Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Here it is. I tested the Nintendo Wii with my heart rate monitor. We played Wii Sports, Monkey Ball Banana Blitz and Rayman Raving Rabbids. This commercial gives you a pretty good idea of how much movement you will be doing when you play. There is a scene where the mom is running in the game and she can’t help but move her feet. That exact thing happened to me. We were playing Rayman and I had to run as fast as I could to deliver a bomb to a bunny instead of letting it blow up in my face. You run by moving your arms up and down as if you’re jogging. You could do it sitting down, but you really are faster if you stand up. I couldn’t help but run in place. Mike said, “You don’t need to move your feet.” I shouted back, “Shut up!” and got the fastest time of anyone else. Moving your feet makes you move faster too and my heart rate monitor read 129 bpm.

On the whole, however, most of the games didn’t get my heart rate any higher than it was while I sat on the couch watching others play. Tennis, bowling and baseball on Wii Sports didn’t really do anything for me. The boxing, however, got my heart rate up to 127 bpm. It was a little frustrating, however, because it didn’t feel like my punching in the air had anything to do with what was happening on the screen. Worse still, Dan knocked me out in only three rounds. I hate to lose.

Monkey Ball Banana Blitz sucks. Sorry… I really hate to say it because I have LOVED Monkey Ball on the Xbox, but the mini-games are NOT intutitive at all. They really didn’t use the Wii controller well. None of the games got my heart rate up at all except the Monkey Boxing. Ironically, the Monkey Boxing was way more responsive than the boxing on Wii Sports. If you like boxing, I would totally recommend Monkey Ball. Every time I threw a punch, my monkey moved it’s arms. It may not have hit the other monkey, but it at least tried, which is more than I can say for the responsiveness of the Wii Sports boxing.

The hands down favorite, however, is Rayman Raving Rabbids. From cow throwing to shooting bunnies, it was the most fun. It didn’t bring my heart rate up at all except on “Bunnies Don’t Give Gifts” where I had to sprint with the bomb and the “Bunnies Don’t Know What To Do With Cows.” If Rayman wasn’t a cardio workout, it definitely did something for my arms because the next day, Mike, Dan and I had arm soreness. Stacey was tough, but I think she works in at an insurance company where she has to lift thousands of claim forms every day or something…

On the whole, the Wii Workout isn’t that great. It’s not quite intense enough to get your heart rate up for an extended period of time and it isn’t too much of a muscle workout. Is it exergaming? Not really… Is it better than any other gaming console for getting you out of the couch? Heck yeah!