Features

- Includes raised stepper for Wii Balance Board, yoga mat and pedometer.

With the explosion of fitness games on the Wii comes the inevitable deluge of accessory packs and game add-ons. I find the majority of these are attempt to make a cash grab of the Wii fitness craze. They usually offer little value or enhancement to the game or genre they target. With a raised stepper for the Wii Balance board, yoga mat, and pedometer, how does Thrustmaster’s latest accessory pack, the Aerobic Pack, stack up? Read on to find out.

Frequent readers should know that I am just a bit of a fitness game enthusiast with the EA Active series being my game of choice. Since I think it is the best fitness game available it was naturally the one I chose to review this product with. The aerobics pack comes with a raised step for the Wii Balance Board, a pedometer, and a yoga mat. I will save you from any further review about the yoga mat and just say that it works, it is nice to have, and is a nice shade of Xbox green, something that I find humorous.

The raised stepper is well constructed and needs no assembly out of the box. It expands automatically to fit the diameter of the Wii Balance Board. Using it during step exercises definitely added extra intensity to my workout as it has about 5 inches of vertical step by my estimate. This increase in intensity, while good, was offset by what I felt was a risk of tipping during intense step exercises. I worry about the increased risk of injury if you were to hit the edge of the board during more intense exercises. Also, the stepper is only one height as there is no option for adjustment. The stepper really only applies to certain exercises too. There were several exercises in EA Active where it really offered additional intensity but again, it really is aimed at one type of exercise. I guess I could use it for lunge exercises but I chose not to.

Out of the box I really liked the idea of a pedometer. Unfortunately, pedometers are really only good at measuring steps, or the impact of a step or something alike, so for exercises where you are working your upper body or not taking steps it becomes largely useless. I used it mainly for counting calories burned and even compared it to the EA Active’s in-game calorie counter. Using exercises that focused on steps the pedometer was not even close. An obstacle course that took me several minutes to complete burned nearly 90 calories using the in-game counter while the pedometer showed less than 20. Where I did find value in the pedometer was tracking calories away from the game. Wearing it the rest of the day can give me a better idea of total calories burned throughout the day. I’m not sure I trust its accuracy at this point though, but it is better than nothing even if seems to err on the low side.

The Thurstmaster Aerobics Pack is a decent set of accessories with a good build quality. On a more negative side, I do worry about a risk of injury through tipping when using the stepper. As well the pedometer doesn’t appear to be all that accurate and wasn’t something I chose to use during workouts although I found value using it during other daily activities though. At the end of the day I just didn’t find the overall package all that useful while working out but you just never know, you may see it a different way than me.

www.thrustmaster.com