Breathe In, Breathe Out

Wii-style Balance Training

I hate leg day at the gym. The every Wednesday series of weight training exercises (leg presses, curls, extensions, and an insidious variety of squats) always makes for sore and stiff Thursdays and Fridays. But somehow I get through them and get a little stronger with more endurance. Ditto for the slow motion jogging on the treadmill. So strength and endurance wise, I think I'm investing my time pretty productively at the gym.

But what worries me is balance. It tends to decline with age; and if I'm honest about it, it was never that great to begin with. Good balance is essential for walking and running more efficiently, as well as sports like tennis and golf. And it helps all of us remain with intact body structures when we don't fall down all over the place.

I've written before about the excellent book on balance by Scott McCredie. Although I know that reading a book likely won't improve my balance, it does suggest some worthwhile exercises and activities to improve the chances of staying upright as long as possible.

I was thinking "what else can I do to improve my balance" when I came across Seth Stevenson's review of the new Nintendo WiiFit on Slate. WiiFit is marketed as a total fitness solution, providing Wii-style exercises to promote overall fitness. According to Stevenson's experience, the aerobics portions of the program aren't all that impressive. You'd probably be better off spending your money and time in a gym if that's all you want.

But the balance and strength portions seem worth the effort; they even reinforce each other:

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.

WiiFit seems like it's worth checking out. Wonder if Wednesday is leg day on the Wii?

Technorati Tags: body_schema, wii, wiifit, balance

Wii: Good for Exercise, Good for Learning

Visiting twin 7-year-old boys can really shatter the peacefulness of a quiet home. But not so much if you have a Nintendo Wii around to laser focus their attention and keep the little buggers occupied for hours on end.

You’d probably have to have been hiding under a rock for the past two years not to know that the Wii isn’t like other video game consoles. Players interact with the Wii using their whole bodies, not just their fingertips. So they move around — a lot.

In what can only be termed a blinding flash of the obvious, a recent study determined that kids playing Wii games burned more calories than those playing traditional video games. But they didn’t burn as many as they would have by playing, say, a real tennis match instead of a virtual one.

I’m not making this up: someone actually pays people to find this stuff out.

That aside, as I watched the boys play virtual baseball I couldn’t help noticing how at least one the characteristics of the Wiimote actually changed the way kids could play baseball. The Wiimote uses accelerometers and motion detectors to let physically interact with the virtual action on the screen. And of course the game filters those motions through an algorithm to translate the real action into the virtual world.

What fascinated me the most was the home run power of one of the twins. Pitch after pitch, he was clouting them out of the park. Now remember, this is a scrawny 7 year old kid, not a muscularly enhanced mature athlete. Well, of course it was the very rapid acceleration he was producing with those short, pencil-thin arms of his. To the Wii, all that mattered was the speed imparted to the wiimote.

And all of this was happening with a motion that didn’t even vaguely resemble a proper baseball swing. I couldn’t help thinking that playing a real baseball game was going to be a bit more challenging for the kid.

The characteristics of the technology involved strongly influences and constrains how we can interact with a virtual environment of any sort. Another blinding flash of the obvious!

This doesn’t imply that the Wii isn’t useful for learning “real” games. It may or may not be. But whatever it lacks in requiring authentic athletic movements, it more than makes up for in its learning potential. A couple of scientists had this to say about the Wii:

The games that come with the system do all sorts of good neuro-work: eye hand coordination, motor timing, motor sequencing, motor planning, and spatial problem solving. There's bowling, golf, baseball, boxing, and tennis in Wii sports, but of course lots of add-on games to buy or rent.

These systems will be great for many kids with mild motor planning /sensory integration / "clumsy child" issues, visual-motor difficulties, and some dyslexics. Oh, and it might be pretty good for some of us couch potatoes, too.

The Wii’s benefits run deep for people who take wiimote in hand to do battle with virtual games. Kids get exercise and learning. And, come to think of it, so do adults.