Some People Sore From Wii Controller

Posted on November 27, 2006

The Wall Street Journal reports that that people are getting sore from energetic use of the exciting new Wii controller. There are some overuse injuries as well as people using muscles they may not typically use.

But as players spend more time with the Wii, some are noticing that hours waving the game's controller around can add up to fairly intense exertion -- resulting in aches and pains common in more familiar forms of exercise. They're reporting aching backs, sore shoulders -- even something some have dubbed "Wii elbow."

"It's harder than playing basketball," says Kaitlin Franke, a 12-year-old from Louisville, Ky. She has been camped out in front of her family's TV, fine-tuning her bowling motion and practicing boxing footwork in two of the Wii's games. Almost immediately, she says, her right arm started to feel numb.

In Rochester, Minn., Jeremy Scherer and his wife spent three hours playing tennis and bowling, two of the games included with the Wii. Mr. Scherer says he managed to improve his scores -- at the cost of shoulders and back that were still aching the next day. "I was using muscles I hadn't used in a while," says Mr. Scherer, a computer programmer who describes himself as "not very active."

The same WSJ article also says injuries are occuring from people moving the controller during a game and hitting something or someone.
Another hazard: collisions. All those flailing arms can sometimes inadvertently smack into lamps, furniture and even competing players. IGN.com, a popular site that reviews videogames, said one player testing the Wii lost her grip and sent the controller flying into a wall. Blaine Stuart of Rochester, N.Y., mistakenly whacked his fianc�e, Shelly Haefele, while playing tennis and also accidentally hit his dog while bowling.
An Endgadget post says a person broke a tv set when the Wiimote strap broke and went flying into the tv. Then there are the PopSci folks who seem to have broken their Wii by trying to disassemble it.

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