Working Out with Wii Fit: Day 2
Posted by Ramon Aranda on 05.29.2008
It's time once again to hop on the Wii Balance Board and get to sweating! Let's see how I did on day 2 with Wii Fit.
Having spent some quality time with Wii Fit's Yoga workout, I figured it was time to really get down and sweaty (not what you're thinking perverts!). Rather than go straight to the Body Test this time around, I thought I'd get a workout first. This time around, I wanted something more challenging so I decided to get into Strength Training which focuses more on building muscle.
The first activity on the list was the Single Leg Extension. With this workout, you help build up your torso, hip muscles and triceps by having one leg on the board while the other one is raised up high. You then bring it all the way back and extend it as far as you can while your arms move in a running motion. During the exercise, I could really feel my quads get pretty tight especially since I was holding myself up with a bent leg. I had a little trouble staying balanced though and I garnered 39 points on my first try. Apparently my trainer thinks I'm some kind of couch potato. Pfft..whatever dude.
I went at it a few more times and my highest score was 61. Looks like I'm going to need plenty of practice on that one. I didn't get much of a workout on my triceps, but if you focus on tightening up the muscle, you'll feel it after a while. My trainer also told me that I'll need to keep training to build up enough muscle and balance to do better at this exercise.
Next up was the Push-up & Side Plank workout. Intended to help you workout your chest, arms and abs, you place both hands on the balance board and do a push-up. After coming up, you take one arm and take it up in the air while keeping one hand on the board. This one was painful – but in a hard workout sort of way. I should also point out that I was a bit concerned at first that since I was looking down then up in the air, I wouldn't see my trainer so that I could follow what he was doing. The cool thing is that once he shows you what to do, you'll start the real thing (there's a preview of what you do first before each activity) and every new movement will be prompted by the sound of a whistle. So the whistle would sound when I had to come down on a push-up and it would sound again when I had to come back up. When I had to turn my torso with my hand in the air, it would sound again and then once more when I had to come back down to the starting position. This worked quite well and I'm glad they thought about that as it could've been a pain in the ass. The exercise starts out with 10 reps and let me tell you, the Push-up & Side Plank workout is NO JOKE! I had a pretty good sweat after just one set so you can imagine what I looked like after a handful more. Luckily for me, I'm pretty good with push-ups and I earned a sweet 95 points – well that was my highest score anyway.
I had to take a breather before I took on the next workout. I'll tell you, my arms were shaking after that last one so I had a drink of water and sat down for a minute. After a quick recovery, I went for the Torso Twist. In this one, you stand on the board and extend your arms out to the side. Once in that position, you twist your torso to the left and to the right while holding it momentarily. This gives your abs a nice stretch and it helps you tighten them up. After that set of twists, you then twist your torso diagonally and towards the floor. You just have to make sure you're not bending over, but trying to keep yourself upward as much as possible. I did pretty good on this one and I unlocked the 6-rep set as only a 3-rep set was available at first. I ended up with 86 points as my highest score and some tight abs.
Work those abs, maggot!
In keeping with working out my abs, I then turned my attention over to the Jackknife workout. In this one, you plant both heels on the board while you lay down. You may want to place a mat on the floor since you'll be on it. When its time to go, you raise your arms and legs; making a 'U' shape to do a modified crunch. I did this one pretty well and gained a perfect 100 points every time. It wasn't difficult to get done but you really feel the abs working especially if you're not the type to regularly do them. Since I did really well, I also unlocked the 20-rep set.
Now it was on to Lunges! OK time for more leg exercises and lunges are usually pretty effective. As you'd expect, you put one leg on the board while the other is on its tippy toe behind you. You then bend down and make your knee go into a 90-degree angle while your hands are locked behind your leg. I got a pretty good workout on my quads and hamstrings, so my legs definitely felt it. I did well though as I got another set of 100 point scores.
I was pretty much done with the workout but then my trainer called me out to do a push-up challenge. Apparently I had unlocked it along the way and he asked if I wanted to challenge him to see who could do more push-ups. The limit was actually 10 though so I said, the hell with it – bring it on! Not realizing how tired I was from the entire workout, I started struggling right around the 7th push-up but I was game. I finally made it to 10, while my trainer tried to raise himself up from 9. Needless to say I beat him....BOOH-YA! He couldn't hang, so I ended the workout on quite the high note. I'm assuming I'll be able to unlock a higher set of push-ups so I won't celebrate for too long.
Finally, it was time to do my Body Test. My BMI for starters had dropped to 22.70 from 22.74 while my weight was still above 136-pounds, but that was down .02-pounds. Finally my Basic Balance Test was down to 21.65 from 27.99 while my walking balance ended up at 49%. My Wii Fit Age for today was 30. Dammit!
The only thing left was to shower up. Good workout!
The first activity on the list was the Single Leg Extension. With this workout, you help build up your torso, hip muscles and triceps by having one leg on the board while the other one is raised up high. You then bring it all the way back and extend it as far as you can while your arms move in a running motion. During the exercise, I could really feel my quads get pretty tight especially since I was holding myself up with a bent leg. I had a little trouble staying balanced though and I garnered 39 points on my first try. Apparently my trainer thinks I'm some kind of couch potato. Pfft..whatever dude.
