Background/Purpose: The Nintendo Wii® offers a popular technological physical activity intervention with its movement oriented game play. This study was to determine the intensity level of playing selected Nintendo Wii Fit® games using indirect calorimetry.
Method: Twenty-five participants (5 males, 20 females, age = 22 ± 2 years) with little previous Wii experience randomly completed two different Wii Fit activity sessions with two difficulty levels within the strength, endurance, and yoga categories. Each participant's resting metabolic rate and exercise VO2 were measured with a TrueMax 2400 metabolic cart and the corresponding metabolic equivalents (METs) calculated.
Analysis/Results: VO2 of the selected Wii Fit activities (e.g., Yoga Warrior) was significantly higher than resting VO2, t (24) = 15.5, p < 0.001. Calculated MET values ranged from 3.28 ± 0.71 to 3.43 ± 0.60 for the strength activities, and from 4.98 ± 1.22 to 5.73 ± 1.36 for the aerobic Basic Run exercises, indicating that the intensity levels of these activities met or exceeded the moderate intensity threshold of 3 METs. The METs of yoga exercises were significantly lower (from 2.30 ± 0.42 to 2.67 ± .48) than the recommended 3 METs for moderate intensity physical activity, t (24) = -3.347, p= 0.003. The medium difficulty level aerobic exercises (5.73 ± 1.36 METs) had significantly higher MET values than the easy aerobic exercises (4.98 ± 1.22 METs), t (24) = 5.00, p < 0.001.
Conclusions: The findings of this study illustrate the potential of the Nintendo Wii Fit® game to be an adequate physical activity tool.