Trying a New Work Out

I've fallen completely off the wagon again.  Its been more than 2 weeks since I last ran, and that was for pint night.  First the holiday rush around Thanksgiving through me off so I missed a few days because of that and immediately afterwards I came down with a horrible case of the flu.  Glad my nephews decided to share something with me.  I was knocked down hard.  I spent a day unable to move and barely eating more than a few crackers.  I completely ached all over.  Once I recovered from the flu, my weakened body decided it was time to throw in a sinus infection for good measure.  So yeah that was a good 10 days lost to illness.  On the plus side it did help keep the holiday weight off.

I'm feeling a lot better now, but am hesitant to go back to running.  My leg muscles are all out of whack from spending so much time on my back and my knee has been aching like crazy.  I've been trying to get some stretching in the last couple days and that has helped.  The cold grasp of the recent weather has also kept me indoors.  I don't need to head out into negative wind chills while recovering from a sinus infection.  I don't have a gym membership either so that's out and I didn't feel like pulling the dreadmill out of storage.  I may have found an alternate solution though.  My own "personal trainer".

I managed to score an XBox One on Black Friday and was pleasantly surprised to find one of the built in features was a fitness program.  Its free to use as long as you have a XBox Gold membership and includes all sorts of free workouts, plus more available for purchase.  The application uses the Kinect 2.0 to track your movements and score your workout depending on how good your form is.

The camera has several different images available including heat sensing so it can actually tell if you are activating the correct muscles or not.  The camera can even take your pulse for you.

There are tons of workouts available from Jillian Michaels to P90X to Insanity.  The app keeps track of your fitness scores and lets you compare to others if you like.  There are even achievements you can earn for workouts completed.

This was the boost I needed to get my motivation on track.  The application turns working out into a game with a score and everything.  The workouts are tough too.  I did one of the 10 minute ab workouts and I was dying halfway in.  I know my core needs work, but it made me feel like I've never used the muscles before.  Has anyone else used video games for fitness?  How do you motivate yourself to get back on track after a doldrum?