Wii - Stealth Exercise and Tennis Elbow

SPOnG has had one major concern regarding the Wii: doesn’t motion control involve (whisper it) doing exercise??

Is this the case? Are we to become fitter, happier, more productive human beings due to the couch-potato killing capacities of the magical Wii console?

A report in none other than The Wall Street Journal during what our Mercan cousins like to call, ‘Thanksgiving’ weekend certainly posits this particular argument. It claims that, “…surprisingly vigorous workouts are being triggered by Nintendo's new Wii videogames…as players spend more time with the Wii, some are noticing that hours waving the game's controller around can add up to fairly intense exertion -- resulting in aches and pains common in more familiar forms of exercise. They're reporting aching backs, sore shoulders -- even something some have dubbed ‘Wii elbow’."

The W.S.J. proceeds to with some case studies:

“Wii Sports is ‘harder than playing basketball’”, Kaitlin Franke, a 12-year-old Kentuckian, tells the magazine.

Computer programmer Jeremy Scherer, who describes himself as, "not very active", tells the Journal that after a three hour session on Wii Sports he was very aware that he was “using muscles I hadn't used in a while," and now plans to use nightly Wii sessions as a fun way to getting fit.

Avid gamer Ryan Mercer from Indianapolis, who claims to lifts weights several times a week, says that after a mere 90 minutes of Wii Sports boxing that, "I was soaking wet with sweat, head to toe - I had to go take a shower."

Unsurprisingly, Nintendo’s Perrin Kaplan takes up this wonderful PR relay-sprint baton and runs with it, saying that the Wii “was not meant to be a Jenny Craig^* supplement. If people are finding themselves sore, they may need to exercise more."

To make sure that lazy gamers weren’t too alarmed at the idea of being tricked into getting fit, Kaplan also hastened to add that it was also possible to play while vegged-out on the couch.


^{*A U.S. weight loss programme.}