Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board (Wii) - White

That is so true!!! We are in our 70's and, like other people our age group, have various aches and pains. Anyway, since getting the Wii Fit Plus + board we have had so much fun with it. It is played on every day for at least 30 mins, both doing the exercises and the games. My wife has gone down a dress size and we virtually fight to use it. When one of our friends come round we have such a laugh because it comes out again and we all have a go on it. Much better than watching TV. You exercise without realising it and I would thoroughly recomend it to all age groups. Get buying if you haven't already done so.

Here is a short review and set up guide for the nintendo wii balance board.
It's a great way to burn those calories while having fun!

Having had Wii Fit for over a year and been quite frustrated by the time it takes to work through the routines I was very keen to give this a try to see if there was an improvement over the original. It certainly is, you get everything you had with the Wii Fit plus a number of extras.

There is quite a lot that is new on Wii Fit Plus, some of it is a novelty like the ability to add in either your pets or a baby - all that does is allow you to weigh them on a regular basis so that you can check their weight. Helpful if you have pets you are trying to slim down and useful perhaps if you want to check your baby's progress but don't worry they aren't allowed to exercise so Nintendo haven't 'lost the plot'.

There is the facility to plan a workout although the only sections you can choose from are the Yoga and the Muscle exercises. This is a handy little feature as it totals up the time so you can choose the right number of workouts to fill say a half hour slot and then use that on a regular basis. If I have a criticism of this feature it is that it only appears to let you have one custom workout stored at any one time - I would have preferred the ability to store half a dozen.

That said there are some preset routines which you can choose from to allow you to work on specific targets such as fitness, flexibility etc and this is very useful. If you prefer you can also ask the Wii Fit to design a routine for you.

I do love this flexibility because very often I want to do a half hour workout and I used to hate waiting for all the interval between exercises. The slight downside is that it doesn't score your performance for each exercise but in any event that used to get tedious to me so I am pleased that I can now avoid it.
Nintendo have also added a whole new section of fun 'games' called Training Plus which include things like skateboarding, snowball fights, flying like a bird, juggling - I could go on and on. I have tried them all and they are good fun, some more so than others from my perspective, but I think it is fair to say that there is something for everyone in that section and they would be hilarious at a party as some of them are especially tricky to master. If I have a criticism of this section it is that I would have liked some instructions on how to do them but to be honest once you have tried and got a rotten score you soon learn what you should be doing to do better!

I love the fact that Nintendo have also introduced a little brain work into the exercises as well. One of the features when it works out your brain age required me to balance whilst clicking on random numbers in ascending order - sounds simple but when you are trying to keep your centre of gravity in the centre and use you brain to select numbers you do need to concentrate. Similarly in one of the fun games you have to swing your hips to hit 'mushrooms' whose numbers add up to 10 which means doing quick mental arithmetic whilst exercising - great fun and a good way to smarten up your mental arithmetic.

Other new features includes the provision of a MET Value - A MET value is added to each exercise, in order to calculate calories burnt. MET stands for "metabolic equivalent" and is defined as "the ratio of the work metabolic rate to the resting metabolic rate". Sounds complicated but in practice it just gives you an idea of how many calories you have burnt during your workout which is useful.

Nintendo have provided some expanded training modes - Aerobic & Jogging both have additional courses, Step Rhythm Remix includes new songs. There are 3 new Yoga exercises and 3 new Muscle exercises. All this plus the option for Multiplayer mode to allow all the family to join in.

So do I think it is worth buying - yes I do, it has renewed my interest in keeping fit and that can't be a bad thing.