Wii Fit gets a tryout

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Nintendo’s newest product, Wii Fit ($90), is available for purchase Wednesday. It won’t replace a health club, a personal trainer or hopping on a treadmill or an elliptical crosstrainer, but it may make a dent in the home-fitness market. It is fun, easy to use and can be brutally honest.

When you first step onto the Wii Balance Board, a sturdy platform that comes with the system, it asks for your age and height and figures out your body mass index (BMI). Sensors in the board detect a user’s weight and balancing skills, too, because you are given a balance assessment. With my 4- and 7-year-olds watching and my wife nearby, Fit told me I was overweight (maybe!) and that my Wii Fit age was 57 (I’m really 54).

After the balance assessment (I didn’t do so well), it asked, ‘’Do you find yourself tripping often?’’ and that got my family laughing hysterically.

Then my wife (former gymnast, former collegiate diver) got on. Her Wii Fit age was . . . well it was one year younger than she really is, but she flunked the balance test, too, so there!

Once you get past the assessment, you can pick a trainer -- male or female (I took female) -- and then choose from aerobics, strength training, yoga or balance. I did aerobics (step aerobics) and strength training (push ups with side plank) and did OK. My 7-year-old son loved doing the hula hoop activity.

Each segment (there are more than 40) is only about three to five minutes -- not enough to break a sweat in a serious gym rat, but okay for the person who wants to have some fun and start an exercise regimen.

--Gary Metzker