Wii technology, with balance board and remote sensor, seems to offer an exciting new way to learn Pilates and refine ones training. But the new Wii Pilates workout program with Daisy Fuentes fails to realize that potential.
From 5 minutes of running in place, barefoot on a hard surface; to poor exercise demonstrations; and an irrelevant emphasis on things like exercise timing, changing scenery, and inexplicably long rest periods; this semi-Pilates experience leaves a lot to be desired.
- Wii Pilates gives you lots of options on how to experience the Pilates workout
- Exercise instructions are very basic, but sufficient
- The overall presentation is organized and attractive
- The exercises are not demonstrated with good form
- The game tracks your exact timing on exercises - something practically irrelevant
- The exercises are odd choices, in an odd order, and modified haphazardly
- The wii board and remote offer nothing in terms of improving peformance of Pilates exercises
- A slightly interactive Pilates workout with option to use the Wii balance board and remote
- Teaches 10 exercises in a separate session from the workout
- Offers several workout options at beg. int. and adv. levels
- Exercise instructions are in a section separate from the workout
- Lets you choose your workout scenery, from tropical gardens to indoors at a spa
- Exercises are demonstrated by an animation of Daisy Fuentes
- Typical retail price: $29.99
Trying Daisy Fuentes Wii Pilates was my first exposure to the Wii board and remote sensor interactive technology. From what I had heard, I thought Wii might be a great workout and teaching tool for Pilates. Someday, it might be.
As it turns out, you never even get on the balance board and the program doesn't track how you are using your body at all -- something so important in Pilates. Actually the program is fixated making sure that you move in time with the animation on the screen (is that important?). I expected a lot more from the balance board and remote. For example, using the sensor technology to reflect important aspects of Pilates movement, like pelvic or upper body stability, would be amazingly helpful.
You can choose a short workout or a longer "classic" workout, but neither will give you a real taste of the depth of Pilates mat work. Of the 10 exercises offered, most are strangely modified, like Pilates neck pull (usually an advanced exercise) made unrecognizable; or done improperly, like an extreme straddle stretch done repeatedly with poor leg and hip alignment. There is no real progressing the exercises in levels either. Advancing merely means more repetitions.
Daisy Fuentes trained with Mari Winsor, and was a spokesperson for Winsor Pilates. Here she appears as a kind of hostess. The exercises and workouts are demonstrated by an animation of Daisy. An animation so slim, long-limbed, and buxom I wondered what the point was. But more importantly, an animation so bow legged it is impossible to see good leg alignment (not that there is attention that anyway); so inflexible in the mid and low spine it misses important spinal articulations, and so hyper-flexible in other ways it encourages unsafe movement.
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