I've had a great time with the free range cycling but feel like I need a change now - I don't want to just develop
one body area or aspect of fitness. Has this happened for you? I thought I would try the jogging or the Kung Fu
for a while

Funny, I've needed a change so I've been doing less jogging as of late and have started working on Basic Step. I didn't like step at first, but now I am starting to get into it.

I have also been working on Rhythm Parade. I find that it gives me a pretty good all-round workout. It certainly requires quite a bit of concentration.

I have also added a sixteen-minute Yoga workout to 'My programme' and have been doing it everyday. Doesn't burn many calories, but I think I am gaining a new level of control of my muscles.

For something a bit different, I go to Wii Sports Resort and play around with the swords. That certainly gets me to working, especially the one against many option.

There was some stuff on Youtube about Sports Resort and I thought it looked like fun, especially the flying. How
do they do that!!! Maybe for Christmas....

Jogging was good but I couldn't see how to run past the leader and follow a dog at any point, on any jogging option. I must be missing something?

I've tried Rhythm Parade and was possibly the least good at that of anything, but I've been told I have poor coordination.

Yes step is good and for some reason it is popular with the husband, who dislikes the cycling or kung fu, at least as a captive audience

For hints on playing Rhythm Parade well, try the handy guide I wrote for the Wii Fit Forum Wiki, at wiki/index.php/Rhythm_Parade

The essential summary is that you have two things to coordinate: your feet and your hands. It is made harder by the fact that you often cannot see the most obvious sign that you have the feet right - the blue splash around your feet. On the other hand, your hand movements and foot movements should happen together, so you can use the falling icons as a guide to getting the feet in the right timing.

To begin with, however, pick either the feet or the hands, and work on getting them right. While your score will suck mightily if you neglect the feet in favour of refining the hand movements, starting with the hands probably gives you better feedback on how well you are doing (as getting them right will always score something, even if your mis-feet mean you get only "OK" for the hands).

When you are doing well with the hands, tighten up the feet - to a certain extent this will be automatic, but you need to work on that last bit. In the end, however, you need to get the feet so that they follow along on automatic while you concentrate on the hands.

Watch out for your "off" hand mirroring your "dominant" hand. This will cause the Wii to see two-hand movements when you only mean a one-hand movements.

Anyway, give that a try, and post any questions you have here in the forum.

To run past the leader and follow the dog, just speed up and pass the leader. A burst of speed is all it takes.

As for Wii Sports Resort, I like the swords and find them to be a reasonable workout, but the rest really doesn't get me to moving. The plane is fun, but all you do is move the WiiMote around to make it fly.

Have you tried the Rhythm Boxing? I still haven't got around to doing anything much with that, although it does work out the upper body.

The flying in Sports Resort is holding the remote like a paper airplane and zooming around. It's fun for a bit but not a workout and eventually boring to me. The cycling is shaking the remote and nunchuk up a down, swordplay is fun in the one against many mode and gets you up and swinging. I like archery for a test of your steadiness and deadly aim. Wakeboarding was fun but I have no idea why sometimes I get great scores and sometimes I suck. Canoeing is a deadly challenge. It's like you are standing paddling a canoe and really works your arms and upper torso. My daughter and I played it one night until we could barely move our arms the next day (same experience with chicken game in Plus the first time!).

Sports Resort is fun but not a huge workout and you have to have the motion plus attachments for the remotes to play. There was a pack at Christmas with the game and 2 of the motion plus but I haven't seen it since. It's $25 for an extra motion plus here so it makes in an expensive game.

Yes, I was really into the cycling for quite a while but then wanted to get more of a workout for the time I was putting in.

I started doing the Free Step and listened to the radio as I worked out. At first I worked up a sweat but soon the challenge diminished. I then actually moved on to EA Sports More Workouts.

BUT, I found that if you elevate the Wii Balance Board, even a little, you get a more intense workout. I know they make something you can buy for $15. or so, but it looked pretty cheap. I actually made a riser pretty cheaply and now my Wii Balance Board is a 5 inch step.

The sweat pours off of me while I'm stepping. This brought me back to doing some things on Wii. Now I burn about 250 to 300 calories doing a 30 minute Free Step workout.

If anyone is interested, I describe how I made my step platform on my blog - http://www.fit-after-fifty.com/blogit/

cd1

thanks CD1!! During the week I usually do a half hour of free step while watching TV but it really is not much of a challenge any more, and I did not like the looks of the ones that are currently available. I'm going to pick up supplies and make mine in the next day or two!

Erin

If you don't feel like making one, the Riiser is pretty good. I bought one recently and it works very well. It's nice and stable, and folds away to about half its size for then you don't need it.

My riser is an Everlast, it doesn't fold up but it's very stable and has taken a lot of stomping so far with no problems. It has indentations on the top for the feet of the board to sit in and little rubber feet on the bottom to keep it from slipping.