Adrian Peterson, superstar running back for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, suffered a torn ACL injury in last December, near the end of the regular season. As part of Peterson’s rehab regiment, he played Wii Fit and other games that are specially designed to regain strength and balance.
As you can see in this video on the Viking’s official website, Peterson uses a leg press machine to guide an on-screen icon through a maze of boxes in one game, while doing the same in another game to dodge falling balls. The video, appropriately called “Peterson’s Rehab Arcade,” shows the exercise machine he uses to strengthen his knee while providing him with visuals of minigames ranging from basic side-scroller to top-down-scroller, rather than the agonizing pain to focus on. With the high-powered training programs that most football players are accustomed to, it’s very interesting to see a football player include games such as these as part of their rehabilitation, and to see the process actually working.
It’s somewhat poetic that one of Peterson teammates is Chris Kluwe (@ChrisWarcraft on Twitter), an avid gamer, and that Peterson was introduced to Magic: the Gathering by Kluwe last year. I dare any of you to call their hobbies geeky or nerdy…well… I will, only because I take part in them too. And they’re fun!
[Thanks Vikings.com]
