High-tech sweat

Thirteen-year-old Travis Mauer is addicted to the new exercise equipment that's hooked up to video games at the North St. Paul Community Center -- the unlikely home to Minnesota's first "exergaming" facility.

With strobe lights flashing and music blaring, Mauer climbed on a stationary bike that powered a virtual all-terrain vehicle on the video screen in front of him. The faster he pedaled, the quicker the vehicle blazed trails through the desert.

"When you play these [games], you forget about being tired," said Mauer, his face flushed. "You don't get bored."

This modest community center, it seems, is on the cutting edge of a fitness trend sweeping suburbs and cities across the nation. Last month, North St. Paul opened its "XRKade," introducing what appears to be the first virtual fitness center to Minnesota.

Like many suburbs, the city wanted to create a teen hangout to offer them something positive to do -- as well as keep them from driving into the big cities or hanging out at the malls.

After a city official read about the new gaming trend, and the XRKade package of games in particular, the city decided to chuck the traditional teen center with puffy couches and pool tables.

"The idea of combining video and fitness was a natural," said city administrator Wally Wysopal. "About 98 percent of teens play video games, plus there's a growing concern over childhood obesity."

Several representatives from Gold's Gym, a national fitness-club chain with more than 600 centers worldwide, were checking out the equipment the night Mauer was playing. Some Minnesota fitness centers and video arcades have a couple pieces of the "exergaming" equipment, they said, but not 20 such games in a designated arcade setting.

"A lot of gyms are doing this nationwide, but not in this area," said Jamie Nelson, a Gold's partner who said his company was considering setting up an XRKade in Woodbury. "There's smaller versions of this in some video arcades, with DDR [Dance Dance Revolution] or snowboard type games."

'It just blew me away'

The game center sits just off the running track at the community center. It's not a huge setup, about 1,200 square feet, but that was one of the attractions, Wysopal said. Plus its $75,000 cost was far less than the cost of building another ice rink or pool, which many centers build to attract teens. The city hasn't tracked how many teens they've attracted.

The arcade has 20 games that require players to kick, box, pedal or dance their way to victory.

A few games down was Power Boxing. Players don the fat boxing gloves hanging below the video screen and then try to knock out tough-looking opponents with names like Raz Raven and Valentino.

Snowboarders gravitate to the virtual snowboard, hooked up to a video screen that allows them to maneuver across mountain slopes by shifting their weight on the board.

"When I saw it, it just blew me away," said Mauer's buddy Tyler Swanson, 14, of Oakdale. "I thought the place would just have a bunch of PS2s [PlayStation2s] or stuff I had at home."

'Burbs grapple with options

The teens who were pedaling and punching this night had no idea they were part of the city's grand plan to keep them occupied in a positive setting. It's the goal of suburbs across the metro area, which admit that finding popular activities for teens is tough. There's plenty of classes and activities that engage children up to age 12, recreation directors said. After that, it's a crap shoot.

Burnsville tried something totally different, opening The Garage, which features Friday and Saturday night rock concerts, pizza parties, speakers, dance classes and more.

Eden Prairie, meanwhile, is building a new space for teens at its community center and is soliciting teens' ideas for its content.

Making the place a magnet

"Will it have a coffee-shop feel to it?" said Jay Lotthammer, Eden Prairie's park and recreation director. "Will it have computers, video games, music? We want to make sure it's a place kids want to come to."

North St. Paul is a guinea pig for some of the newest "exergaming" products, said Mike Hansen, CEO of Itech Fitness, which manufacturers some games and distributes the XRKade Package. The XDream Bike, for example, is being piloted in North St. Paul and three other cities nationally, he said.

Minnesota will also be where XRKade launches some sponsorships this summer. Teens who excel at a particular game can register for contests and prizes, such as a real piece of the equipment they're playing in a virtual world.

"I wanted to make sure the Midwest was involved in this, because that's where I'm from," said Hansen, who grew up in Forest Lake.

Meanwhile, at North St. Paul's teen center, Mauer was competing with Swanson in the Kick 3 game, before heading to the virtual snowboard.

"I have video games at home, but this is different," Swanson said. "You have to move [your body] to play the game, not just sit in a trance using your fingers."