Wii Fit?

[sporty]

I couldnt find an exercise forum so I hope it is ok to post here.

Anyone here use a WII Fit for your exercises? I am buying one tonight (the wii fit plus) and the Wii itself as a birthday present with the money my parents gave me and wondered if you really do get a workout from it or not??

T

[barrnone]

I bought one last spring and really enjoyed it for a while. I need some motivation to get back on it...maybe we could find other WiiFit folks and motivate each other.

As far as a workout, I believe you'll get out what you put in...as with most things!

[Evansmom49]

I really like the Wii Fit. For me, I mainly use it for the yoga and strength training. Not really good for a cardio workout. I'm interested in the new Plus disc. Let us know what you think of it.

[barrnone]

I didn't realize there was a new one - I need to go and check it out.

[Barb1965]

Oh, thanks for starting this post, I told dh that's what I want for Christmas, I'd love to hear more reviews. I'm really interested in the Yoga, as I wanted to take a class but the only local one is the same night my Girl Scout troop meets.

[sporty]

The Wii Fit Plus features a variety of new games and exercises, but more importantly, the ability to string together a full, unbroken custom workout routine.

Let me tell you I am in love! I bought the Wii, Wii Fit plus, and the motionplus to go on the remote last night and boy is this what I needed. I did not get into all the workouts last night but set everything up, did my body test and got my bmi . When I get home today I am going to do my first workout and get ready to rock it.


If you already have a Wii Fit - you can buy the Wii Fit plus disc for $20 at Walmart. It was suppose to come out today but stores started selling it 2 days earlier so that is how I got mine last night.

[sporty]

Here is an article on the WII Fit Plus:

The original Wii Fit was a revolution in exercise games, using Nintendo’s smart software design philosophy to make doing push-ups and squats as challenging (and often as addictive) as shooting down aliens. You’d stand on the Balance Board controller (right), which would track your center of gravity, making sure you were doing the on-screen motions correctly, while a virtual trainer gave you advice and encouragement.
What Wii Fit did not do, however, was give you any guidance. Once you’d weighed in and learned a little about the program, you were dropped into a Chinese food menu of different exercises. Every time you finished a two-minute exercise, you were dumped back out to said menu.
In short, there was no “work me out for 20 minutes” option, a flaw that was quickly jumped on by Electronic Arts, whose Wii game EA Sports Active — while significantly less polished and fun than Nintendo’s — automatically generated custom daily exercise routines that let you do a 20-minute workout in 20 minutes instead of 45.
Wii Fit Plus tackles these issues with varying degrees of success, while introducing many new ideas.

WIRED

• “Training Plus.” Most of Wii Fit Plus‘ new features are located in a separate selection on the main menu, so you can easily find what’s new.
• Suggested routines. 16 different routines of about six minutes each are targeted at different areas. If you feel like you’ve overeaten, the game will give you a series of routines designed to burn off calories. If you’re looking to exercise certain parts of your body, it’ll do that. You can string these routines together to create a longer workout.
• Custom routines. If you’ve got a set of yoga and strength-training exercises you enjoy doing, you can build them together into one list, then run through all of them at once. The game will let you know how long the workout is as you add items.
• Lots of new mini-games. While there are three each of new yoga poses and new exercises, the biggest content addition is the mini-games, like the skateboarding one pictured at top. One game I enjoyed has you riding a virtual Segway around a beach, popping giant balloons. Another is like a real-life Super Mario, in which you run and jump to clear a series of obstacles. (Well, you bend your legs to simulate jumping — Nintendo doesn’t want anybody hurting themselves.)

TIRED

• Still not enough guidance. Wii Fit Plus might give you some small custom routines and let you design a daily workout, but it would have been trivial to include a few pre-set 20-minute balanced workouts that start you off slow, ramp up the intensity, and cool you off. In this sense, Wii Fit still leaves you out in the weeds.
• Only one custom routine slot. Want to switch between a few varied workouts? You’ll have to delete your old one and build a new one from scratch.
• No mini-games in the routines. Oh, come on. Adding some cartoon Hula Hooping in between all the sit-ups and tricep extensions would keep things interesting, but if you want to put together an unbroken string of exercises, you can only choose from yoga and strength training.
• Wii Fit, the safety nanny. I was having a good time with the aforementioned Mario-style obstacle course, right up until the moment that Sister Mary Wii Fit decided that I was jumping off the board instead of the prescribed fake-jumping that I was supposed to do. As soon as this happened, it booted me back to the beginning of the game. This then happened two more times and I swear my feet weren’t leaving the board. And did I get credit for all these extra burned calories? Of course not. Whoever designed this b.s. was probably Hall Monitor of the Year in 3rd grade.

Wii Fit Plus doesn’t quite get itself up to speed with what more intense videogame exercise programs can do for you. But if you’ve become frustrated at the original’s limitations, the fixes here make working out with Wii more convenient. It’s also a cheap upgrade at $20.
You don’t need a copy of Wii Fit to play Plus, but you do need the Balance Board controller. (It’s bundled with the software for $100.)

[sporty]

Meant to add - I have never had a wii fit or the plus. So it was 10 bucks more to buy the plus with the wii fit so I went ahead and took advantage of it. I think I will definitely be exercising much more!

[susan423]

Yeah, that is my complaint. It will excercise you for a couple of minutes and then stop, give you your score, blah, blah. While you're standing there waiting for the game to start back up again NOT working out. I think it is fine for someone like me, that's out of shape and has trouble doing more then a couple minutes at a time anyway but I can't see getting a real workout from it. I like the scale because it seems to be more accurate then any scale I've ever had but to get on in the morning just to weigh still takes about 3 minutes

[mizski]

I LOVE my Wii. It's been really helpful in getting me to workout daily. I use several games on my Wii: original Wii Fit, EA Sports Active, Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort.

I found the Wii Fit to be great for novices but I imagine those who are already in great shape may get bored with it quickly. I like EA Sports Active very much as it is like having a personal trainer and games like the boxing are a better cardio workout than the Wii Fit. Still I think the Wii Fit has a good variety of workouts (yoga, strength training, cardio and balance) that provide a good core workout, emphasizing controlled movements rather than overexertion.

Making your own Mii is fun even though I could do without the Wii Fit telling me how obese I am.

The Wii Sports (came with the Wii) and the new Wii Sports Resort are just plain fun and keep you moving while doing fun things. Some games (like swordfighting) give a more balanced workout but how can you resist that cute little dog on the frisbee game?

My biggest complaint about the Wii (and also my Nintendo DSi) is that you have to use a game a certain amount of times or achieve a certain level of competency before other games are unlocked. I guess that is supposed to appeal to one's competitive nature but I find that feature to be frustrating...I wish they would just let me pick what activities I want right from the start rather than making me do an activity I may not care for a zillion times just to unlock the ones that I want.

The new Wii Fit Plus sounds like they've made a lot of improvements to the original. All in all I think it's a good investment and something the whole family can enjoy.