With the new generation of home video game software known as exerware, the image of the electronic gamer as a couch potato may gradually be giving way to an image of the player as a mover and a shaker – literally. What may have started as a novelty in the 1998 Japanese arcade game “Dance Dance Revolution” has led to a paradigm shift in the way many home game consoles can be used.

From a fitness perspective, the highly interactive software known as exergames and the new generation of controllers that allow players to dance, shoot a basketball, swing a golf club or throw a wicked hook in boxing seem to be a step in the right direction. That’s especially valid in view of the findings published in a recent issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, in which specialists argue that prolonged periods of sitting are actually detrimental.

But just how good of a workout do exergames actually provide?

That was central question researchers at the University of Wisconsin asked when they tested the Free Run, Island Run, Free Step, Advanced Step, Super Hula Hoop and Rhythm Boxing portions of Nintendo's Wii Fit suite, which were found to be the game's most aerobically challenging activities. The Free Run and Island Run game play portions showed the highest energy expenditures, in which players burned an average of 165 calories in the course of 30 minutes of game time. Rhythm Boxing, Super Hula Hoop, Advanced Step, and Free Step showed, respectively, average calorie burning rates of 114, 111, 108 and 99 calories.

Those numbers represent a "a very, very mild workout" when compared with their real world equivalents, researchers said. So it seems unlikely that exergames pose a real threat to the personal training business.

Instead, a personal trainer might do well to encourage client participation as another form of keeping fit at home, playing alongside their children in exergames. In view of the “growing” problem of childhood obesity, one can easily imagine that some friendly competition in front of the television could go a long way to changing attitudes toward fitness in the real world.

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