Wii Workout Games vs. a Personal Trainer

"I really like the nutritional part of the package; but the exercises, poor directions on proper form, and bad animation make it tough to recommend."

Score: One dumbbell

Average Joe: Not that I'm the shallow type, but I was turned off by this game for a couple of superficial reasons. Strike one is the cutesy anime characters in the gym. Is this the Naruto workout If so, I'm not the target audience. Strike two (and a painful foul tip at that) is having to listen to the instrumental version of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" during workout sessions. Over. And over. And over. But once my ears cauliflowered over, I found that I was breaking a serious sweat while throwing more punches than Manny Pacquiao. The program offers a good array of cardio boxing exercises, but I can hear my internal doofus alarm going off (or is that Survivor again) as I bounce back and forth to the beat, throwing punches without much feedback as to how good my form is.

The Pro: Hornsby gives a thumbs-up on the actual boxing part: "The trainer's voices are annoyingly cute, but not bad." After trying a few of the balance-board-centric exercises, however, his verdict is more thumb-in-the-eye. In the push-ups exercise, for instance, Hornsby spotted some God-awful technique: "The way the animated character was demonstrating push-ups, it would put too much strain on the lower back. If someone followed that form, it'd be a bad workout and could hurt you in the end. That form should be way better. Notice how the character drops back a little during the push--the back was arching at the end of the movement. You're supposed to go straight down and straight up. The form should be correct on the animations; otherwise, the program misses the point. If form isn't dead-on, that's major points off, because you're teaching something wrong. The biggest problem here is that your [virtual] trainer--or at least the model that you're following on-screen is doing the workout wrong."