Wii Sports Vs. Real Sports: Exercise Experts Calculate Calorie-Burning

MTV Multiplayer posted a great blog on how many calories can be burned playing the game Wii Sports which is included with every Nintendo Wii.  I love gaming, and love having the excuse of being able to say how many calories I’m burning during my gamign sessions.  Anyway, read on!  I found it interesting!  You can find the original post here.

You’d think it was the year 2006 around here. Why else would I post the results of an exercise study for Wii launch game “Wii Sports“?

Good reason: While it seems like the folks at the American Council on Exercise are a little behind in releasing results of a “Wii Sports” fitness study in 2008, they’ve taken the time to present research that contains some useful data.

At long last we can now know how, in terms of calories burned, “Wii Sports” boxing compares to real boxing, “Wii Sports” tennis compares to real tennis, and so on.

The study reveals the following:

Compared to golfing at a driving range (3.9 calories per minute), playing Wii Golf burned 0.8 calories less per minute. Actual bowling burns nearly twice as much (7.2 calories per minute) as Wii Bowling, while baseball burns 7.3 calories per minute and Wii Baseball burns 2.8 calories per minute less. Similarly, Wii Tennis burns 2.8 calories per minute less than the actual game (8.1 calories per minute). Finally, Wii Boxing burns about 3.0 calories per minute less than conventional sparring at 10.2 calories per minute.

Now I don’t know how much exercise anyone expects to get when they go to a bowling alley, but this study’s report that “Wii Sports” bowling will give you only half the workout of the real thing should cancel anyone’s plans to drop weight via a Wii Bowling Workout.

Wait. No one was doing that?

(It should be noted that the people who conducted the study for the ACE at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse Exercise and Health Program did not allow their “Wii Sports” test subjects to just flick their wrists. They made them hop around like they were playing real sports).

A report of the full study can be found at this PDF.

6 responses to “Wii Sports Vs. Real Sports: Exercise Experts Calculate Calorie-Burning”

  1. […] the rest of the post here: Wii Sports Vs. Real Sports: Exercise Experts Calculate Calorie-Burning Categories : […]

  2. Well yeah, some of those sports involve running when playing the actual thing (baseball, tennis) and with bowling you have a 10-16 pound ball to give you resistance and all. But anyone who's ever played just 2 Wii boxing matches (consecutively!) can tell you that it's quite a work out. As my 8-year old niece put it, "This game is too tiring!" 🙂

  3. I agree. Wii Boxing is a killer. My fave is tennis…when I first started playing I woke up sore for two days straight.

  4. Number of times I go out to play bowling in a real bowling alley: once or twice a year.
    Number of times I can play bowling on wii sports: everyday any time I want in the *privacy* of my home… and no waiting for turns or for the ball to roll back.

    yeah I think I'll burn more on the wii.

    I sat out on gym in school growing up. The few times I played baseball confirmed my decision: I'd wait for my turn at bat, inevitably strike out and wait until the inning was over (I'd be in the outfield just standing there) until it was my turn to strike out again. What a totally frustrating experience. Especially since you are around other people who were good at it. So of course I gave up on sports and of course I was heavy as a kid.

    Now that I have the wii, I can just practice hitting home runs over and over and I'm now pretty good at it…wish I had this when I was a kid.
    So for someone to say "oh real baseball is better for weight loss" I think really misses the point. Most people who need to lose weight won't play real baseball since they don't have the skills.

    As for boxing, wii is even more effective against the real competition because who wants to get punched in the head over and over?

  5. Hey i got my wii about 30 days ago i have played my wii at least 25 of those days. I LOVE IT. I have danceing with the stars it is great me and my daughter play it together. she loves it also. It's the most exercise i have had all summer. It's a great motivater.

  6. hmm kind of funny that it dose not work so well for some, We just recived the Wii for as a family Gift for Christmas – I did not start playing with it untill a week ago… odd that Ive lost 8 lbs and only put in about 30 to 45 minutes a day….

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