigh. The Wii sensor bar checks the relative position of those two in order to figure out if you’re close to the configuration they’re looking for.
The Wii Fit is in my future. I personally cannot use it right now, because it has a weight limit which I, sadly, have exceeded. But we are looking at it for our kids and for me in the future.
Right now, I’m more into Dance Dance Revolution for a good workout. That, the treadmill and Bowflex at work, and a good walk are all part of my day now.
Sounds like you’re working hard at it! Good luck to you!
The wii fit really needs some way to make a workout. It is tedious to scroll through the choices.
I would like to choose a play list of exercises to do. Does EA sports active allow you to do that?
Yup, they have lists of “preset” workouts (with duration and what each focuses on), or you can create custom workouts for yourself.
Athena, I read your post and only later checked to see that they have DDR for Wii! Never knew that, thanks for the mention.
when I went to E3 back in 2001 I think it was they had this absolutely AWESOME fitness thin. They took a ps2 and had a racing game playing on it (it was Hydro Thunder, the boat racing game, for those that remember that sort of thing) and it was hooked up to an exercise bike. You had to peddle the bike to accelerate the boat. So you ended up ridding this damn exercise bike as hard and as fast as you could for the 5 minutes or so a single race took up without even realizing how much energy you were exerting.
Now, I hit this thing during a convention that had me on my feet for like 10 hours a day so one race was enough for me, but as an interactive workout thing I’ve never seen anything that came anywhere close. Always wondered what happened to that idea
the Wii Fit can be really, really annoying. For instance, when I was setting my goals I mistakenly set the BMI for 22.88. I’m under that! I surely don’t want to increase my BMI. I can’t figure out how to change it until I get to the deadline day.
Some of the comments are really snide. “Do you trip a lot when you walk?” Thanks, pal. I almost never trip when I walk. Just because I kept getting hit in the face with a panda instead of dodging it–it looks just like the damn soccer ball!
And some of the things are fun, but I’m not sure how they contribute to fitness. Ski Jump, I’m looking at YOU!
Also, I wish they had Pilates instead of yoga. Sure, there’s not much difference, I just don’t like yoga.