The active-play phenomenon started by Wii Sports now spreads to your whole body thanks to Wii Fit and the pressure-sensitive Wii Balance Board, which comes bundled with it. Used together players will experience an extensive array of fun, dynamic and surprisingly challenging activities, including aerobics, yoga, muscle stretches and balance oriented games. The focus of these activities is towards providing a “core” workout, a popular exercise method that emphasizes slower, controlled motions, but it’s the fun approach to fitness of Wii Fit that will keep players hooked on fitness for years to come.
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The Wii Fit Balance Board
The primary tenet of Wii Fit is balance. Your center of balance, the point between your left and right sides when you stand upright, has a lot to do with your health. Those without an even center of balance will be unnaturally compensating for this imbalance, which causes their posture to become misaligned, increasing the possibility of putting unnecessary strain on their bodies. This is where the Wii Balance Board comes in.
Before you jump into doing exercises and activities, you’ll start by creating a profile. This is done easily and intuitively by simply choosing a Mii, entering your height and age information, and doing a few quick tests that will serve as a baseline for your new Wii fitness regimen. These tests are:
- BMI Check: BMI, or Body Mass Index, is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that is the standard used by agencies such as the World Health Organization and the National Institute of Health. To check your BMI, you’ll enter your height then stand on the Wii Balance Board and let it read your weight.
- Wii Fit Age: After you’ve checked your BMI, you’ll do a basic balance test and find out your current Wii Fit Age. This basic balance test measures how well you can control your left and right balance. Based on the results, you’ll be assigned a Wii Fit Age.
Once you have created your profile it’s time to have some fun. Wii Fit features four main categories of exercises to choose from: Strength Training, Aerobics, Yoga and Balance Games. Wii Fit will guide you through the first three with the help of your own virtual personal trainer, while the balance games offer variety and fun to help keep you engaged and excited about your fitness goals. In addition, as you spend time exercising, you’ll earn Fit Credits that unlock additional exercises and activities within your favorite categories that will allow you to continue to push yourself. See more detail on the four categories below:
- Strength Training: Put your strength to the test with muscle-toning exercises like Single Leg Extension, Sideways Leg Lift, Arm and Leg Lift, Single-Arm Stand, Torso Twists, Rowing Squat, Single Leg Twist, Lunge, Push-Up and Side Plank, Jackknife, Plank and Tricep Extension. Challenges include Push-Up Challenge, Plank Challenge and Jackknife Challenge.
- Aerobics: Get your heart pumping with fun, interactive Aerobic exercises like Hula Hoop, Basic Step, Basic Run, Super Hula Hoop, Advanced Step, 2-P Run, Rhythm Boxing, Free Step and Free Run.
- Yoga: Work on your balance and flexibility with Yoga poses and activities like Deep Breathing, Half-Moon, Dance, Cobra, Bridge, Spinal Twist, Shoulder Stand, Warrior, Tree, Sun Salutation, Standing Knee, Palm Tree, Chair, Triangle and Downward-Facing Dog.
- Balance Games: Get into the action with fun, balanced-based games like Soccer Heading, Ski Slalom, Ski Jump, Table Tilt, Tightrope Walk, Balance Bubble, Penguin Slide, Snowboard Slalom and Lotus Focus.
Because keeping fit is an ongoing process, Wii Fit also tracks the activities you do the most and puts them into your Favorites category. With this information players can note exercises and activities that they are strong in, as well as others that may need to improve at. Some of the ways players can use this information for are to:
- Keep tabs on your daily progress with easy-to-understand graphs and charts. Using your personal profile, you can set goals, view a graph of your BMI results over time, see how many Fit Credits you’ve earned, check your Wii Fit Age and even enter exercise time you’ve done outside of Wii Fit. It’s all about coming back and exercising a little every day, and the personal profile makes tracking your daily progress simple and easy.
- Quickly check your Wii Fit Age and BMI without even putting the game in the console by going directly to the Wii Fit Channel.
- Allow up to eight family members can create their own profiles in Wii Fit. On the profile-selection screen, everyone in the family can see each other’s recent BMI progress and Fit Credit total. This will allow families to have a friendly competition to exercise and get fit.
Variety, fun and progress tracking; Wii Fit has it all. So, Wii owners if you ready to reclaim your balance and get fit all you need is Wii Fit, a few minutes a day to play and the urge to have fun. Get on board today.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Unworkable over the long term
Although some of the games and exercises on this product are good, the product is simply unsustainable over the long term. The major flaw in the program is that there is excessive downtime. After each activity of 1 or two minutes, there is are a number of seconds in which the trainer “talks” to you, repeating generally useless information. After that, the “score” is posted and ranked against your prior scores, and then your wii fit “credits” for the activity (one or two minutes) are dropped into a bank. The entire process consumes an unnecessary 20 seconds. Then, there is no quick way to begin another activity: you must return to the menu and slowly select and enter the next activity. Since each activity is only a minute or two long, the whole thing is unsustainable.
This is a good idea, but until the basic design flaw is cured, the product is simply too poorly executed to really be useful. Wish I could say otherwise . . . .
4 Stars Before you Buy This Check out Wii Fit Plus
Before you Buy Wii Fit Buy wii Fit Plus it is only 10 more and has the same games and has the option to create a routine for exercising.Check out my whole review on Wii Fit Plus Standalone(I already have this verision
5 Stars GREAT WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT!
I end up spending a lot more time on it than I plan to. It’s fun and very entertaining.
4 Stars Fun Fitness
LOVE IT!!! Great way to sneak a little workout in while having fun. To be able to really enjoy this product–you have to learn to laught at yourself. Nothing like the soccer, dance, and holu hoop.
4 Stars New Opportunities for Me
I didn’t get the Wii Fit with the expectations that it would MAKE me fit. I got it with the expectations that it would HELP to keep me fit. (I know that what I consume has a big effect on everything as well as exercise I do outside of the Wii Fit so I don’t have unrealistic expectations that this is some kind of magic wand) I also got it so my family, who is not into fitness but likes games, can get some active fun.
My favorite thing on there is the running. I have been wanting to run for a long time. I tried, but, had to stop due to sore knees. Running with the Wii Fit is so great! It’s basically running in place-but it’s very low impact and gives me the benefits of running (cardio) yet doesn’t bother me physically. It’s not weather dependent either-and so it opens up good exercise opportunities to me! I love to see the scenery and having the dog be my guide is kind of fun sometimes, too! I like that I can go for a few minutes or even in half hour chunks!
The hula hoop also is good to bring up your heart rate-though the games aren’t long enough for anything significant. It’s just good fun!
The yoga and strength stuff is okay-but I get a better workout with my exercise DVDs. If someone doesn’t have DVDs to use, they might like this.
I do like to do these exercises in between running.
My family enjoys all of the games and it’s a good addition to our Wii. It’s well worth the money, IMO. Can’t wait to try EA active as a supplement!
Cons: As with most stuff, after the novelty fades, so will the interest-so pace yourself with this! 
It helps that you have to unlock games as you go-so the novelty lasts longer and you have fun working to earn new games!
I also dislike that the Wii Fit has made fun of me a couple of times about my balance asking if I trip over my own feet. It also lectured me about gaining 1.5 pounds when, the day before, I had lost 1.8 and it told me that due to changes in our bodies every day, our weight could be +- two pounds. The way I saw it, I was still less 0.3 less than the day before that. It was grilling me as to why I had gained weight and gave me multiple choice answers to pick from such as if I had been eating too much, not exercising enough etc. Before grilling someone, it should take a look at a week or two and average it out. I suppose this could help some people if they are gaining weight-but it was just annoying to me, under the circumstances.
