That's Fit

Before I begin, I think it's only fair for me to admit that I'm not a big gamer. I don't mind some of the racing video games, but for the most part, they could all disappear and I would be happy as a clam. My husband, on the other hand is the exact opposite -- he could sit and play a game for hours.

Fortunately, he's in great health and good shape and still manages to come to the gym with me occasionally, so this habit doesn't really hurt him. But it drives me nuts to think about the people who surely miss workouts because they're so involved with their games -- has that ever happened to you, or a loved one?

Today's Fit Gadget provides a solution -- the PCGamerBike requires the player to pedal in order to make his character move. The character could be a person, an airplane, a car, or anything else, and pedaling forward acts as the up arrow while pedaling backward acts as the down arrow.

For racing games, the speed at which you pedal dictates how fast your character moves, so it's possible to really work hard. It's customizable, so if you want to get a hard workout in quickly, you could program it so that you have to pedal extremely fast in order to get your character to move. Or, if you're settling in for a marathon session, you can go at a slower pace. You also have the option to modify the resistance to suit your fitness level.

As an added bonus, the PCGamerBike will automatically log your stats, so by the time you've rescued the princess or kill the bad guy, or whatever it is that you're doing, you'll know your time, average and maximum speed, distance, and calories burned.

The PCGamerBike comes ready to work with hundreds of games on your Windows-based PC, and can be configured to work with pretty much everything. It plugs right into your USB port -- no additional set up is necessary. You can get your own at GameCycles.com for $179 and turn your veg-out video game time into a workout!