Wii Fit Review

The Wii Fit Rocks! It will definitely work up a sweat, and it lowers the barriers to exercise: no going to the gym, running outside in public, wasting any time going to and from anywhere. You turn it on and you work out in the privacy of your own place.

The Wii Fit uses a Wii Balance Board, a fairly hefty and sturdy 8.8 pound device that measures changes in weight and pressure as you're standing on it. It’s quite intuitive to use once you start, but unfortunately, those who may need it most, 330+ pounders, whether ex Football players or general fatties can’t use it – sorry, too big dudes.

The Wii Fit also bases your fitness on BMI – Body Mass Index, a stupid ratio of height to weight. Although often accurate, it can’t tell the difference between a fat person and a muscular person. This is probably not that important, because who is going to take this measurement seriously? Hopefully not too many people.

Wii Fit has four different categories of exercises: yoga, muscle/strength training, aerobic, and balance, and you’re bound to find many of them fun. The Wii Fit is fun, and addictive, which is a good thing in this case.

We find the aerobic and balance exercises to be the most fun, and there are 18 games to choose from. Fun aerobic games include Wii boxing, hula hooping, step dancing, jogging, and more. Balance activities include ski jumping, ski slalom, and snowboarding.

A couple of surprising things about the exercises. They are not all immediately available; you have to work up to them to unlock them and make them available. Also there is shockingly no way to make a custom program to lead you through a series of desired exercises much like a personal trainer would.

Mom is going to love the Wii Fit. Dad would rather bike, run, or wrestle the alligators in the moat. For most normal people, the Wii Fit is great! It WILL improve your fitness if you use it. If however you aspire to run marathons, bike 200 miles in day, compete in body building contests, or wrestle alligators, well, the Wii Fit alone won’t get you into good enough shape!

Pros: Wii Fit is fun and will help you get fit. The Wii Balance Board is an intuitive piece of high tech wizardry.

Cons: It’s not perfect. The emphasis on Body Mass Index (BMI) to measure your level of fitness is archaic, not being able to design custom workouts that string your favorite excercises together seems like an over sight (you need to screw with menus between excercises), and it’s not a complete fitness solution for the fitness freak by any means.

Overall: The Wii Fit Rocks! Don’t use it to train for Ironman, but for most people it’ll help you get fitter! If you’re a fitness buff, this is not for you, except maybe as a toy.