RIP Xbox Fitness (Challenge)

Well, the Xbox Fitness Challenge is over.

Not entirely. In a bizarre decision from Microsoft, despite the official “sunset” date being on June 30, 2017, the Xbox Fitness team has discontinued two of its oldest, most varied and most substantive workout routines over 6 months early: Mossa and 10 Minute Solution. Together, they represent a total of 33 different routines containing workouts ranging from low-impact dance moves to weight-lifting; from Pilates to MMA; from yoga to kickboxing. The sheer number of workouts, and their workout challenges, that are now unavailable makes the already daunting task of getting to 100 cards full of loyalty stamps and 5,000 workout stars even more difficult now. I’ll likely continue to play a few times a month to knock out some of the challenges remaining in the workouts still available, but for all intents and purposes, it is over.

I’m going to miss this.

It’s a little sad. According to True Achievements, I’ve spent over 131 hours exercising with Xbox Fitness. That’s over 5 days of punches, kicks, squats and jumps. I spent a lot of that time with the Mossa Fight crew, specifically Tiago, Mike and Megan. For awhile, those half-hour workouts were my go-to exercise, and they could get intense. That trio almost felt like my own personal trainers, constantly pushing me and motivating me to do better. I’m going to miss those guys (and girl).

So now that the challenge is over, how did I do? It’s pretty hard to accurately assess what was intended to be an 8-month regimen after only a month and a half, but I was largely pleased with my progress. I felt like I was on track to get to card 100, and while Andrew had started making some gains on me, I still had a 1.5 million FP lead at the end. I’m particularly proud of managing to get to card 50 before December 15th, a goal that I had mentioned in my Month 2 post and which required a strong push in the last few days.

What’s next? I’m not sure yet, but I do have some P90x3 DVDs that I’ve been meaning to get back to. Stay tuned…

 

 

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Paul Essen
Founder and Chief Discourse Officer at Rampant Discourse
Proud geek. Trekkie. Browncoat. Entil'Zha. First human spectre. Hokie. Black belt. Invests Foolishly. Loves games of all types and never has enough time to play as many as he wants. Libertarian who looks forward to the day he votes for a winning presidential candidate. Father to two beautiful daughters.

This article has 5 Comments

  1. You can do my new routine with me, I just started it this week.

    Day 1: Bench Press
    Day 2: Squats
    Day 3: Pullups and One Arm Dumbbell Rows
    Day 4: Deadlifts
    Day 5: Inclined Bench
    Day 6: Curls and shrugs
    Day 7: Planks and Leg Raises

    Everything but planks, leg raises and pullups are 3 sets with weights. The first set you do 10 reps at a weight that you can do easily to warm up. The next set you the heaviest weight you can handle for at least 5 reps. You do it as many times as you can and whenever you get it up to 10 reps you increase the weight. The third set you drop a 5 or 10 lbs total off the weight and do it again as many times as you can. All you need to do these are a weight bench and adjustable dumbbells which you can find on craigslist pretty cheap. I guess you also need a pullup bar, but if you don’t have one you could just do the rows and do the leg raises without hanging.

  2. Sounds intriguing. I’m going to see if I can convince some others to take up P90x3 with me first, but if that falls through I might make your exercise part of my rotation. Thanks!

  3. I love the general idea of gamifying fitness. Good on you for sticking with it! Sounds like you ended up going back to P90x. That’s cool although I’d probably miss the interactivity of something like XBox Fitness.

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