One of the newest video game systems out there is the nintendo Wii. It is very popular and everyone from little kids to grown adults seem to love it. I have heard stories of senior citizens at retirement homes having a blast with the bowling and little kids loving the interactive approach that the games require. One of the newer games that nintendo has released for the Wii is a game called Wii fit. Wii fit claims that you can improve your balance, strength and lower your BMI just by participating in the selected training modes. This claim has lead to many people buying Wii fit in hopes of getting into better shape in an easy fun way. Well I am here to say don’t be fooled. If you are serious about getting into better shape, becoming stronger, more balanced and in better cardiovascular shape then you need to avoid Wii Fit as an exercise solution to your fitness goals.

The claims that you can become more toned and build muscle by doing there strength training exercises is a little exaggerated. Their strength training exercises include push-ups, torso twists, lunges, leg extensions, and jack knifes. They walk you through how to do all these exercises and provide you with good directions. Now that sounds great, but I see a couple problems with their exercise routines. First of all they don’t allow you to create your own program from the available exercises, so this might be new and exciting at first but gets old fast. Second of all every exercise you perform requires you to have at least one part of your body touching the balance board. This doesn’t give you much freedom when performing an exercise, for example if you are really tall and want to do a push-ups routine then both your hands must be on the balancing board and that might have your hands too close turning it more into a triceps exercise then a chest exercise. Another downfall of the balancing board is that since you must be touching it in some way shape or form, you can only do a few exercises, missing major muscle groups such as your biceps, calf’s, lower and upper back and triceps. If you are someone who happens to weigh over 330 pounds then you are out of luck with the Wii Fit because the balancing board can’t support that much weight, which again limits the Wii Fit. Those are just the draw backs with the strength training exercises that they have.

Their aerobic workouts have problems as well. For instance, they claim you can go for jog around an island waving at the miis (characters in the game), well you can do that by running in place and swinging your arms back and forth with the Wii remote in hand (by swinging the remote your Wii character runs). But once again this limits you in what you can actually do, you have to run in place which isn’t completely the same as actually running, and you have to swing your arms intensely to move your character and this might not be a completely natural motion for you. If you have kids and want them to get into shape with the Wii Fit be careful, they quickly pick up the fact that you just need to swing one arm holding the remote to run which means they can sit and swing one arm and complete the exercise, which doesn’t exactly help them get into shape. The other aerobic exercise routines that Wii Fit has are the basic step and the hula hope, neither of which is very intense and has all that much movement. So again you aren’t really getting much of a cardio workout, so if you are seriously trying to lose weight then why do something that really doesn’t work well?

The last problem I see with the Wii Fit game is that it has very questionable health advice. Just by telling the game your height and stepping on the scale it tells you your Body Mass Index. Well usually your BMI is calculated by a doctor or physician, and in that calculation it includes things such as age and muscle mass which Wii Fit does not. So you could be a healthy person with more then average muscle mass and be given a overweight rating and higher BMI. So if you are someone who is looking to truly lose weight and decrease your BMI then it might be difficult with the Wii Fit since you won’t have an accurate reading to begin with.

Reviews from the users! Turns out those who have tried the Wii Fit agree with me. They are saying that they don’t lose much more then a pound or two a week, which might not even be from the Wii Fit, it could be from a change in diet or even water weight. They also said that there is a lot of navigation through the screen when going from one exercise to another and this wastes time and drops there heart rate back down. Another conclusion I found is that they claim to burn around 500 calories for an hour workout with Wii Fit, which takes more then an hour because of all the navigation through the screens to get to different exercises. Now, compare that to running for an hour at a moderate pace where you will burn between 700-900 calories.

The Wii Fit is a game and should be treated as one. If you are looking to get the kids up and moving around when they are at home or if you are simply looking to get yourself off the couch then the Wii Fit game is something you should consider. But, if you are looking to seriously lose weight and build muscle then the Wii Fit simply doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t burn enough calories fast enough and is very limited in muscle development. Want to get into shape, then get into a gym and do proven exercises that work. Treat the game for what it is, a game not a health solution.