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The 1,462 days of January are finally behind us. Chances are, you've probably already canceled that gym membership you signed up for in the midst of a “new year, new me!” haze, and the thought of going for a run when—in much of the northern hemisphere, at least—it's cold, gray, dark, and wet feels masochistic. If that's you, you're not alone, with some research showing around 20 percent of gym-goers starting in January quit within a month, and only a meager 22 percent are still going after a year. But what if you didn't have to go to the gym at all? What if you could work off any festive excesses by playing video games instead?
If you just got excited at the thought of getting jacked while going goblin mode on the couch playing Mario Kart and inhaling nachos, the bad news is that that particular strategy isn't going to work. Sorry. However, I've spent the past couple of months incorporating exercise-focused video games into my regular routine, and the results have been both promising and surprising.
First though, a disclaimer: I am not a qualified personal trainer or nutritionist, and as such you'll have to look elsewhere for advice on specific exercises or diet. The following simply reflects my personal experience using these so-called “exergames,” and you should always seek out the advice of a professional before undertaking anything new. Got that? OK, let’s dive in.
Warming Up
Some background: Surprisingly, it turns out that writing about video games and technology isn't the most active career. Adding to that, after Covid lockdowns, I never quite got back to what had only vaguely passed for regular exercise in the first place—an intermittently used gym membership and semi-regular swim sessions. Almost without realizing, I'd crept up to a weight of 105 kilograms (230 pounds). It wasn't until Spring 2024 that I got the shock necessary to really do anything about it though, when some otherwise routine blood tests came back showing that my hemoglobin A1C count (aka HbA1c, the measure of average blood glucose levels for the previous three months) put me firmly in prediabetic territory.
My immediate reaction: “absolutely not.” Spurred back to the gym, I initially focused on cardio workouts before incorporating more weightlifting sessions. I built up to going three or four times per week, and alongside reapproaching my diet—cutting out snacks, drinking less alcohol, and tracking my daily calorie intake—I managed to shed about 17 kg (37 pounds) by early December 2024, bringing me down to 88 kg (194 pounds). Excellent progress toward an 85-kg (187-pound) target my doctor had advised, but I frustratingly found I'd hit a plateau. The same routine that had gotten me that far didn't seem to be getting me any further.
This is where video games come back in. Years earlier, I'd picked up a copy of Ring Fit Adventure for Nintendo Switch. At the time, it was a curiosity purchase—I love a quirky gaming peripheral and thought its strange Pilates-style ring and JRPG-style turn-based combat would make for an interesting experience. Instead, it had remained boxed and untouched ever since. Now though, I was looking at it sitting on my shelves with a half-thought: “Well, if video games got me into this mess, can they help get me out?”
I decided I should test it out. For a month, I'd incorporate additional workouts with Ring Fit Adventure on the days I didn't use the gym, leaving one day per week with no exercise to recuperate, all while sticking to my diet plan. After that month, I'd weigh in and report back on whether using exergames could really push me off that plateau. Much of this test period took place in December and through the holidays, so spoiler: Neither point quite went to plan—but I still came away with some positive results.
Chasing the Dragon
I went into my first session with Ring Fit Adventure as a bit of a skeptic. I'd half-expected the now five-year-old game to be a gimmick, something like Nintendo Labo but with less cardboard. But 30 minutes later, I was unexpectedly out of breath. The plan had potential.
The game itself is structured like a classic RPG—think a very basic Final Fantasy. The story-driven Adventure Mode finds your customizable avatar character awakening in a strange land before being tricked into releasing Dragaux, an absolutely ripped dragon-man who proceeds to threaten the world with the power of, essentially, toxic masculinity. He's obsessed with working out to the point of damaging everyone and everything around him, and he has also stolen some (dubious) powers from Ring—a talking, well, ring who you'll team up with to track down and defeat Dragaux through positive vibes and a healthy approach to exercise.
Ring, the character, is a stand-in for the actual fitness ring you'll use for most of Ring Fit's exercises. Setup is simple—the Switch’s right Joy-Con controller slides onto it, while the left controller sits in a pouch strapped around your left thigh. Between the two, your movement is measured through a range of exercises, all feeding performance data back into the game.
Each level is an on-rails course, which your avatar races through as you jog on the spot in real life. The faster you run, the more "synchronized" you are with Ring, your character's hair catching fire like something out of Dragon Ball Z when fully in sync. Squeezing the ring inward fires out a gust of air, useful for blasting open crates full of collectibles, and vacuums up items if pulled outward. The ring can also be used to help navigate levels—face it downward and squeeze for a jet of air to fly over gaps, for instance. Personally, I've never enjoyed running, either outdoors or on a treadmill—elliptical or rowing machines are my usual cardio go-to—but these quick-reaction gaming elements did make it more enjoyable.
Throughout each course, you'll encounter a variety of enemies, which is where Ring Fit's RPG credentials come into play. Each battle has you perform multiple repetitions (reps) of one of six equipped exercises. These are color-coded—red for arms, blue for legs, yellow for core, and green for yoga moves—and, after recovering one of Ring's stolen powers, correspond to enemy colors, dealing more damage if you match exercise and target hues. Once you've finished your reps, you'll perform an "ab guard,” squeezing the ring into your stomach to form a shield while the enemy counters. Alternate turns until victory, earn some sweet experience points, and unlock more attacks as you level up.
From the off, I was surprised at how intense I was finding some of the exercises. Ring Fit had me doing squats with greater regularity than I'd ever imagined and threw in core moves I'd never considered. Yoga was entirely alien to me, and despite those exercises being slow and focused, they forced me to consider form and stability. Although by this point I was familiar with lifting weights at the gym, the more time I spent with Ring Fit, the more it had me move muscles and muscle groups in ways I was unaccustomed to.
The game also forces you to pace the reps of each exercise differently, which can be unexpectedly challenging. The first half of any set usually demands slower reps and holding a position before releasing, followed by several reps performed at speed. Though almost all exercises rely only on the ring for any resistance—and for many lower-body exercises just tracking movement using the leg sensor—I was feeling the effects on each move's target area almost immediately.
Workout Interrupted
Ring Fit quickly became part of my routine, and play sessions grew longer. I got swept up in the RPG mechanics of it all—the “numbers go up” gains of each level-up satisfying a very particular part of my brain, but chasing down side quests, crafting stat-boosting smoothies (another of Ring's questionable powers), and playing around with "character builds" by tailoring the attack exercises ahead of each course all drew me into the world. That the workouts were getting more intense and my estimated calorie burn of each session was getting higher (Ring Fit Adventure is one of the vanishingly few games to utilize the IR sensor on the right Joy-Con, using it to measure heart rate) was surely working toward the end goal of shaving off that stubborn "plateau weight" too. I was even beginning to notice the first hints of toning in those muscle groups that Ring Fit was hitting that my gym workouts obviously weren't.
However, by about the third week of December, I hit a problem sticking with the experiment as planned: the holidays. Festivities not only saw me eating four separate Christmas dinners over the latter half of the month, they also had me doing a lot of social travel. While the Nintendo Switch is highly portable, the Ring Fit controller isn't. Given that traveling meant skipping six actual gym sessions too, was the whole plan falling apart?
Thankfully it didn't, but the solution I landed on required me to swap out Ring Fit for Fitness Boxing 3, another Switch exergame but one that requires only the Joy-Con controllers. Just as Ring Fit had surprised me with how tiring it was by forcing me to use different muscle groups, this caught me off guard by swapping them around again.
Fitness Boxing 3 is far more cardio intensive than Ring Fit, even on its introductory levels. It guides players—or perhaps "users" is more accurate, as this is more of a pure fitness suite—through courses where you'll punch out a sequence of jabs, thrusts, hooks, and uppercuts, beat-matching them to music, all while constantly springing back and forth on your feet. It feels like a cross between Dance Dance Revolution and Les Mills Bodycombat, and it is exhausting.
However, given there's less "game" here, I found it harder to lose myself in Fitness Boxing 3 than in Ring Fit Adventure. Progress is marked more by accessing new courses and tools to tailor sessions (focusing on attack patterns that better work the core or the shoulders, for instance), unlocking new musical tracks to accompany workouts, or the glory of rising through in-game rankings. That said, its courses are meticulously designed, mirroring moves in standard and southpaw stances for fully rounded workouts. I was definitely getting tougher, more focused sessions here, and I can easily see how it could become a serious and effective supplemental exercise tool with regular use. Most importantly, it meant I was able to continue my gaming workouts on the move.
Cooling Down
So, did all this pay off? Short answer: yes. Despite those aforementioned gluttonous Christmas dinners, my final weigh-in had me down to 85.5 kg (188.5 pounds). It's not a massive drop, but I am off the plateau, although just short of my target weight. I'm notably more toned, and my stomach is the flattest it's been in probably my entire life. Best of all, follow-up blood work has shown I'm no longer in the prediabetic risk category.
The longer answer isn't so simple though. Over the course of the month, I racked up 14 sessions on Ring Fit Adventure and four on Fitness Boxing 3—that's 18 additional workouts for the month, and even though they were of varying intensities, it seems only logical to presume that had an impact. I'm under no illusion that those exergame sessions were solely responsible for shaking that extra weight, though—18 additional gym sessions may well have had a similar impact.
However, where they really helped was forcing me to mix up my workouts, targeting different or seldom-used muscle groups, and challenging me to think, react, and move differently. Plus they were fun. That, in conjunction with the work I was still doing in the gym and, perhaps more importantly, nutritionally, is what helped. The switch—if you'll pardon the pun—from my previously static gym routines to Ring Fit Adventure's dynamic take on Pilates and calisthenics, and then to Fitness Boxing 3's literally punchy body combat, meant my overall exercise routine throughout December and into January was more varied than ever, and it's that variety that most contributed to my positive outcomes.
My biggest takeaway from this (very loosely structured) experiment is that exergames can be valuable tools on a journey to better health but probably won't do much on their own. They're also notably lacking in some areas—neither Ring Fit nor Fitness Boxing 3 have great options for really training chest muscles, for instance. For anyone struggling to get started with fitness though, they're a far more accessible and fun way to kickstart that journey, especially during the bleakest points of the year—and if you're having fun, you're more likely to stick to your efforts and see results.
