Exercising-While-Gaming is the Future of Exergaming

...and how you can get seriously fit while shooting zombies in the head.

In this post, I’m going to tell you how we’ve gotten the combination of video games and exercise so wrong for so long, and how we can fix it. If all goes well, I’m going to convince you that you can get fit at home even if you hate exercising, and I’m not going to use the phrase “Wii Fit” except to disparage it. Seriously. I’m going to change your life today.

Also see the two-minute video version: The Call of Duty Workout

Why “Exergaming” Is Broken

Wikipedia defines “exergaming” as “video games that are also a form of exercise”. I define it slightly differently: “crappy video games that are also a crappy form of exercise”. For 10+ years, we’ve heard study after study saying that “playing some game where you jump on a button is almost as good for kids as walking”. But here’s the thing: the whole premise is that video games are fun. Shooting your friends is fun. FIFA 2011 is fun. Jumping on a button is not fun. The other side of the premise is that exercise makes you fit. This is true. Running makes you fit. Lifting makes you fit. Soccer makes you fit. Swaying from side to side on a box does not make you fit. And walking doesn’t make you fit. I mean, it’s better than watching TV, so if those are the choices, stop reading this right now and start walking. But talk about settling for the lowest possible bar...

Really, you may have fond memories of the first 10 minutes you played Wii Fit, but do you know anyone who went from unhealthy to healthy this way, or — even less plausible — anyone who went from healthy to *fit*? You don’t. And don’t be confused by the five people on the Web who say that Wii Fit or Dance Dance Revolution changed their lives and made them super-fit. Three of them are lying to impress girls, one of them is lying to impress guys, and the other one is statistically equivalent to “no one has ever gotten fit playing exergames”.

Let’s do a couple case studies here... this is a Wii Fit:

Now close your eyes, think of the most crazy fit person you can imagine (I’m going with Larry Fitzgerald), and picture him or her standing on this little white box. Eh?

Is this any more plausible than any of the 2am infomercial novelty fitness gadgets? I have both an “Ab Roller” and an “Iron Arms”. They’re both a little silly, but both are way more useful, at $7, than the Wii Fit. Seriously. Why are we BS’ing ourselves about this?

Let’s turn our attention instead to the “high end” of the exergames market: the $3000 bikes you find at the gym that have “games” built in. Like this one:

So many times I’ve thought to myself “I don’t want to go to the gym, but if only I could see a crappy avatar of myself riding slowly through the streets of a forest that’s supposed to be in Italy, I would totally go to the gym”. Seriously... why would I play this game? It’s not even a game! What do I shoot? Where are the fucking dragons?

More recently we’ve seen a wave of accelerometer-based games that do actually encourage slightly more significant body movement, but the ads for these games make it blatantly clear that no one believes in this model. See this woman in the ad for EA Sports Active 2?

Let’s be honest, she’s too busy running and going to gym to play EA Sports Active 2. On the other hand, David Beckham clearly was struggling to stay fit until he discovered that he could wear accelerometers on his arm:

Really? Did he become a worldwide athletic icon by playing a game where you punch the air four times and then take a water break? Or did he get super-ripped because he works out and plays soccer for 10 hours a day?

Why Exer-and-Gaming is the New Exergaming

The problem here is that there’s a huge number of fit people who don’t need video games for exercise motivation. They just like exercise. Every person you’ve ever seen in an ad for running shoes or an ad for fitness video games (e.g., David Beckham) is one of those people.

I’m not one of those people. Statistically speaking, you’re not either. We evolved to sit around as much as possible until we had to run after a boar. If I pumped Megadeth into my headphones and had 15 bottles of Five-Hour-Energy, I would still be bored after 5 minutes of running on a treadmill.

Now... here’s the real secret that every would-be-fitter-than-we-are person should know... exercise isn’t boring if you’re so distracted that you don’t know you’re exercising. You think this isn’t news, because everyone listens to music while they exercise, but let me tell you, this is news. Music is fine, but one in a thousand people are actually so deeply attentive to their music that they’re really distracted. I don’t know why we BS ourselves about this either. I think it’s part of the “it’s hip to be waaay into my music” movement.

On the other hand, video games are fun. I’m not even a gamer. I’ve never played Halo or World of Warcraft and only barely know what they are. But I totally get that pixels moving around and stuff blowing up is fun. Good video games are enough fun that you can totally forget you’re exercising, even if you don’t love video games, and if by any chance that isn’t enough for you, you can watch video games and watch TV, and you should be good to go.

So on to my recommend setup for everyone who (a) gets that video games are at least “pretty fun”, (b) thinks that exercise is boring, and (c) wants to exercise.

Building Your Exer-Cave

This is a snapshot of my garage exer-cave, where everything is carefully crafted to deliver an instant-access, absurdly-distracting exercise experience at Craig’s List prices. I’ll start out by saying that this is the most complicated (albeit low-cost) version, which suits my toddler-like attention span by providing ~14 different entertainment options, complicated further by the need to keep everything silent outside of my headphones due to baby-sleeping-ness. If you only want to watch TV and play XBOX, and you have zero babies sleeping within earshot, there’s no need for the complicated version.

Here are some of the highlights:

1. A recumbent exercise bike.
   
   IMO the recumbent bike is key, since you can work out at full steam, on the order of 1000 calories an hour (we’re not f’ing around here and taking a leisurely stroll, we’re working out), and still keep your upper body sufficiently still to play games. I am personally unable to do this on an upright bike or an elliptical, etc., at least not at maximum exertion. Ergo I’m partial to the recumbent bike. If you’re new to the gaming workout, get a bike on Craig’s List and spend as little as possible. I.e., don’t convince yourself that you need to drop $1000 on fitness equipment, since you won’t, and we’re done before we get started if the exer-cave costs more than a gym membership. A good rule is “buy shitty, and when you break the pedals off, it’s time to upgrade”. I’m not kidding, you’ll physically break the frame of a $50 Craig’s List bike pretty quickly if you get serious, but IMO that’s the way to start, and then you’ll be in a better position to invest carefully in a more serious bike.


2. A crappy monitor
   
   ...on which to play video games. Keeping cost down here is also key, since if you require a 55” plasma TV and a construction crew when you’re building your exer-cave, you won’t really get around to it. CRT monitors are all but free now. In fact if you live anywhere with a lively Craig’s List, they’re literally free.


3. A crappy TV (this one is 15” and was also free)
   
   ...on which to watch TV, either when something awesome is on that is itself a sufficient distraction (read: football) or when you want the double-distraction-power of TV and video games at the same time.


4. An additional crappy monitor
   
   ...just in case. Sometimes I use this for streaming video while I’m also playing games. At the very least, it makes me feel more like I’m sitting at mission control. I mean, crappy monitors or not, that’s a whole lot of monitor-age in that picture. Folks who are Netflix-inclined will find the additional crappy monitor extra-useful.


5. A DVR
   
   ...for the non-Netflix-inclined and/or the heavily ESPN-inclined. Mine is filled with enough football to get me from Saturday through about Wednesday, when I may have to fill one exercise session with an episode of House before football starts up again on Thursday.


6. “Central command station”
   
   This is where I keep audio stuff and game controllers, within easy reach of the bike. More on this later. If you (a) don’t have kids (and thus can put the TV at whatever volume you want even at night) and (b) aren’t using a PC at all (so you don’t need a keyboard), just put your remote control and your XBOX controller near your bike and you’re fine.


7. Games, and devices on which to play them
   
   A computer that is sufficiently badass to play all but the most modern games now costs about $150 on Craig’s List. An XBOX 360 costs about $100 on eBay. Either by itself lifetime of gaming. I used to use the PC but haven’t touched it since I discovered XBOX (about 7 years after the rest of the world discovered XBOX). IMO the PC is not necessary unless it’s your DVR. XBOX basically has you covered for your while-you-exercise game console. It turns out that if you’re not playing games for six hours a day, a game lasts a long time. If you never buy a game, and just play free trial games on XBOX Live, you can never spend another dollar on games and be good to go for life. Or you can spend $10 once a month on a used game. Either way, game selection is an important part of getting the exer-cave right. More on games later.


8. Five-hour energy
   
   Caffeine planning is a critical part of exercise IMO. I typically only hit the 5HE before daytime workouts, usually on the weekend, which lets me push a little harder, and maybe do 1500 calories in a day instead of 1000. During the week it’s just a cup of tea because I’m working out at night. Do what works for you, but no matter what you think about caffeine, if it’s the difference between pushing through a little early-workout lethargy and not exercising at all, it’s good for you (provided you protect your sleep). This whole post, remember, starts from the supposition that we don’t intrinsically like exercising and can admit to needing some digital and/or chemical support.

Thoughts on Exercise-Friendly Games

Choosing the right games to keep you engaged is critical, and this is often not the same as just picking games that you think are awesome.

If you’re playing games on a PC, for example, there’s a difference between “you can play this game with a gamepad” and “you can really play this game with a gamepad without having a crappy experience and/or having to reach for the keyboard every 30 seconds”. There are a zillion ways to map your gamepad to the mouse or to keyboard buttons to play games that don’t have gamepad support, but IMO if you have to do this, you will have a terrible gaming experience. Not worth it.

Even if you’re playing games on a console, some games work better than others. In particular, if you are a gamer, you may find it frustrating to play games that you’re used to being awesome at, since no matter how you look at it, you will not be as awesome when you’re pedaling hard. And more generally, games that are super-fast (e.g. Call-of-Duty-esque first-person-shooters) are going to be a bit more frustrating than slower games. I’d say you should count on having about 85% of the controller dexterity you’d have if you weren’t pedaling.

So with those things in mind, here are some games I’ve found to be optimal for playing while exercising:

1. Portal, Portal Prelude, and Portal 2 ...are basically perfect for this scenario, on PC or on XBOX. Mentally engaging, with all the visual stimulation of high-powered modern games, and relatively fast-paced, but not so fast that you can’t look away for a second while you’re out of breath, and not so fast that it really matters that your dexterity is limited. PC gamepad support is excellent. Don’t overlook the fan-made Portal Prelude either; it’s pretty fantastic, and every game that gives you 10 hours of gameplay could easily be a couple weeks of serious exercise.
2. ”Stealth action” games ...also work perfectly, for the same reasons: sufficiently entertaining and exciting to do the job of distracting you, but not so fast-paced that you care that you’re not the world champion. I also find that the adrenaline of exercise actually heightens the tension that’s delivered by good games in this category. Games that worked really well for me here are Resident Evil (all five of them) and Bioshock (1 and 2). I played the Resident Evil games on PC, and gamepad support was excellent.
3. Old-school Nintendo and Super Nintendo games ...are fantastic for this scenario, if you’re old enough to think they’re fun (the kids these days… with all their 14-button controllers and their HD graphics…). Played on an old console, played via Flash, played via emulator, played however you want to play them, they totally work, because games were simpler then, and if you knock 15% off of the cognitive and physical dexterity you need to play a modern game, you’re still waaaay ahead of what you need to play a game from 1988. My go-to games are Baseball Stars for the NES and Tetris Attack for SNES, but almost anything that was popular circa 1990 is a great way to spend a few minutes here and there while biking.

Thoughts on Routines and Schedules

One of the most significant dangers of the get-fit-while-you-play approach is forgetting to actually get fit while you’re playing. I.e., moving the pedals around for 30 minutes is not necessarily equivalent to 30 minutes of exercise. So you’ll see I’ve primarily referred to workouts in terms of calories so far... this does not mean that I think the calorie reporting on most fitness equipment is particularly accurate. It’s not. But it is consistent, so if you peg your workout to calories, it becomes a little harder to “cheat”, i.e. to let yourself slack off because you’re paying attention to Halo. Once you get used to this, you can easily start checking on yourself every 15 minutes or so to make sure you’re in the ballpark. “Ballpark” should leave you feeling like you’re covered in sweat and unable to go much further when you’re done. That’s what working out feels like. So if you’re not there, ask whether the hour you just spent on the bike playing Halo felt more like working out or like playing Halo.

Another approach I use during football season and during the NHL playoffs is to tie my workout to the game clock, typically one half of football with fast-forwarding allowed only for timeouts and commercials, which is typically around 45-55 minutes (then I’ll usually round up to an hour with some of the “short and lightweight” games I mention above). During the NHL playoffs, I usually do the first 2 periods, which ends up being around the same amount of time. If you’re a sports fan, tying your workout to watching sports lets you double-up on the adrenaline, and you can very quickly develop a feeling of “as long as they’re running full-speed, I’m running full-speed”.

More generally, for TV fans (sports or otherwise), using TV to make your workout an event to which you really look forward is a huge motivator. So I schedule my workouts around games I really want to see: Saturday night I’ll hit the best college games of the day, Sunday and Monday I’ll work out to NFL games, and Tuesday is always my rest day during football season. If American Idol is more your style, pin your workout to American Idol. Whatever gets you psyched up. Although I loves me some SportsCenter, for example, I never work out to SportsCenter, because anything that’s on 25 times a day is not an “event”. I similarly avoid low-energy TV, even if I’m into it: this includes dramatic (but slow) movies, for example. Also it is slightly harder to hear quiet dialogue while exercising, unless you have $3000 equipment, so super-subtle, dialogue-driven content is often not the best choice.

The last note I’ll add on routines: do consider the ergonomics of whatever you’re doing. Put the TV/monitor somewhere that’s comfortable for your neck, and if you sit at a desk all day, I recommend keeping workouts on the recumbent bike to no more than 30 minutes. This is why I split my workouts about 50/50 across an elliptical (while I watch TV) and a bike (while I play games): aside from adding that much variety, it breaks it up a bit ergonomically. I seriously f’d up my neck a while back and probably made it worse by sitting on the exercise bike for an hour a day with the TV always off to the same side. Lesson learned.

Thoughts on Fitness Outside the Exer-Cave

All of this effort around making the garage workout more fun was less necessary before I had kids; I had more time to play competitive sports, which always provided the distraction I needed from the underlying physical activity. But lots of folks aren’t into competitive sports, and others (like me in 2011) can’t really make it work in their schedules. In other words, when I was a grad student with basically no minute-to-minute responsibility, I didn’t need to play video games because I could play frisbee at 4pm every day. Not so much in the so-called “real world”.

I also have really come to like running, even though a year and a half ago I was pretty sure that running was the precise antithesis of “fun”. This transition happened largely on the same principle as the one that made the exercise bike fun: I discovered the Adam Carolla podcast (I was a fan of the radio show before it got canned), and that was just the spark I needed to make running an event I looked forward to. The routine of mapping a run and picking an episode started me quickly down the path from “I’ll run if and only if I’m running toward the TV to watch hockey” to “I spent the entire week looking forward to my Sunday long run”. I.e., if there’s one big message here, it’s that entertainment and exercise can be coupled pretty deeply, and the real game is finding your combo.

But what I haven’t found a way to do yet is to make lifting fun. I can sort of watch football while lifting, but it’s sufficiently not immersive that I never think “I can’t wait to watch football while I lift”. I.e., I end up having to pay too much attention to lifting. I did P90x for a while, which not surprisingly was awesome for precisely as long as the DVDs themselves were entertaining, which not surprisingly was almost exactly the 12-week duration of the program. Anyone? I believe in balanced conditioning, and I’m all ears if someone can suggest ways to make lifting more palatable. Not kidding: I’m toying with the idea of a heads-up display so I can walk around the garage with my football while I’m lifting. Eh?

Optional: If you have a sleeping baby, need 4 sources of entertainment at once, or are just into complicated audio routing...

Again, if all you need is an XBOX controller sitting by the bike, you can ignore this section, and you can have your exer-cave without all the wires. I have this setup crafted around the fact that I have little and I work out at night, so total noise production needs to be zero. If this is also you, read on…

Back to our central command station... here’s a close-up:

1. A small audio mixer(this is a Behringer XENYX 502)
   
   ...probably $35 new or $20 on Craig’s List. Audio feeds come in from the cable box, the PC, and the XBOX (and I leave a little 1/8” connector hanging out for my iPod). The mixer lets me send them all into my headphones. Being able to pan left and right is also useful for certain workout scenarios… most notably when using workout DVDs (I went through a P90x kick), you can put the DVD on the “cues only” track, pan it to one side, and pan other content (podcast, TV, etc.) to the opposite side, and they really don’t get in the way in your head. Because it turns out that Tony Horton is really funny the first time, but by the second week I totally needed something else going on while I was working out.


2. DI Box:
   
   If you find that running audio from your XBOX/PC and your cable box into the mixer produces a meaningless, horrible buzz, it’s probably because your cable box (like mine) is not properly grounded. No problem; I stuck a DI box with a ground lift switch in between the cable box and the mixer, and all is fixed. Probably $10 in extra cost, since the crappiest DI box on Earth works fine for this purpose.


3. Gamepad connected to the PC
   
   If you like wireless controllers, make sure the charger(s) is right next to the bike also. IMO it’s key to have everything in one place; having to get up to find/charge/put away the game controller breaks the flow and damages the “I’m not exercising or doing anything that’s a pain in the ass, I’m just playing video games” mentality.


4. A tiny keyboard with a built-in touchpad
   
   This is one of the old Motion Computing keyboards that I found on Craig’s List for $5. You can’t really type while riding a bike (believe me, I’ve tried), so the goal is just to have something very compact for occasional button-clicking (to start a game or a Netflix movie or whatever). A big keyboard and/or a mouse quickly makes this too unwieldy even for small operations.


5. Bluetooth headphones
   
   ...paired to a Bluetooth transmitter that’s connected to the output of the mixer (the transmitter is just a little dongle that take a regular headphone input and sends the audio out over Bluetooth). $25 for the transmitter and headphones together as of the time I’m making this post (at Overstock). This was a key innovation in my distraction maximization: I don’t have uncomfortable headphones dangling from my head, and I can ride the bike, get water, stretch, lift, whatever, without ever leaving the awesome world of my football or other audio entertainment. I strongly recommend buying cheap here too. You can spend $100 on Bluetooth headphones, but there’s pretty much consensus that they all wear out due to sweat eventually, and in my experience the $25 last at least as long as the fancy ones. And that’s $25 with transmitter. The only downside of the cheap setup is that it won’t work at 200 feet away, but that’s not the point here.


6. XBOX controller
   
   See (3) re: keeping the charger right next to you as well. Every extra step you insert between you and video games makes exercise that much closer to being a chore again.