If you’re a fitness fanatic, an iron-tough gym boss, or want to shake up your fitness routine, a VR fitness session is something you’ve got to try! Go on a fitness adventure at a VR arcade or ask your gamer buddies if they have a rig to try. Then, step into VR and get ready to become one with the metaverse.
Here are 10 reasons why gym peeps must try a VR workout.
1. It’ll make you laugh at yourself.
When first stepping into Virtual Reality, it’s hard to believe that those floating hands are yours but they are. This is hilarious when you first see your new embodied self in VR and your hands, gloves, claws, or whatever they are. Knockout League, really any game in VR, will tickle your funny bone in one way or another. If you’re training in KOL’s Reflex Alley and get slapped in the face with a dumbbell or if you get launched out of your body in Creed: Rise to Glory your reaction and workout will be pure gold.
2. Time will move at light speed.
Time dilation is the feeling that time is moving by rapidly. You probably know this by the term flow and being in the zone during a workout. VR is great at hacking the senses of sight, touch, sound, and in some cases even smell and taste! In VR, you’ll get to play games like Beat Saber and Sprint Vector that hack sight, touch, and sound, which will blow you away with that sweet flow state and an hour-long workout that felt like 30 minutes.
3. The music is kick ass and will get you to go the distance.
You listen to your favorite rock or 80s hair band, rap beats, or other genres at the gym, during a jog, HIIT, or lifting sesh. VR is a music and fitness lover’s secret weapon to squeeze more power from workouts. Upbeat music is found in most VR games. Which is why our bodies will push us to go all in for longer periods. Researchers have even said music is “ a type of legal performance-enhancing drug”.
4. The gameplay will keep you guessing.
VR is an ecosystem that has probably thousands of games at this point. Every week we do a VR game roundup that puts the most active games together in one place to keep readers current on the latest and greatest games. Games like Audioshield, BOXVR, and Creed: Rise to Glory will keep your muscles moving, adapting, and changing. There’s never a dull moment in VR.
5. Give your arms a workout.
Tim Donahey, a NASM certified personal trainer shares what a great arm and shoulder workout session look like. He suggests games like Bitslap, Fruit Ninja, and other games that will take your arms to the gun show. Really, most VR games require you to move your arms. Check out our Fitness Reviews for more arm carving games.
6. Focus on your core and legs.
Getting a zeroed in core and leg workout is a bit trickier but it can be done in VR. Games like Hot Squat are targeted for lower body activation and thus core strength. Action packed games like BOXVR and Beat Saber have obstacles in them. To play, you’ll have to squat down, side lunge, and swagger through to come out the other side with noodle legs.
7. Get your grind on burning serious calories.
If you really want to know the fitness and calorie burn potential of VR games head on over to VR Institute of Health & Exercise. Their site uses high-tech kinesiology equipment to measure oxygen consumption and even assign a MET score for every game. The site also gives calorie burn ratings and assigns an equivalent exercise to games.
8. Exercise and feel less pain.
If you lift or workout regularly you might know the feeling of soreness well or if age has ravaged you its the feeling of joints grinding on each other. There’s good news, a new study has shown that VR not only reduces pain during exercise, it also elevates performance. So get your grind on and feel less strain and pain.
9. Become a character that can defy reality.
VR has a zany way of turning us into a different version of our self — a cartoon contender, boxers from the movies, medieval archers, warriors, soldiers, and maniacal cube slashers. This new source of exercise has us flying through the air, grappling onto ledges, and punching real players in the face. These are things we can’t do in reality. But we get a hell of a workout pretending to be them. Defying reality is what do for gains yo!
10. VR is always more fun with friends.
Single player games are fun for solo adventures in VR, but multiplayer gaming takes competition, fitness, and fun times up to 11. There are pro eSports athletes that play games like Echo Arena, Onward, Sprint Vector, and get an intense workout out of it.