Okay, everyone, this new video game system called the Nintendo Wii has hit the streets and it became a huge hit overnight for Wii Fitness. They sold more than eleven million consoles in our country alone since it came out! At first, I wondered about it as I watched people begin to play on it and with it. The idea is to stand on this little rectangular balance board that sense motion and to hold a wireless handheld controller that has it’s own sensors and infrared camera built into the console. It senses all the movement and translates it to the screen you are watching.
So, I tried it. I used the Wii Fitness for yoga, the cardio and the strength features and found it was, indeed, fun! It did make me work, but to a degree.
So, then I got my ACE Fitness Matters and found they had done a study to test for the potential Wii fitness benefits. They did this study at the University of Wisconsin in the Health Program using 16 volunteers, with half being men and the other half being women. All between the ages of 20 and 29. Sound familiar? Isn’t the age of all the gamers these days? The ones who enjoy playing and SITTING?
They set a criteria by being given an exercise test on a treadmill first and determined what kind of shape that individual was in. They understood the games they were given and practiced before they took the test. The games they chose to use was golf, tennis, boxing, baseball, and bowling. Hmmmmm, this will be very interesting! They were told to simulate the body movements used in each actual sport, even though these games can be manipulated to use minimal body movements.
Okay, so the results, you say? Well, they found that all subjects showed increases in heart rate, VO2 max and perceived exertion, which translates into caloric burn using the Wii Fitness system. The Boxing was the highest burn, Tennis game, then baseball game, and the lowest were the bowling and the golfing.
But here is the bottom line, if you are going to play the Wii, it is, of course, better than sitting around, but it is NOT as good as playing the real sport. So if you are going to play the Wii fitness you might begin to love to exercise using this format and truly get off the couch from those sedentary games you play. But remember to execute as if you were really simulating the sport or you can fudge or go back to hardly doing anything!
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So, I tried it. I used the Wii Fitness for yoga, the cardio and the strength features and found it was, indeed, fun! It did make me work, but to a degree.
So, then I got my ACE Fitness Matters and found they had done a study to test for the potential Wii fitness benefits. They did this study at the University of Wisconsin in the Health Program using 16 volunteers, with half being men and the other half being women. All between the ages of 20 and 29. Sound familiar? Isn’t the age of all the gamers these days? The ones who enjoy playing and SITTING?
They set a criteria by being given an exercise test on a treadmill first and determined what kind of shape that individual was in. They understood the games they were given and practiced before they took the test. The games they chose to use was golf, tennis, boxing, baseball, and bowling. Hmmmmm, this will be very interesting! They were told to simulate the body movements used in each actual sport, even though these games can be manipulated to use minimal body movements.
Okay, so the results, you say? Well, they found that all subjects showed increases in heart rate, VO2 max and perceived exertion, which translates into caloric burn using the Wii Fitness system. The Boxing was the highest burn, Tennis game, then baseball game, and the lowest were the bowling and the golfing.
But here is the bottom line, if you are going to play the Wii, it is, of course, better than sitting around, but it is NOT as good as playing the real sport. So if you are going to play the Wii fitness you might begin to love to exercise using this format and truly get off the couch from those sedentary games you play. But remember to execute as if you were really simulating the sport or you can fudge or go back to hardly doing anything!