Y’all, my entire body hurts. Every single muscle.
For father’s day, I bought my dad the Wii Active. He recently lost a significant amount of weight by eating healthier and using the Wii Fit regularly. Mom thought he was ready for a harder workout and told me to get him the Active. I had never used the Wii Fit so mom insisted I try. It was fun! Fun and tiring!
On the way back to Houston on Sunday I picked one up. I soon realized the limitations of the game. Namely, that it is a series of mini-games more than a true workout program. As fun as it was, I knew I’d get sick of it really quickly. But I did love the yoga. The yoga works by giving you a pose to do. During the pose, there is a yellow circle on the screen with a red dot in the middle. The red dot represents your center of balance. You have to keep the red dot in the yellow circle without shaking it too much. You also breathe in time with expanding and contracting circles. It’s not too hard and the learning curve is quick. I have really enjoyed learning yoga more than almost anything else in any of the fitness games. To augment the yoga and body test feature, I went and picked up Gold’s Gym Cardio Boxing game and Wii Active. Pain.
Every morning this week I have been doing the yoga and yesterday, I started the 30 day challenge with the Wii Active in the evening. Yesterday, the workout it designed was 26 minutes long with 16 different exercises. I did lunges, running, walking, inline skating, bicep curls, rows, etc. Today’s workout was 33 minutes long and ramped up the challenge a bit. The running was augmented with high knee running and kickbacks. The lunges added in toe touches. I also had tennis, overhead presses, and more lunges.
The game works by using a band on your thigh where you tuck the nunchuck, the Wiimote in your right hand, and sometimes resistance bands or the balance board. I find it to nearly always registers my movements correctly. My avatar usually follows my moves pretty well. Whenever I run, I always start off on a different foot than my avatar so she switches within the first step or two to mimic me. There is more of a delay on things like side lunges where you are moving far to either side of the sensor strip. Occasionally, it misses some of my moves, especially at the end of the workout when I’m exhausted and have a harder time keeping the Wiimote in the right position.
The thing I like most about the game is that it’s fast paced. Even with the intro videos to the exercises you haven’t done yet (you can skip them), it still moves at a fast clip. I never feel like quitting and I never feel overwhelmed. Besides that, it’s really fun. Another feature I like is the pre-designed workouts. Aside from the 30-day challenge, you can just pick one of about 40 pre-designed workouts or even create your own. The pre-designed workouts either target a specific part of the body, cardio, or total body. They range from 15 to 40 minutes and from easy to hard.
You can create your own workouts by stringing together any of the exercises in any order you want and choosing the intensity of each exercise. As you design your workout, it will tell you what part of the body will benefit from the workout, how many calories you’ll burn, and how long it will take. Pretty neat.
Speaking of fun, the Gold’s Gym game is just that. It’s a cardio boxing game that kind of works like Guitar Hero. At the beginning of the training, you start the bouncy footwork to the rhythm of whatever midi song they are playing. The trainer makes sure you are shifting your weight to the right rhythm for a minute or so before the punching begins. So far, I am still on the basic level but I have already learned how to throw a jab, cross, hook, and uppercut. The thing I like in the boxing on this game over the boxing in Wii Sports or Wii Active is that it detects the correct punch, focuses some training on dodging and weaving, and actually detects the punches at the correct time.
What I mean when I said it’s like Guitar Hero is that lines run up the screen with two empty boxes in the middle. One represents your right hand and one represents your left. When a punch comes up, you have to throw it when it lines up with the empty box. You can tell what punch they want by the icon but the trainer always says it too. It’s not too hard but some of the combinations get tricky. Most of all, with the trainer constantly encouraging proper form and telling you to keep your hands up and keep moving, your arms and legs would be burning by the end of the workout. I’ve also learned to actually throw some punches. I know the proper form and how not to bend my wrist. Beyond all that though, it’s really really fun.
I’ve been looking for a way to ease back into daily exercising. If I just jump into the gym or running, I know I won’t keep up with it. But this I could see actually working. It’s really fun and I really feel the results. I even started looking online to see where I could take kickboxing and yoga classes here in Houston.
Bottom line, if you have a Wii and are looking for a fitness game, you can’t do better than Wii Active. I personally would only recommend the Wii Fit if you are interested in yoga, if you want the balance board, or if you have kids that would do the mini-games over and over without getting bored. The cardio boxing game is fun and relatively cheap and you’ll feel like a badass while you do it. The best thing about this fitness craze on the Wii is that there is a lot of new stuff coming for it. I am already excited about the pilates game coming out in the fall and The Biggest Loser game. Hopefully they are as fun!
