Do you have enough room to play Wii Fit?

Wii Fit training log – Day 1: Fitting the Wii Fit into my life

Prior to purchasing the Wii Fit Balance Board, my health had been on the decline for years. After getting married, having a child, and buying a home in New Jersey, I stopped exercising due to a perceived lack of time and at the age of 32, I thought physically my best days were behind me. I felt weak when moving things around the house and my eating habits were atrocious. I frequently ate fast food and surrounded myself with chocolates and donuts at work for snacks. My waist had ballooned up from 29 inches in high school to 34 inches (with a nice pot belly to match) and I reached a new personal low when I had to buy new pants because I no longer squeeze into my old ones. To top things off, I developed an unexplained randomly occurring facial tick on the right side of my face that had become rather distracting to friends and family.

Three weeks ago, I reach my breaking point and decided it was time to turn things around not just for me, but also for my family. My wife, Regina's weight had also increased dramatically to borderline unhealthy levels and the last thing I want would to do is pass that along to my soon-be-three year old son Ryan. I decided this isn't the lifestyle I wanted for me and my family and that 30 years old wasn't the end, but only the beginning (Thank you Tony Robbins). I went out and bought an inexpensive bench from Sears, converted our sun room into a little make-shift gym and started to lift weights every other day. I also power walk my way to work and during lunch break every weekday for cardio and my wife and I started doing the Atkins diet to improve our nutrition.

So two weeks into weight training and one week into Atkins (Induction phase), I had already lost 7 pounds and I much felt stronger and more energetic. I realized that Regina needed to do more cardio on a daily basis and I wanted to mix things up to keep my workouts fun and fresh. I just ordered this funny-looking punching dummy and was considering a rower when I realized the Wii Fit was due out in stores this week. I'm weary of gimmicky exercise equipment, but I liked the idea of Wii Fit being able help my family squeeze in more cardio exercises on busy days and in the least, I thought it could serve as a weight monitor to track my overall progress.

So on Monday, during my lunch break, I walked over to Nintendo World in Rockefeller Plaza and stood on line for 30 minutes to pick up my Wii Fit (damn it was much heavier than I expected). Once it was synced up with the Wii console at home, Regina and I registered our profiles through a series of questions about our height and age and a couple of balance tests by stepping on the board. My BMI (Body Mass Index) was 23.50 (generally good) and my weight was 173.5. Through the program, I set a goal of losing 13 pounds in three months (the Wii recommended no more than 3 pounds per two weeks) and Wii Fit wanted to see my BMI go down to 21.74. The program also assigned me a Wii Fit age of 30, whatever the hell that means.

Afterwards setting up my profile, I didn't have time for a serious workout so I went through the series of exercises to get more acclimated. The training is divided into four categories: Aerobics, Yoga, Strength Training and Balance Games. In going through the initial exercises (more gets unlocked as you progress and earn fitness credits), I learned the following:

1. The degree of difficulty and intensity between exercises can vary wildly depending on your sense of balance, core strength and body type. While most exercises were simple in nature and I had no problem doing them, the push-up and side-plank was an absolute bitch for me. I wasn't use to doing push-ups with such tight hand placement since I have fairly wide shoulders. I couldn't properly complete six reps on each side. This answered any doubt I might have had about the Wii Fit providing enough a physical challenge for me.
2. The Yoga breathing exercise highlighted my life-long breathing and cardio struggles. My natural instinct was completely counter-intuitive to the inhaling/expanding to exhaling/contracting process that I was being instructed to do. I look forward to seeing if Wii Fit can help me make improvements in this area.
3. My balance is horrible. Not surprisingly, due to the nature of the balance board technology, the Wii Fit program puts a lot of emphasis on balance. Nearly all the exercises will display and monitor your balance at all times. I think for men, balance is not something we focus on a lot so I'm interested to discover what kinds of benefits I might reap from improved balance.
4. In terms of space issues, I have what I consider to be a medium sized living room and I managed to negotiate the required space by pushing my heavy coffee table over by a few feet and moving the board around as needed. I couldn't place the board directly in front of my television as preferred in the manual, but I'm happy to report that the balance board had no problems with that or the frequent movement and seemed pretty accurate in pressure sensitivity.
5. I wasn't sure what I should be doing with the Wii-mote during exercises. While the visual instruction makes no mention of it, the Wii-mote is required to navigate through the many menus and options. It was a bit awkward feeling to put the Wii-mote down during training and picking it back up afterwards so I ended up doing the exercise while holding the Wii-mote at all times (including Yoga poses). Is this recommended? Does this change my balance in anyway? The Wii Fit program should have clarified this more clearly.
6. There aren't any recommended routines. You basically pick exercises at your own discretion and workout for as long as you like. So far, I encountered one recommended checklist of two exercises for legs, but it appeared randomly and without any further guidance or structure. I think I would have preferred a little more instruction and detail in some of the exercises as well (especially the Yoga ones which involve intricate movements and specific breathing technique).

Once each exercise is completed, you are giving an arcade-like score and ranking for competitive fun and tracking improvement, Wii Fit credits are awarded for unlocking stuff and workout time is accumulated. My first day ended with 25 minutes of training and a generally positive reaction. I'm hopeful that Wii Fit can provide me with decent supplemental training and have a positive influence and benefit to my family. I'm excited to see how the Wii Fit will perform in days to come.

Wii Fit training log – Day 2: Play time

I normally try to do spread out 40 plus minutes of power walking everyday for cardio, but since I had an intense full-body workout in my home gym yesterday (with no rest time between sets), I figured I'd take it easy on my rest day. Without any strenuous activity planned, I thought this would be a good time to test out of the Wii Fit balance games.

On my second day of Wii Fit, I began the session with a Body Test, which measures your weight and calculates your BMI and Wii Fit Age. The program does not automatically scan your weight each session so you have to manually select this option to chart your progress. My BMI increased a fraction to 23.56 and my weight went up nearly went up a pound to 173.9. This felt a little strange since I had an amazing workout the day before and sweated buckets. Did my difference in clothes play a factor? The program asks the weight of your clothes before calculating, but it's not like I weight my clothes and know the exactly how much they weight. I also performed miserably on the one-leg balance test so that upped my Wii Fit age to a whopping 38! I did find it funny that the Wii Fit guide (shaped in the form of the balance board) mentioned to not be discouraged by the setback and that progress would be slow. Boy I can't wait for Wii Therapy!

On to the games (unlocked so far): Soccer Heading, Ski Slalom, Ski Jump, Table Tilt (think Marble Madness) and Tight Rope Walking.

I loaded up Soccer Heading first. The object of the game is to head incoming soccer ball in one of three possible positions (left, center, right) and dodge any other foreign objects. I was immediately put back by how poorly I did on my first time out as I managed to only score a measly four points! If I thought these games were going to be a breeze, I was wrong. The pressure on the balance board is extremely sensitive so typical kinetic action in sports becomes over exaggerated and simple actions like standing straight-up are more difficult than I would have thought because returning to a precise balanced middle between frenzy dodges is not something I do everyday. Add to the fact that heading movements have a degree of travel time and inertia so anticipation is required to succeed. Spurned by my competitive side, I played several more times to increase my score and I finally managed to score in the several hundreds, but I was still ranked very low and would need a lot of practice to get higher.

I thought Ski Slalom was an awesome extension of Wii Sports. It's a very familiar setting made a tad more interesting with the balance board just like the other Wii Sports titles. Shifting weight to the left and right of the balance board controls the direction of the skier. Again, the precision required was not something I was used to. I'd either over-steer or under-steer and it took several tries to get a halfway decent time, but again, I ranked extremely low. Scoring on these games is tough!

The rest of the games follow a similar pattern. Simulating jumping by bending your knees and straightening up for Ski Jump and walking in place for Tight Rope walking were interesting applications of the balance board. The Table Tilt game was just kind of frustrating for me.

I ended the day testing a couple of new Yoga poses and I logged in a total play time of 33 minutes for the day. I didn't break much of a sweat, but I do see some benefit in improving my balance on some of the games. I'm not sure how often I'd select them over the more exercise-oriented activities. I do think kids and groups/families playing together will have a good time with the series of balance games, although switching between profiles could be annoying. Nintendo needs to flesh out quickplay multiplayer options for the next iteration quick otherwise, there's going to be trouble in senior communities across the country.

Wii Fit training log – Day 3: Finding balance

I apologize for the lack entries to this training log in the last couple of weeks. I had hurt my back while setting up a canopy for my son's birthday party. I was in a fair amount of pain and the range of movement in the lower half of my body was severely limited. Obviously, exercise of any kind wasn't an option.

Prior to that incident, I had decided that I would try focusing on the Wii Fit Yoga exercises on my weight training off days to improve my flexibility. I was always interested in Yoga, but I never took any classes. I was curious to see if long-term practice would yield any tangible benefits.

Before I injured myself, I did manage to squeeze in one Yoga-oriented session and I found it a bit underwhelming. I had yet to unlock some of the more advance poses and the introductory ones felt either too short in length, or not enough of a stretch to really be considered a workout of any kind.

The attention to balance in some of the one-leg poses was not something that I was accustomed to; I found the amount of shaking in my body a little disturbing. In spite of the shaking, I did managed to stay within the range of movement required and received decent scores from my Wii Fit trainer.

However, I wasn't confident that I was doing it correctly since my lack of steadiness did not fit the serene image I have of Yoga practioneers. Was the lack of stability normal for newbies? It didn't help that my breathing still felt erratic and I felt like a needed special instruction. The Wii Fit just isn't going to provide answers and the praise (from my Wii Fit trainer) only left me a little perplexed.

Still, finding my balance is something I would like to do and I bought a Yoga instructional book on sale at a bookstore to see if it could provide some answers to my questions. So, at least, the Wii Fit is serving as a gateway to the world of Yoga.

Wii Fit training log – Day 4: Wii-covery

After hurting my back (diagnosed as a possible muscle spasm by my physician), I was pretty depressed. I had just started exercising regularly for the first time in years. I felt stronger than my college years and I had lost over 10 pounds. X-rays didn't show any herniation of my spine, which was a relief, but I was still incapacitated for a week.

On the second week after my injury, my back was about 80 percent recovered and it felt like a good time to do some light workouts. In addition to resuming my power walking, I thought the low-impact/resistance exercises in Wii Fit would be a good way to ease back into my weight training.

So for my first Wii Fit rehab program, I thought it would be a good idea to start with 10 min of aerobics to get the heart going, 15 min of Yoga to stretch out and around 30 min of strength training to get my core back into shape.

Starting with aerobics, I was excited because I had finally unlocked the boxing exercise. Like the regular Wii Sports boxing game, the Fit version requires the use of the nunchuck attachment, but after trying it, my enthusiasm faded. The exercise consists of an instructor demonstrating a punching/stepping combination and then having the player perform the combination simon-sez style. The end of the session rewards players by being able to freely swing away freestyle, but overall, the start and stop pace of the exercise didn't work up much of a sweat and felt like a wasted opportunity for a really awesome workout. Perhaps Victorious Boxers on the Wii would be a bit more intense. Thankfully, the Super Hula Hoop was more productive. Like a commenter said in a previous post, try doing six minutes of continuously hula hooping is HELL!

I was finding the rest of the workout to be a bit of a mixed bag as well. The lack of any structure was also getting a bit frustrating. I was finding little rhyme or reason as to how any form of a routine is structured. Some of the Yoga poses like the Warrior and Chair and Strength Training exercises like the Tricep Extension and Side Twists—were ridiculously easy while some like the horizontal Arm and Leg Raise and Plank—were incredibly tough. The amount of time on holding poses and repetitions felt too short.

Since many of the exercises were newly unlocked to me, the program requires that you watch a demonstration of the exercise before trying it on your own. This is definitely a good thing for the more advance Yoga poses, but my session lacked intensity as a result and I had to chalk up a light day getting acclimated to the intricacies of the program.