Xbox Fitness lets Kinect monitor your pulse, muscles and energy

Not into pumping iron in your living room? Maybe this upcoming app will make you reconsider. Xbox Fitness is an app for the Xbox One that wants to get you off your coach. It brings out most of what the Xbox One has to offer as a next-gen home entertainment system. Some of these features include muscle mapping, heart rate monitoring and an energy meter– all done through Kinect.

Through Xbox Fitness, the Xbox One will introduce celebrity fitness trainers using a subscription-based platform. It’s an online service that will feature a library of fitness videos for all shapes and sizes.

These personalized videos will range from 10 to 60 minutes that promise to cover some of the most well-known experts the fitness industry has to offer. Like you’d imagine, there are also some social features, challenges and awards to keep you motivated.

Kinect will be and integrated feature of the Xbox One and will be able to identify and monitor your muscles and physical performance. The console can measure your heart rate and “detect the micro-fluctuations in your skin optically to read your heart rate”. Cool, right?

According to Xbox, some other really cool features of the app is the fact that it will measure the power, force and transfer of weight in your body. Additionally, Xbox Fitness will track the quality of your performance by measuring your balance, tempo and form. This is all done via the Kinect. No wearable tech needed.

US-based fitness company Insanity’s Shaun T says, “What makes Xbox Fitness so innovative is the feedback it gives you. The Kinect sensor can evaluate your form, tell how high you’re jumping, how hard you’re punching and even read your heart rate. It’s that little missing piece of validation that hasn’t been possible for home fitness products before. Xbox Fitness completes the puzzle.”

Just in time to catch your New Year’s resolution, it Xbox Fitness will be available this December. The service will also be free with Xbox Live Gold memberships through December 2014. No pricing has been made clear yet.