BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Yoga WiiFit and Yoga

OK we've had the WiiFit for four days now and I've been using it daily!! It has a bunch of cool yoga routines in it. So you stand on the balance board and it does "tree pose". Your instructor does it in front of you and you do it along with her (or him). The balance board shows you in real time how your center of balance is doing, with a wiggly red dog! Well it's supposed to be steady but on mine it's wiggly. So that way over time you can see how your progress is, because it records all your scores. It's quite neat!

I'm doing up a walkthrough so I'll list what all the different yoga poses it has are. I haven't unlocked "downward facing dog" yet ...

Lisa, I've been reading about the WiiFit for a few days and was considering buying a Wii for the purpose of bumping up my exercise routine. The only thing (besides budget of course) that's holding me back is that I am worried about the amount of space that you need to use it. Can you tell us how much room is optimal to use the Wii to full advantage?

that's an excellent question!! If you read my other yoga threads you'll see that I have MINIMAL room in my living room, barely enough room to lay down a yoga mat (and that requires moving the coffee table). The wii balance board itself is about the size of a large laptop. Most of the activities are just you standing on it and leaning around.

There are SOME activities that require you to have your hands on the Wii balance board and your feet straight out behind you - so the Plank pose for example has you on your forearms on the balance board, your feet behind you and you hold that position (like holding a push-up sort of). So that is the largest space you would ever need. And if you don't have that space, it's not like you "have" to do that position. You can just do the other things.

Man I have GOT to get this thing.

I want to see the wiggly dog.

OH!!! That was a typo!

It's a wiggly red DOT!!!

So they have the "trainer" on the screen, and then superimposed over that is a circle and then a DOT representing where you are standing. As you wobble the dot moves around too. Then when you're done it does a recap of all of your movement. So you can see clearly if you lean to the left, or right, or all over the place.

Does it take longer to do the routine due to all the feedback you are getting? or is the feedback immediate and simultaneous?

The feedback is live. So say you do a 5 minute Tree Pose routine. You are watching the instructor as she is doing it in front of you and telling you what to do - and once you "get into position" you see her standing there. You also see a wiggling red dot which actively shows your center of balance. So the entire time you are doing the activity you are getting feedback on how well balanced you are. Then when it's over you get a "speed summary" where the red dot zooms all over the place showing you how steady (or unsteady) you were, and you get a "score". That then gets ranked into a top 10 score with you and anyone else who's using the system.

I LOVE my Wii and frequently host mini Wii tournaments, which are always plenty of fun. The sports pack has proven to be a bit of a workout on its own, especially the boxing game.

I've been debating whether or not to invest in the Wii Fit and now that it is available and getting rave reviews, I think I may just take the plunge and try it out for myself.

Lisa, I'm curious about the yoga aspect of it. I've always wanted to try yoga but have never gotten around to actually doing so. Do you think that the yoga on the Wii Fit is good for beginners?

Yes definitely, it starts with just standing still in mountain pose. So all you do at the beginning is stand still and breathe slowly

The Wii fit sounds like the perfect exercise tool for apartment dwellers that only have a small area to devote to their fitness program. I know that I'm sold on the idea, but will probably have to put it on my Christmas list and get my exercise outdoors right now. I have been dying for (and shopping for) a treadmill, but the lack of space kept me from buying one. I couldn't see jamming up the main traffic areas of the house when I like to walk outdoors with the kids anyway. But the Wii might be perfect for Mii!