Thread Drift

[OakLeaf]

Because guiding a marble down a hole, guiding a bubble down a river, or dropping marbles into the correct buckets using both your hands and your feet - sometimes in opposition - are a whole lot more fun than any proprioceptive exercises someone's trainer will give them. Sure you can spend an hour working only on balance and proprioception, but how motivated is anyone to do that day after day?

Because if you already have a Wii box, the balance board only costs about $30 more than a good wobble board.

Because it gives you on-screen feedback on your balance and center, whereas on a wobble board, you're either stable with all the edges off the ground, or you're not. If you're leaning slightly to the left, you'd never know.

Because most people, DEFINITELY including me, can't stand up on a Swiss ball (or even a small ball). Suggesting exercises standing on a Swiss ball as a substitute for Wii balance exercises is like telling someone to do full pull-ups as a substitute for 20# cable pull-downs. Great if you can do it, but too challenging even for most active people.

Because there is no "real game" to correspond to most of the balance games, and if someone went to the trouble and expense of re-creating many of those games in the physical world, any one of them would be WAY more expensive than a Wii, and many would have a really high risk of falling.


I guarantee you neither my mother (who's actually very motivated) nor my mother-in-law (who isn't particularly) would be doing ANY proprioceptive work if it weren't for their Wiis. If it'll keep them from falling and breaking a hip, then hear, hear.

Yes, the BMI thing is worse than stupid, but take that up with the medical/weight loss establishment that pushes it so hard. I might add, IMO the Wii's obsessive focus on small weight fluctuations is even more damaging than its reliance on BMI. You can always skip the weigh-in on the Wii. I do, even though I weigh myself almost daily on a non-talking scale. Four pounds is a typical weight fluctuation for me, and I can do without a machine criticizing me because I'm better hydrated one day than I was the day before, or ate more fiber at lunch, or whatever. But another thing to take into account is that apparently this machine acts EXACTLY like the weight-loss establishment. My mom has been going to TOPS/KOPS for years - I don't encourage it, but she likes the social aspect - and she confirms that the Wii feedback is just like the structure of that group. If she's a pound heavier than she was at the meeting the week before, she gets some kind of a demerit. So I think a lot of it is that the Wii is exposing a lot of us here - who've never been sucked into the weight-loss machine - to philosophies that have been getting shoved down overweight people's throats for decades.

[salsabike]

I share my office with an occupational therapist who has been using Wii with her kids this year. They LOVE it and it's far more fun and interesting for them than just doing exercises. Why not be open to many different ways of pursuing fitness?

[lph]

And I'm guessing, because people think it's fun. People just like different things. Many people feel that going outside for a run or bike ride takes too long/is too boring/is too cold/hot/rainy/dangerous/whatever, and something that looks and feels like a video game is more fun to do.

I used to spend lots of money going to an aerobic class near here. Some of my outdoorsy friends couldn't understand why I would "spend money to jump and down indoors when you can exercise for free outdoors" I did that too, but I loved that class and had a blast.

Most people have no idea why I bother riding a bike in winter either. My kind of fun

[lph]

awww, how cute is this?

http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/01/06/n...dmark/9802537/

We're having a cold snap, and the woman who took the photo writes "it's 20 below (-4F) outside, and I think she wanted to come in and get warm. She looked a bit hungry looking at the flowers in the window."

[bmccasland]

Reminds me of the time I caught an elk eating my Tulips early in the morning. I turned my kitchen light on, and up pops her head right outside the window, with a red tulip in her teeth. She bounced over my 4 ft fence and into the woods.

[Crankin]

I do see lots of uses for the Wii in rehab, OT, maybe PT, especially with kids, or motivating very obese, medically challenged clients. I also can understand the attitude of well, at least the person is doing something. Working on balance and proprioceptive stuff probably is appropriate for this, but I would rather go to the gym and pay a trainer or do it on my own, with my own equipment. What I don't understand is playing "games" that simulate the real thing or doing more aerobic type stuff with the Wii.
Just me.

[Zen]

Reminds me of the time I caught an elk eating my Tulips ...

It reminds me of when I lived in Alaska. I was 7 years old and had a rock collection. I found some 'rocks' in the yard, brought them inside and asked my mother what kind they were. She didn't know but I left them in the entry hall by the heater so I could ask my brother about them.
When he got home, he wanted to know why there was moose poop in the hall

Hey, I was 7.

[snapdragen]

Zen, that's better than the Alaskan tourist who insisted the moose pellets were nuts....and proceeded to pop one in her mouth.

[Tuckervill]

Wii lets me connect with my teenage boy (and whip him at the yoga parts) more than if we exercised separately.

The Wii is truly, truly revolutionary. No other game system has EVER enticed thousands of those who have never played video games before. Lots of the elderly old them. That says a LOT.

Karen