We all know that we should workout at least three times a week. Unfortunately, we don’t, no matter how hard researchers try to convince us. Studies show that less than 20% of Americans actually get the recommended amount of exercise. Half of all baby boomers don’t exercise at all. Ever.
The struggle is real. Exercising is boring, time consuming, painful and we can’t see any immediate results from today’s effort. Maybe you will look a little better next week? Maybe you reduced your chance of getting some disease in the distant future? You can’t really tell, but you just know that you should go jump on the treadmill sometime today, but not right now. You’ll do it later.
The government recommends at least 150 minutes per week of heart-rate increasing physical activity each week to get health results. Researchers have been looking to find ways to bring that number down without reducing the effectiveness and many believe they have found the answer.
High intensity interval training.
Instead of jogging at a moderate intensity (55% of your max heart rate) for 30 – 60 minutes at a time, exercisers can do a few quick bouts of high intensity exercise at 80 – 90% of their max heart rate. The findings consistently show that the results are the same for markers of health and fitness improvement.
In fact, a recent study had the participants do ONE MINUTE of high intensity exercise, three times a week (20 seconds of all out effort with a two minute rest, repeated three times) with a two minute warm up and a three minute cooldown for a total of ten minutes of exercise time. The other group slogged through 45 minutes of medium intensity jogging.
So ten minutes (with only one minute of real effort) vs. 45 minutes per workout, three times a week for 12 weeks.
Results?
Each group improved the exact same amount.
Way less time, but same results. Who wouldn’t want that? This removes a huge barrier to exercise adherence for people and improves public and personal health and fitness (with all the awesome life-changing benefits that fitness brings)!
MICT = Jogging / SIT = One minute of high intensity cardio / CTL = Control group
So what does this have to do with virtual reality? Unfortunately, studies have shown that even though the higher intensity exercise is way shorter in duration, people enjoy it less. They remember the pain of pushing so hard vs. jogging at a moderate pace and people may be less likely to adhere to a HIIT style program because of this.
The intro to a recent study about this sums it up:
“Exercise Intensity – Affect Relationship
Research examining the affective response during exercise in inactive and overweight adults has identified a negative relationship between exercise intensity and affect, such that as the intensity of the exercise performed increases above the ventilatory threshold, the affective response to the exercise becomes more negative.
Specifically, continuous bouts of vigorous-intensity exercise, such as cycling at ∼80% of VO2max for 30 minutes, provokes greater psychological distress, less enjoyment, and higher feelings of displeasure as compared to moderate-intensity cycling at ∼50% of VO2max.
According to dual-mode theory, affect experienced during exercise is influenced, in part, by the metabolic cost associated with the intensity at which the exercise is performed. This proposed relationship has provided impetus for modification of exercise guidelines, which recommend moderate-intensity activities, such as walking for 30 minutes 5 days per week, over vigorous-intensity activities (e.g., running for 20 minutes 3 days per week) for inactive individuals.
In conflict with this recommendation is the research revealing that the most commonly cited barrier to exercise is lack of time. Indeed, regardless of age, ethnicity, sex, or health status, people report that a lack of time is the primary reason for their failure to exercise on a regular basis. Clearly, there is a need for innovative exercise strategies that promote health benefits with minimal time commitment required, and that are not perceived as aversive.”
Let me repeat that last sentence:
Clearly, there is a need for innovative exercise strategies that promote health benefits with minimal time commitment required, and that are not perceived as aversive.
That’s the holy grail for exercise scientists and the fitness industry.
- Physicists search for their unified theory of the cosmos.
- Neuroscientists try to figure out how the heck consciousness comes from physical matter.
- Jaden Smith is working diligently to figure out if mirrors are real.
The fitness industry is searching for ways to get sedentary people to consistently participate in and enjoy exercise.
That’s where VR comes in.
Immersing yourself into another world where your body is the controller in an exciting, flow-inducing, fun experience that takes your mind away from the pain and effort and instead distracts you on the game and environment.
It turns out that when people are focused on something other than pain, they forget about it. Pain and effort perception goes down. In an extreme example, if you are laying in bed with a toothache, that’s all you will think about. Your tooth hurts. But then you think you hear an intruder breaking through your front door. The pain will disappear from your awareness immediately. After you pull out your ninja skills, crane kick him into submission, and deliver the perp to the police, you will get back into bed and start noticing your toothache again.
VR can create flow experiences in ways that other mediums can’t. We have a duty to use the new power of VR to get people to enjoy short bouts of high-intensity exercise so they can feel better, look better, and live longer.
I want to play VR games that includes cardio and resistance exercise for 30 minutes at a time, three times a week. Give me all the results and make it fun and enjoyable. Make me look forward to going back inside that world. Make it as addictive as Everquest or Farmville.
Once that happens, exercise becomes a habit that nobody will ever want to break.
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