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Meet Your New Personal TrainerCan Wii Fit get your sorry, lazy ass in shape?

By Seth StevensonPosted Friday, May 30, 2008, at 7:16 AM ET

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Chris Suellentrop wrote that the Nintendo Wii was superior to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, while Erik Sofge argued that the Wii was overhyped. Jack Patrick Rodgers dissed the Wii's pitiful online gaming service. William Saletan wrote about the war on fat, and Daniel Gross explained how fat people could save the American economy. Neal Pollack complained that Lance Armstrong ruined his gym.

Wii Fit's final section, the balance games, will be the biggest hit with kids and at social gatherings. These quick challenges include ski jumping, tightrope walking, and snowboarding. Some of the games are terrific fun (particularly the snowboarding slalom, for which you stand on the balance board sideways, as you would on an actual snowboard), and they really do put your balance abilities to the test.

Balance is an oft-overlooked skill that's a vital asset in any sport. The Japanese are obsessive about it: It's at the heart of sumo, for instance, and it's the secret to Ichiro's unorthodox hitting approach. Sadly, I discovered—after trying out several of these games—my balance sort of sucks. The good news: My failures drove me back to the yoga and strength-training sections of Wii Fit, where many of the drills are designed to address this shortcoming. After doing a round of the more balance-focused exercises, I played the games again to see if I'd notice a difference. I did.

This is perhaps Wii Fit's best selling point: It keeps you coming back. Like a real personal trainer, it graphs your progress, giving lots of positive feedback along the way. It knows how often you've been playing and gently chides you if it thinks too many days have passed since your last session. Should you step off the balance board in the middle of a routine, your trainer needles, "Hey, your muscles aren't going to train themselves!" Since the game keeps a history of your scores in each exercise, you can track exactly how much you've improved. Your effort is constantly refueled by your desire to post a new high score.

Wii Fit will not disappoint those who are fans, as I am, of Nintendo's patented brew of cuteness and whimsy. One of the balance games turns you into a penguin sliding on your belly to catch fish. During the jogging exercises, adorable puppies scamper by you, yapping down the road. Miis, the characters you design to serve as your Wii avatars, also play a big role, their cartoon faces popping up everywhere you look. The only cuteness-quotient misstep: One of the games has you heading soccer balls while avoiding airborne panda heads. Yes, severed panda heads—mouths open, frozen in rictus—come flying through the air at you. I imagine it's because their black-and-white color scheme is easy to confuse with that of a soccer ball. But I also suspect this may be a subtle swipe at China. If subsequent games involve severed Mao heads, I'll know I'm right.

Will I keep using Wii Fit as a regular workout? I'd definitely like to keep plugging away at the balance exercises, since I feel like I could make some valuable improvement with a little more practice. I'm unlikely to stick with the aerobics stuff, though, unless the exercises get significantly harder. As it is, they aren't enough of a challenge, and I'll soon revert to visiting my local JCC gym when I want to raise my heartbeat.

If you're out of shape and won't join a gym—due to cost, distance, or time constraints—the Wii Fit is a very reasonable alternative. It'll get you off the couch and into some mild aerobic activity. Likewise, if you have a chubby kid who doesn't like sports, this may be what the doctor ordered. But better get cracking, kid: Those Japanese uberchildren are way ahead of you.

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Seth Stevenson is a frequent contributor to Slate. He is the author of Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World.

Illustration by Rob Donnelly.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

Like any other Wii game, a major problem with Wii fit will most likely be its ability to be manipulated. I remember watching an extremely athletic friend of mine, who had about a year of college boxing under his belt, square up with his girlfriend on Wii's Championship Boxing.

He got his ass kicked (and embarrassed) like some Kimbo YouTube highlight.

Why is that? Because while my buddy stayed true to his boxing form; taking full swings and tiring himself out in the process, his girlfriend sat there playing the controller like a xylophone solo.

As you can imagine, he quickly changed his Wii fighting style. This is true in many other games i.e. Tiger Woods - I see more people eschewing a normal swing for an awkward motion that gives a much straighter swing (it looks like someone having a body tic while painting up a wall).

My long winded point being- if you become competitive or actively engaged with Wii fit (which is what the designers hope), you will quickly learn the motion sensor shortcuts. And consciously or not, having that ability to sidestep that extra exertion is trouble for anyone trying to get in shape.

I think Wii should go back to the drawing board and rethink this. They would be much more successful if they found a way to take their top selling games and make them more physically engaging. The entertainment-as-distraction is a surfire way for someone to expend more energy and forget that they're "exercising."

--SatoriThroughAllegory

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