I have Wii elbow.

It's a relatively new phenomenon, and a welcome one for video gamers used to slowly rotting away, motionless, on the couch.

It wasn't long ago when the only time a gamer got exercise was when he got up to get more potato chips.

All that has changed.

I got a Wii, Nintendo's newest video game gizmo. But it is unlike any other game system out there.

It actually requires a gamer to move more than the abductor pollicis brevis and flexor pollicis brevis — that's fancy medical talk for thumb muscles.

And I have the sore elbow and shoulder to prove it.

When you play a bowling game, you actually go through the motions of bowling.

The controller is the ball. A motion sensor bar mounted on the top or on the bottom of your TV reads the movement of the controller as if you were propelling it down some oiled lane at your neighborhood bowling house.

Play baseball, and the controller is a bat.

You can cork it if you want, Sammy Sosa, but it probably wouldn't help.

Play tennis and the controller is a racket, so you can get your Roger Federer on, complete with the grunts and groans and 125 mph serves.

You can even try to set the world record for number of Nike swooshes worn on one article of clothing, just like the real dude.

Play football, and you can throw errant passes like Rex Grossman in no time.

Play golf, and you can hit a nasty slice just like you do in real life.

It's uber realistic.

If anything, my penchant for hitting a golf ball the opposite direction from where I intended it to go is more enhanced on the Wii — uncanny really.

Only this time a cyber Tiger Woods is there to laugh at me.

There's something about the video representation of the best player in the world scoffing at my 200-yard drive onto the wrong fairway that is oddly comforting.

Just about every sport lends itself to this technology.

I can almost see a curling game coming just in time for the Winter Olympics.

The bottom line is playing a video game is much more fun when you actually have to use some major muscle groups.

There's something satisfying about working up a sweat in your living room while trying to throw a 90 mph cyber fastball past a pixilated Ryan Howard — as in real life, it's really not that hard.

For years, video games have been blamed for childhood obesity, violence and the death of sandlot baseball and touch football.

That culture may be changing.

Parents might begin to yell at their kids to "go inside and play baseball!"

I know I will be swinging for the fences, well, at least the coffee table.

I have the sore elbow to prove it.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.