Wii Fit Preliminary Review: 3 Things I Like and 3 Things I Don’t Like
Congratulate us, the List Maven and her family are the proud owners of a Wii Fit system. Yay us – as this is a hot and hard to find ticket. In a few weeks I’ll offer a more thorough review, but I thought it would be nice to offer up a preliminary Wii Fit review to let you know my first thoughts.
Overall my experience is positive. A Wii Fit can be a fun, addicting way to work out and for someone like me with a little more junk in the trunk than I’d like, that’s always good news. Keep in mind I’m not a techie or a gamer. I don’t know anything about how it works or why, I’m just here to tell you of what I thought after a couple days of using the Wii Fit system.
Starting off, the Wii Fit will take a body profile. It tests your balance and weight and gives you your Wii Fit age. I will not divulge mine today, as I’m hanging my head in shame. The List Maven isn’t proud of her body at the moment. When you’re ready you can choose from a male or female trainer to help motivate you through your yoga and strength workouts. I did go for the eye candy factor and choose the male, but he notices everything and likes to mention when I put my foot down. I’m also thinking I’m not his type.
Some of the exercises are too hard for kids, but the balance section has fun stuff for the little guys. My son likes the ski slalom and the ski jump, especially. I do put this away when the friends come over because I don’t need a bunch of six year old jumping all over my balance board.
What I like about the Wii Fit
- It’s fun – I’m really enjoying my workout. The Wii Fit comes with four workout areas – Yoga, Strength, Aerobic and Balance. Because each exercise isn’t long at first, I can mix and match. I start out with Yoga for stretching, then do about 20 minutes of different aerobic activities and finish off with strength and then balance. I try and do 30 -45 minutes each day. A note for parents: If you want to get a good uninterrupted workout in, do it when the kids are sleeping or out, otherwise they’ll keep begging to play.
- It encourages you to exercise more – With the Wii Fit, the more you exercise the more exercises you unlock. With strength and yoga, you can also unlock more reps. As you get fit, your workout becomes more difficult. And since you’re always trying to beat your high score, you want to continue working out. The first day I had the Wii Fit I worked out for 90 minutes.
- It’s easy – Your workout won’t be too hard to start out with. While I do sweat, I don’t feel like I’m going to have a heart attack when I’m done working out. The exercises are fun. I love the aerobics – it reminds me of those dance games where you have to follow the different steps. The hula hoop is fun too and I’m really loving the skiing and other balance exercises. The yoga is great for stretching and makes me feel good afterwards and strength isn’t so difficult I avoid it.
What I don’t like about the Wii Fit
- It doesn’t get my weight right at all. I’m usually about 10 pounds off. Also, after 20 minutes of working out it sometimes tell me my weight changed – and I’m 4 pounds heavier. It’s good for a gauge but don’t believe everything it tells you. I think part of the reason is that the Wii Fit is sitting on carpet and that throws it off a bit. Don’t use it to gauge your health – you really need to go to a doctor for that. Oh and it told my six year old son he has a Wii Fit age of 37 because he fell over on the balance test.
- If you misstep in Aerobics it stops and throws off your rhythm – Ok, this is kind of nitpicky but it irritates me to no end. If you’re doing the aerobics and you misstep, it stops mid march to tell you to watch the other Miis feet. Well that’s fine and dandy, but can’t it wait until the end? Even though I misstep I have a rhythm going and to stop the action to tell me to look at cartoon feet throws off my rhythm.
- You have to unlock different exercises as you go along. While this isn’t an issue for someone like me who is moving slowly along, a more fit person might get frustrated at starting out at such a low level. The good news is that it doesn’t take long to unlock new levels.
Two List Maven Thumbs Up
For my initial review I’m giving the Wii Fit two giant List Maven thumbs up. It’s easy and it’s fun. It makes me want to get my butt of the couch and exercise, That’s never a bad thing.
Image: Newscom
