I saw this commercial on TV the other night, and nearly gave myself whiplash shaking my head in disbelief. In fact, I had to go online to check it out, just to convince myself I hadn’t dreamt the whole thing up.
And it turns out it was real. It’s called the Wii Fit, a new product from Nintendo that is more or less a video game combined with a fitness routine. It looks a white pad — a super-fancy bathroom scale — that can read your movements and translate them onto the TV screen where you see yourself doing anything from yoga and snowboarding to strength training and, I don’t know, strutting around with your virtual muscles. I assume you can say things to virtual exercise babes like, “Hey, pretty mama, want see my serratus magnus?” (I have no idea what muscle that is, but if I had a virtual self with virtual exercise babes, I would definitely say it.)
The Wii Fit essentially brings the world of video games together with exercise, which is kind of scary considering that video games have more or less killed exercise for so many kids.
Now, let me stop for a minute: Some of it is kind of cool. The technology is pretty far out — this little device, with the help of your Nintendo, can help improve your posture while you exercise or keep track of your progress. It knows what you’re doing, and can help you do it better. That’s amazing, and much cheaper than a personal trainer who is just going to look down on you and call you a “detestable monkey” when you try to skip out on a few reps. In a world where people need to exercise more and get into better shape, anything that helps do that is a good thing.
But, it also seems like a step down the slippery slope to virtual exercise — where you won’t have to do the real thing because the computer does it for you. Just sit back and relax, then watch “your self” exercise on TV while you enjoy a frosty beverage and a bag of cheese puffs. Why not take the exercise out of exercise?
Sure, we’re not there yet, but it’s coming. And that to me is scary. I can’t fathom it. Can’t even quite understand stepping up to a television to exercise. What happened to going outside? How come people don’t go outdoors and exercise anymore? What joy is there inside? Nothing but stale air conditioning air with no chance to get stung by bees or carried off by ants. Not a car that can hit you. No oppressive Florida heat that will melt your poly-blend shorts to your legs or suck every ounce of water from your body like a super-charged vacuum.
How can you possibly get properly injured indoors in front of the TV? You can’t. A virtual doctor would probably fix you up on the spot.
Is that exercise — clean and sterile? My greatest memories as a kid were playing soccer on fields that looked like a monster truck rally had just ended. And on those sandy tracks of scrub brush, covered with vast patches of sandspurs, you would slide-tackle someone and come up so covered in little quills you looked like a porcupine. That wonderful pain plucking sandspurs out of your unmentionables for days later — can’t be recreated on a TV screen.
And what fun is a machine that tells you how to do an exercise correctly? I was at the gym the other night and spotted a rowing machine. It looked simple enough, so I got on and tried. It turns out it isn’t simple at all and if you don’t know how to use a rowing machine, you have no business getting on one. For, if you do, you will either make a complete ass of yourself (when you topple off backwards) or ensure that you will never have any more children (when the chain you pull gets … well … lets leave it at that.) I managed to do both and it was awesome!
I don’t need a computer to make me look like a fool. I am highly capable of doing that all by myself.