Exercise and physical fitness comes in all shapes and sizes.

Two Collin College professors think it might come in the form of two white video game controllers and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Wes Adams and Tony Airhart, professors of physical education, have started a research project concerning the exercise capabilities of the Nintendo Wii.

For those who don’t know, the Wii is a gaming console unlike any other. It has the usual console that plugs into the TV and the games. But the “controls” include a piece with a toggle switch (like your Atari 2600) and a connecting “wand.” Both are wireless.

Taking gaming to a different level, the player uses the toggle and wand to pantomime a tennis swing while playing the tennis game. Or rolling a bowling ball down the slick alley with the same motion you would at Don Carter’s. Playing John Madden Football requires a hiking motion to get the ball to the quarterback and a throwing motion with wand in hand to complete a pass. Want to box? Prepare to sweat. It requires the thrusting of one’s arms to land a punch and another boxing game allows you to juke, bob and weave.

Adams and Airhart suspect these games are so interactive that they are conducive to a workout – raising the heart rate enough to burn fat.

So, both professors are seeking students or anyone else who wants to subject themselves to grueling workouts with Mario and Sonic to sign up for a 10-week program, which would require playing a game for 30 minutes (including warm-up and cool-down) and registering his or her heart rate and other physical benchmarks for the sake of understanding how the Wii could change the way we see exercise.

“What I would anticipate is, if they include this in with other forms of activity of course, they’ll see weight loss,” Adams said. “The main reason I wanted to study the Wii is to find an alternate means of exercise mainly for those who are sedentary or obese. You see gamers who may not be comfortable coming into a gym. This will give them an alternate means of exercise so they’ll not be so sedentary.”

Other such research projects have been done and published about. One such project studied individuals in an exercise program that included the Wii and a healthy diet. Another tested caloric expenditure in children playing the Wii.

Adams and Airheart want to look at adults and how it affects their caloric expenditure testing heart rate, body composition and weight loss. Adams foresees the Wii and consoles like it to change the epidemic of obesity – childhood and adult – in America.

But they note that the Wii is not a “magic pill.” Healthy living involves exercise and a healthy diet – the latter both professors can not control in their test subjects. But Airheart said incorporating the Wii into a workout program is about lifestyle change. 

“Once they become active, people sometimes have a lifestyle change. You’re going to learn some skill. Like the bowling and tennis, I had to use my tennis skills even though it was a game and not real,” Airhart said. “That was our main idea to find another avenue of exercise. With time it will improve.”

The professors think that if people get a taste of weight loss and healthy living through a Wii workout, it will translate into incorporating a healthy diet and regular exercise routine outside, but including, Dance Dance Revolution.

“Once you teach your body being activity, even if it’s Wii, your body is getting used to it. It’s addictive. The more energy you use, the more you create, you’ll do more and more. I think they’ll become active through playing the Wii and pretty soon they’re going to be doing this instead of sitting down and turning on the TV,” Airhart said.

“Hopefully, they’ll see some results and relate those results to activity and not the Wii," Adams said. “We don’t have a lot of control over their nutrition, but we’ll teach that. When you increase your activity level you increase your body’s need for calories and you increase what you eat. That’s the goal – the active lifestyle, nutrition, an overhaul of your life. You adopt the little changes.”

For more information or to participate in the ongoing program, contact Adams at wadams@ccccd.edu or Airhart at tairhart@ccccd.edu.