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Wii Fit for IBS: A Stay at Home Exercise Option

About.com Rating 4.5

By Barbara Bradley Bolen, Ph.D., About.com

Updated December 01, 2008

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Nintendo’s Wii Fit offers a fun home exercise option for people who have IBS or other health conditions that limit mobility. I “test drove” the Wii Fit in order to help you to decide if the Wii Fit is right for you.

About Wii Fit

Wii Fit is a video game that plays on Nintendo’s Wii gaming console. Designed to make fitness fun, Wii Fit gives you your very own computerized personal trainer, provides you with weight and body mass information, encourages you to set goals, and tracks your progress over time. The game aspires to overall body fitness by offering yoga, strength training, aerobics and balance exercises. As you play, you get to choose the areas you would like to work on. The game tallies up your minutes as you play along, an effective way to motivate you to keep playing. Wii Fit is appealing to gamers and couch potatoes of all ages.

Each time you turn on the game, you are offered the option of completing a body test. This test involves measuring your weight, agility and center of balance. The game then calculates your BMI (body mass index) and your fitness age. For me, this is always a somewhat humbling step. Although I consider myself to be in pretty good shape, according to Wii Fit, I have turned the half century mark! Luckily, the body test is optional and you can skip right to the four areas of training.

Wii Fit Training

Yoga

Your personal trainer will demonstrate and walk you through many of the standard yoga poses, including sun salutation, warrior and downward dog. As you strike each pose, you will feel your body stretching and strengthening. However, without a yoga teacher in the room, you do run the risk of doing the pose improperly.

Strength Training

These exercises target various muscle groups through such standards as the lunge, leg lift and torso twist. At the completion of each set of repetitions you are graded and your performance is ranked with the other members of your family who play the game. Living with all males, I am at a distinct disadvantage in this area!

Aerobics

Aerobics is the area in which the game gets fun. Graphics and funky music lighten the mood and help you to get your body moving. The game offers step aerobics, hula hoop spinning and my favorite, rhythm boxing. In spite of the short play time for each activity, playing one after the other guarantees that you will work up a sweat, while keeping a smile on your face.

Balance For me, this is the part of the game where I am the most humbled. Or, as the game likes to tell me, “unbalanced”. Like the aerobics activities, the balance games are fun and seem the most arcade-like. You will enjoy the lively graphics as you ski jump, snowboard slalom, and head soccer balls. The soccer ball heading game is fairly sadistic as mini soccer players hurl cleats and panda heads along with the soccer balls. I swear I experience real pain when I get hit with a virtual cleat!

Wii Fit for IBS

Due to the disruptiveness of its symptoms, it can be a challenge to exercise with IBS. In my opinion, the Wii Fit offers a fun, workable option. Since you are home, you can work out when your body seems the calmest and you are guaranteed access to a clean, private bathroom. The frequent “breaks in the action” that are intrinsic to the game as you move from exercise to exercise may help to prevent triggering a runners diarrhea situation. The thing that I love most about Wii Fit for IBS is that it offers a way to have some fun with your body as opposed to feeling victimized by your body’s unpredictability.

Game Shortcomings

The most notable downside is the cost factor as you must purchase the Wii gaming console as well as the Wii Fit game. Serious athletes will most likely find the frequent breaks between exercises to be quite annoying. The game also lacks the ability to string exercises together into a routine. One also runs the risk of injury due to the lack of immediate feedback in terms of whether an exercise is being performed in a safe manner.
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