Nike+Kinect Training on Xbox Will Whip You Into Shape

Working out at home has its perks: no loudly grunting weight-lifters, no worrying about doing downward dog in anyone’s personal space and when you’re done, the shower is only steps away.

For at-home fitness enthusiasts, Nike unveiled a new program on Tuesday called Nike+Kinect Training, that features a virtual trainer who customizes workouts for you. The program works on Xbox 360 with Kinect, and lets you bring your real life moves into a virtual environment, similar to Wii, except without having to use a controller. Just use your voice and hand movements to activate Kinect.

Nike says this training program uses motion sensing technology to see how you move and whip you into tip-top athlete shape. Nike announced it would be launching the program in June at Microsoft’s E3 press conference. It retails for $49.99.

Nike+Kinect Training creates customized workout programs, whether you’re new to fitness or already a gym goer just looking for a challenge. First, they recommend you take the Fitness Challenge at the beginning of the program, and every four weeks to get your custom Fuel Print â€" this tells you your general health and athletic abilities. It identifies strengths and weaknesses, so you know what to work on and what you’re doing right.

The Fuel Print will also show you your personal fitness score, which measures your mobility, strength and endurance as well as your athleticism score, which measures your power, speed, reaction agility and balance. For a boost of competitive-driven motivation, see how your stats compare to Nike trainers and the Nike+ community. You can also tap into the Xbox community and workout with friends in real time.

Keep track of your workouts using the mobile companion app for iOS and Windows devices.

Check out this video where Olympian Shawn Johnson shows you her Nike+Kinect routine:

Other at home workouts include a number of Wii games and programs (some with and some without a gamification element). If you don’t own a game console of any kind, you can still get fit at home if you have a laptop and a webcam. Mashable reviewed Wello earlier this month. It’s a real live personal training session via webcam (if you’re looking for customization, this is it!). But at $15 to nearly $60 per session, the Xbox program is more affordable if you already have an Xbox 360.

Thinking about buying an Xbox plus Kinect? The Xbox 360 4GB console plus Kinect is available for $299.99.

What do you think about this new workout program? Tell us in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, svariophoto