Instagram wants to let anyone travel to “anywhere in the world in a fraction of a second” and that’s good news for fitness. Instagram is primarily for getting out of the house and capturing the world with either video or photo. When the company announced that it was moving forward towards a VR world, it made sense to everyone who heard the announcement and knew what the company is and does. However, how does this affect fitness?
Pre-planning Made Easier
Ever wanted to see if a location was right for you in terms of weather? You’ve either pulled up a weather map of that area or went to that place’s weather website. While that may be useful, it’s nowhere near as useful as putting on a headset to experience what it is like there for yourself. Imagine a weather man reporting news while providing a 360 view of that area or just a 360 view set up by the local Park Maintenance individuals. Expand this into visitor locations, and cameras in the streets, and you have the ability to plan out where you go by going there already before you go. You don’t need to guess what the weather is going to be like based off data. You just pop on a headset and see the current weather there.
What if you don’t want to go outside? That’s no problem, just strap the headset on and get on the treadmill so that you can take that virtual tour of Egypt you found on your favorite fitness feed. That’s right, this would be able to take individuals anywhere they wanted to go to exercise without spending thousands on bigger systems that tout the same thing.
Virtual Training
Right now, we have to rely on video games to give us a sense of training and while that may be the ideal platform for most areas, it is not ideal for all areas. Instagram is readily available and loosely restricted, which means many exercise advocates will find that VR exercise is a great way to reach an untapped audience.
We are already seeing a slow rise in virtual exercise and training on YouTube, which does not have as big of an exercise-focused group as Instagram. Once this type of technology reaches Instagram, it will surely explode and lead to a whole different version of taking a photo of your food.
