The truth is that although nearly everyone knows they should workout and eat right, most people don’t do it. They do their best for a few weeks or a month, and then give up and are back to square one. The frustration continues.
The biggest and most amazing benefit of VR fitness is that by creating an immersive, emotional, social experience, you can make working out as addictive as your favorite sport or video game. We know this.
But what are the other big benefits of working out inside virtual reality? What can VR bring to fitness that’s been missing all these years? A lot more than you’d think!
1. Privacy
In VR, you can choose to be completely private. You can workout in your own home or at a commercial VR gym and nobody will be watching you. You can choose to workout by yourself inside VR or have an avatar represent you, and either way, you are free from embarrassment or constant leering from that creepy guy in the too-tight shorts.
2. Set your temperature
Want to practice your golf swing during a blizzard? Now you can. In virtual reality, the room temperate is always exactly where you want it. You can be on a virtual beach, on the top of a mountain in the Andes, or anywhere else you want and never have to worry about weather delays.
3. Workout with people around the world
Having trouble finding a workout partner? In VR, you can workout with people from all over the world, not just the ones in your home town. Social workout experiences will have random people constantly available, or you can meet your friend from Australia at the specified time. With virtual reality and an Internet connection, the whole world will be helping you push for “one more rep.”
4. Compare and compete
At the gym, it’s hard to tell how you are doing compared to others. Is your one-mile run time fast or slow compared to other people your age? Are your arms stronger than most or do you have some catching up to do? With virtual reality, you can easily compare to others and challenge them to some healthy, motivational competition.
5. Full tracking
Related to the above, inside virtual reality every single movement you do can be recorded perfectly. You can track your actual progression over time to see big or small changes in your strength, speed, agility, endurance, quickness, and more. You don’t have to record it manually in a workout log or app. It’s recorded for you by default with much more accuracy. You can see how consistent your workouts are and how long you spend on each activity, making it impossible to cheat yourself.
6. Exercise form tracking and guidance
In room-scale VR, you are being tracked in a full 3D space. This means that with the proper equipment and peripherals, every movement you make can be tracked and analyzed with much more detail than ever before. The smallest changes in your form can determine if you get injured and make sure you maximize each exercise for the best results.
7. Bring your favorite personal trainer to you
Any trainer, coach, nutritionist or fitness expert in the world can immediately be inside your home or your local VR gym to train and teach you in real-time or by watching a recording of them. Get their full workouts and fitness advice without the hassle.
8. No distractions
When you are inside virtual reality, you are completely focused on the experience. By definition, you can’t even see your phone or the TV in the background. You are inside a whole different world and all other distractions are blacked out from view. For once, you can focus on your workout experience and enjoy it completely.
9. Avoid the negative parts of the gym crowd
People at the gym can be great, but some gym-goers would be better off avoided. Inside VR, nobody is hogging the equipment, leaving sweat on the machines, stinking up the area, or interrupting you in the middle of your set.
10. Home workouts save you time
For virtual workouts that you do at home, you avoid the long commute back and forth, saving you time while still giving you the great results that you need. No gym bags to pack, no keys to lose, and no class schedule to accidentally arrive late to. It’s in your home, on your terms, with all of your stuff nearby.
Once VR Fitness hits the mainstream, these benefits and more will be enjoyed by the masses. Psychologists know that when you can avoid the negative parts of any new habit while accentuating the positive, the likelihood of sticking to it goes up dramatically.
Today, creating a fitness habit is hard or almost impossible for millions of people. VR Fitness will change that and it can’t come soon enough.
-Ryan DeLuca
Have you got any insider tips about the world of VR and fitness that you think we need to know? Make a comment below and our editors will get back to you ASAP!
