Ow - Wii - New Gaming System Can Be Quite a Pain

Jan. 3, 2007 by Eric Browning MPT

If you were lucky enough to track down a Nintendo Wii system this holiday season, no doubt, you, your kid’s, your kid’s friends, or even your neighbors have come over and spent exorbitant amounts of time trying to master a new set of gaming skills with this revolutionary system.

Welcome to the world of interactive gaming where the phrase “couch potato” is a thing of the past.  The new Wii controls known as the “wii-mote” allows a person to move their arms in various motions to control the characters in the games.  Try serving a tennis ball down the line with the whip of an arm, throwing an uppercut into an opponent during a boxing match, hitting a slight draw during a tee shot, or throwing a stealing runner out at second during a baseball game.  All these are made possible with the Wii, and all of these are a potential orthopedic nightmare!

Orthopedic nightmares are not limited just to the Wii system.  Last year my good friend was invited to play in a weekend recreational volleyball tournament against colleagues from work.  In preparation for the event, he picked up some new sports clothes and sunglasses, so that at least he would look cool playing a game he had never played.  The event day came, and in my curiosity I decided to go watch.  By the end of the day I wish I had brought more business cards because what I watched was the birth of a gold mine in orthopedic injuries, especially for me, a physical therapist.  Luckily enough, my friend escaped the barrage of turned ankles, sprained knees and partially dislocated shoulders that had occurred.  The next day however, he couldn’t move.  Every joint and muscle in his body felt like it had taken ten blows from a bat.  I showed sympathy by getting him some ibuprofen and placing a diagnosis on his problem…”weekend warrior syndrome”.

People find themselves in a similar situation as my friend when they start a physiologically demanding task that exceeds their body’s current strength, endurance or flexibility.  Most people figure this out when they attempt working out for the first time in months, years, or ever, and find that they get sore the next day.  This is typically a muscle soreness that resolves in a couple of days.  The treadmill, or most gym equipment allows for controlled resisted movements that minimize trauma.  The Wii system provides no protection, and the movements are like those that trained athletes perform.  In the game, the harder your whip your arm, the faster the baseball travels, the harder you hit your forehand in tennis.  All of this becomes increasingly strenuous on not just  the muscles alone, but the joints.  Pain lasting more than a couple of days may be the start of something more chronic like shoulder impingement, carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow, even nerve entrapment. 

Moderation please

Not long ago I tried out the ever popular Dance Dance Revolution game for the XBOX which allows a person to follow cues on the screen during a song and dance to the beat for points.  The game is aerobic and is hard on the feet and body, partly because you play in your socks, and partly because it requires a great deal of coordination.  I played the game twice a day for four days, each session lasting about an hour.  By the fifth day, I almost had to call into work because my back was so sore.  Clearly I had become a victim of rejecting my own advice.  The advice I give my patients is to let their bodies adjust to the new activity over periods of days or weeks, progressing in a reasonable manner from easy amounts of stretching, resistance training, or endurance activity to harder bouts as the body allows.  Typically a person should not experience anything more than a mild soreness from a new activity.  This usually comes on the next day and lasts no longer than two to three days.  Anything out of this range means you over did it.

Keys to moderation include

-Stretch before you play.  You see the professionals doing it.  If you’re going to try to play like one, at least you should act like one. 

-Don’t try to conquer the game the first day you have it.  If you have never played tennis before, don’t attempt to play for an hour the first few times you pick up your wii-mote.  Try playing half or even a quarter of that time and let your body adjust.

-Play with others and take turns so that your body gets a rest.

-Remember that most of you are not professional baseball, tennis, golfers or boxers, so don’t make your body act like it is.  Your boss is not going to like the excuse that you hurt yourself playing video games as a reason for not coming into work.

I am thoroughly excited about the new wave of gaming experiences provided by Nintendo and others.  It’s about time we exercise more than just our thumbs and index fingers while we play.  My advice to you is to hold tightly onto the wii-mote while you’re flinging your body around, but remember that a broken wii-mote is better and less expensive than a broken body.