The active-play phenomenon started by Wii Sports now spreads to your whole body thanks to Wii Fit and the pressure-sensitive Wii Balance Board, which comes bundled with it. Used together players will experience an extensive array of fun, dynamic and surprisingly challenging activities, including aerobics, yoga, muscle stretches and balance oriented games. The focus of these activities is towards providing a "core" workout, a popular exercise method that emphasizes slower, controlled motions, but it's the fun approach to fitness of Wii Fit that will keep players hooked on fitness for years to come.
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The primary tenet of Wii Fit is balance. Your center of balance, the point between your left and right sides when you stand upright, has a lot to do with your health. Those without an even center of balance will be unnaturally compensating for this imbalance, which causes their posture to become misaligned, increasing the possibility of putting unnecessary strain on their bodies. This is where the Wii Balance Board comes in.Similar in appearance to a step aerobics board, the Wii Balance Board is much, much more. Easily capable of supporting weights up to a maximum of 300 pounds, it is sturdy and precise, able to measure weight and register pressure accurately when placed on a variety of flat surfaces. This advanced level of sensitivity allows for both the wide range of activities found in the Wii Fit software as well as the board's amazing ability recognize individual players by their weight alone.Getting Started: Create a Profile
Before you jump into doing exercises and activities, you’ll start by creating a profile. This is done easily and intuitively by simply choosing a Mii, entering your height and age information, and doing a few quick tests that will serve as a baseline for your new Wii fitness regimen. These tests are:
- BMI Check: BMI, or Body Mass Index, is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that is the standard used by agencies such as the World Health Organization and the National Institute of Health. To check your BMI, you’ll enter your height then stand on the Wii Balance Board and let it read your weight.
- Wii Fit Age: After you’ve checked your BMI, you’ll do a basic balance test and find out your current Wii Fit Age. This basic balance test measures how well you can control your left and right balance. Based on the results, you’ll be assigned a Wii Fit Age.
Once you have created your profile it's time to have some fun. Wii Fit features four main categories of exercises to choose from: Strength Training, Aerobics, Yoga and Balance Games. Wii Fit will guide you through the first three with the help of your own virtual personal trainer, while the balance games offer variety and fun to help keep you engaged and excited about your fitness goals. In addition, as you spend time exercising, you’ll earn Fit Credits that unlock additional exercises and activities within your favorite categories that will allow you to continue to push yourself. See more detail on the four categories below:
- Strength Training: Put your strength to the test with muscle-toning exercises like Single Leg Extension, Sideways Leg Lift, Arm and Leg Lift, Single-Arm Stand, Torso Twists, Rowing Squat, Single Leg Twist, Lunge, Push-Up and Side Plank, Jackknife, Plank and Tricep Extension. Challenges include Push-Up Challenge, Plank Challenge and Jackknife Challenge.
- Aerobics: Get your heart pumping with fun, interactive Aerobic exercises like Hula Hoop, Basic Step, Basic Run, Super Hula Hoop, Advanced Step, 2-P Run, Rhythm Boxing, Free Step and Free Run.
- Yoga: Work on your balance and flexibility with Yoga poses and activities like Deep Breathing, Half-Moon, Dance, Cobra, Bridge, Spinal Twist, Shoulder Stand, Warrior, Tree, Sun Salutation, Standing Knee, Palm Tree, Chair, Triangle and Downward-Facing Dog.
- Balance Games: Get into the action with fun, balanced-based games like Soccer Heading, Ski Slalom, Ski Jump, Table Tilt, Tightrope Walk, Balance Bubble, Penguin Slide, Snowboard Slalom and Lotus Focus.
Because keeping fit is an ongoing process, Wii Fit also tracks the activities you do the most and puts them into your Favorites category. With this information players can note exercises and activities that they are strong in, as well as others that may need to improve at. Some of the ways players can use this information for are to:
- Keep tabs on your daily progress with easy-to-understand graphs and charts. Using your personal profile, you can set goals, view a graph of your BMI results over time, see how many Fit Credits you’ve earned, check your Wii Fit Age and even enter exercise time you’ve done outside of Wii Fit. It’s all about coming back and exercising a little every day, and the personal profile makes tracking your daily progress simple and easy.
- Quickly check your Wii Fit Age and BMI without even putting the game in the console by going directly to the Wii Fit Channel.
- Allow up to eight family members can create their own profiles in Wii Fit. On the profile-selection screen, everyone in the family can see each other’s recent BMI progress and Fit Credit total. This will allow families to have a friendly competition to exercise and get fit.
Technical Details
- Wii Fit comes with the Wii Balance Board and requires a Wii console to play. Wii console sold separately.
- Wii Fit combines fitness with fun and is designed for everyone, young and old. Wii Fit players work towards personal fitness goals and they block soccer balls, swivel hips to power hoop twirls, and go big on ski jumps to get themselves there.
- Check your daily progress, set goals, check your Wii Fit Age, and even enter exercise time you've done outside of Wii Fit.
- Wii Fit Age is measured by factoring the user's BMI reading, testing the user's center of gravity and conducting quick balance tests.
- Training is at the core of Wii Fit. You can spend as much (or as little) time as you want trying out all of the 40+ activities Wii Fit offers.
Let me make it easy for anyone who hasn't bought a Wii Fit yet. I will summarize what the pros and cons from my experience are: Pros: It provides an great workout. I do Aerobics on it everyday for an hour. 30 min. on the Free Step(which is like Step Aerobics), and 30 mins of Free Run. I actually monitor my heart rate and it always puts me in the Fat burning Zone for my age. When I have spare time during the day, I make sure I do some Yoga and Strength Training. On the weekends I play the Balance games with my Nephew. So if you have kids this is where you can play some games together and have some bonding time. It is really fun, amusing and tiring. You will break a sweat for sure. I have lost weight and kept it off. I am losing about 4 to 6 pounds a month. It is very easy and motivating because the Wii Fit is tracking your weight and BMI. There is no lying to the Wii Fit regarding your fitness. I believe it was that hard jolt of reality that I was unfit, and seeing it on the wide screen, that motivated me to get those Weight and BMI numbers down. It became a challege. Every week that I check my weight and BMI, I take pride in seeing how much time I have spent on it and how much I have achieved. This is where other exercise equipment are lacking. They lack this sort of follow through and intelligence. It is like have your own personal Trainer in the gym monitoring your progress. That is very motivating for me. If you are into Yoga already, it isnt like your yoga class where you transition from one pose to the other. Here you will need to hold your pose, in perfect balance for about a minute. Once you are done with that pose, you are then free to select the next pose. So you can mix up your routines everyday. What is nice is it knows if you are in balance because you will actually see your center of gravity on the screen so that you can see if you are wobbly or out of balance. I started out falling from the balance board a lot because those poses are reaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllly DIFFICULT!!! I was swearing half the time. But I took it on as a challenge. Obviously over time, my balance and flexibility improved. I stopped falling and started getting good scores. I guess that is the difference between a yoga class and a yoga session on the Wii. The Wii will grade your performance so you can see your progress over time. Very good for motivation. On days where I lack motivation, I just look at my progress chart over 3 months to see how far I have come. It gives me a sense of pride and achievement. You don't get that on a treadmill. Since becoming active on the Wii, I have gotten into Kayaking and outdoor sports. My strength, balance and coordination has improved tremendously and has given me the confidence to try new things. This will not turn you into Mr.Olympia. It is what it's name says,a Wii FIT. It isn't Wii Bodybuilder or Wii Superhuman. It is a Wii Fit. This will help you become fit if you use it regularly. I have bought exercise equipment in the past, like a treadmill and and a stationary bike. They eventually became the place where my wife hangs my clothes after they come out of the dryer. It was hilarious. The reason I stopped using those is that they were extremely boring, and there was no motivation. I was watching a timer and a calorie counter. Bottom line, it is the first exercise regimen you can do at home alone or with your family that is actually fun and challenging. It doesnt take up any space at all, you can do it anytime, and it dosnt feel like exercise. It feels like you are playing, which keeps me going. I am looking forward to the next generation of Wii Fit. I am sure it will have more team fitness routines. Cons: The only con for me is that on the Wii Balance games, if you have more than one player, you have to exit your player so that they can use their Mii to play. My nephew and I worked around this annoyance by doing 3 tries before switching players. Summary: I hope that if you do decide to buy and get into the Wii Fit, you get into it with a serious intent to improve your health and well being. If you go into it with the right expectation, you will not be disappointed. Have fun! ......
My husband bought this for me when I was stuck at home after our baby was born in January. I couldn't get to the gym and it was too cold to go outside, so we bought this to help me get some exercise and to entertain me while I was at home with a sleeping baby and no adult company. Even after 9 months of pregnancy, being banned from working out in the third trimester, and recovering from a C-section this thing was too easy and I was not super psycho-fit before the pregnancy, only average. First off, you can't get a good flowing workout going because you have to go through all the instructions and perkiness, there is no way to skip them. So for weight training, if you want to do 3 sets of lunges you have to do one set, get through the score and the trainer's chit-chat and then click retry and then do it again and so forth. For the cardio boxing the longest set is 10 minutes and if you want to keep your heart rate up you have to jump in place or something (irritating your downstairs neighbor probably) while you once again go through your score and press retry. It's endless and annoying. And on a side note, the cardio boxing and step are about timing, not effort. When I really pushed myself on those workouts (and almost worked up a sweat on the easy things for a change) I got really low scores. So, for giggles, I did the cardio boxing with timing as my focus. I got the full number of stars and my heart rate never went up the smallest bit. After 30 minutes of working out, it tells you to take a break. If I haven't been able to get my heart rate up because of the enforced breaks created by the program, I'm not going to take a 10 minute break to rest up. At one point it told me to eat a combination of protein and fat after a workout. Great advice, if you're really pushing your body. A marathon runner, a serious weightlifter, someone who is doing an hour of cardio needs to refuel. A woman using the Wii Fit does not need to do any nutritional supplementation afterwards. Well, not unless she wants to gain weight and get lectured by the program. And speaking of those lectures, the program is annoyingly condescending. It assumes you don't know anything about your body or fitness. For instance, if your weight goes up it instructs you to think about why this has happened, then makes you pick from a list of reasons, and then lectures you about the reason you chose. Uh, thanks mom? Hello, I know that if I eat too much I will gain weight. Thanks for assuming that I'm a moron who doesn't know the basics of calories in v. calories out. And the program is set up so that you can't skip this. The lecture is enforced. And by the way, if your weight goes up over night, which probably has more to do with water retention or the size of your breakfast than actual weight gain, you still get the lecture. The program isn't smart enough to consider long-term trends, it just responds to the current data point and the one immediately before it. Finally, let's talk about the Wii Fit age. By using your age and the results of the two tests that it has you do, the program determines the "age" of your body. So on Monday I was 23; Tuesday I was 34; Wednesday I was 36; I skipped Thursday because I couldn't deal with the annoying thing; and Friday I was 29. I'm 34 by the way. It's a meaningless metric. There is no way a person's level of fitness can significantly change overnight. If you have never willingly gotten off your couch or if you don't know that a diet of pizza and wings is bad for you, then this piece of equipment is a good purchase. If you've ever been to a gym even semi-regularly, take the [...] bucks and buy yourself a decent pair of running shoes instead.......
It's okay, but what I don't care for is that there is no flow to the program. It doesn't have a 30 minute yoga program. You have individual yoga poses. Each requires you to pick up your controller, click on it, wait for it, click through... You're spending an additional 2-4 minutes just trying to get to the pose. It's good for what it is, but so far I haven't found it to be anything worth the big investment.......
We LOVE the balance board and are using it to play games. Summer afternoons are just too hot here so we needed to keeps our kids 10 and 11 active and engaged in something fun this summer. We made a great choice. The kids are up and playing either alone or against each other. I guess our kids prefer to stand up and be active, instead of sit down and play even though using the board is more challenging. I am so glad. Our current favorite is Shaun White Snowboarding Road Trip The wii fit workout is good but not super fun so getting the kids to do any of the workout stuff is hopeless at this point. I like the yoga when they let me use the board, and the aerobic boxing is OK, but games we bought for the kids seem to make you workout and sweat more. I really feel it after playing for awhile. The scale feature is really nice. It makes the kids aware of the idea of healthy weight and fitness, and it seems accurate.......
I bought Wii Fit to help address major balance problems following surgery based on a friend's insistence and the reviews here. Boy, am I glad I did! This game has completely changed my life. Wii Fit has helped me identify imbalance and weakness, for example I lean on the right leg and forward too much. Wii Fit then has fun and challenging balance exercises in fun game platforms that have given me impressive results. My physical therapist attributes a large measure of my progress to the Wii Fit balance games. The fact that they are fun is a big factor in keeping me interested and returning day in and day out. Boredom is always an obstacle to sticking to a PT routine, and the Wii Fit eliminates that problem entirely for me. Once you begin to master skills and make progress, you are able to unlock new games that build on your new strength. I have only dabbled in the yoga and aerobic games and I like them. I just love the balance games and my results have been amazing. Everything I do in my life from walking, biking, to lifting, squatting, stair climbing has improved tremendously. For me, the Wii Fit has been so helpful that it justifies the expense of buying the Wii system, even if you never buy or play another game. ......
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