VR fitness (especially in regards to pain)

Brave

I know I harp on about this quite a bit, but I find it very interesting. Especially the aspects that help me push past the barriers that would normally be blocking my way due to my health issues.

I really think this has a lot to offer folks at all stages of life and people with a wide range of health “states” or just even folk who are fit already.

For those unaware, I have chronic pain issues among a few other neurological “gifts” my body has bestowed on me in my 40s. I constantly am amazed at how much I can do when I’m taken out of my own body and surroundings and dropped into a totally different world that gamifies the constant movement over time that I need to perform to get healthier.

Although my morning routine generally involves hobbling about for an hour or so, riding out fairly extreme (at times) muscle and joint pain until the painkillers kick in; I’m finding myself able to ignore all that and work fairly intensively for far longer than my mind and body would otherwise allow.

I don’t feel the pain much at all until after I’m done. And then, boy does it rebound back on me, but the fact remains that while I’m in that VR bubble I’m not inhabiting that body at all. That’s what it feels like. The more effective the avatar, the better that seems to work too. And y’know looking down and seeing feet (and not a beer belly) is good for the soul 😄

Things are moving apace in this area at the moment too.

https://vrhealth.institute/ is doing some stellar work accurately equating the calorie burn and effort level of various VR games and fitness titles. This is making it easy to get an idea of how hard I’m working and making sense of heart rate graphs etc.

I was curious about their app so I got a cheap Mii Band 5 today to monitor my heart rate and that was able to connect to the app itself. I wanted to see if what my smart watch was telling me via Google fit was wrong, as I was getting pretty blown away by the number of calories it keeps telling me I’m burning.

Anyway. I wore a watch on each wrist, started a workout in each app and played Until You Fall for about an hour.

As you can see, they’re nearly the same. 30 calories difference. Which gives me some confidence that it’s reasonably accurate. If the app that the experts built is telling me the same thing, then I can trust my usual watch just fine and I’ll give the Mii Band to Rachel probably.

I’d really like to do something with this. Specifically for people in pain who normally can’t get a good workout done. There’s been a lot of research done, some pretty amazing, about gaming in general in the treatment of pain; but I really believe there’s something much more powerful about VR. Being transported and taken out of your damaged body and dropped into a different world. It can be pretty profound and I think it could help a lot of people.

Anyway. Ramble over. It’s something I highly recommend if you find normal exercise difficult or boring or both. It’ll get you moving, that’s for sure. Just ask my IKEA deathstar lamp. 😱

Jonbwfc

The main issue I have with VR fitness games is how sweaty the headset would get. I mean.. eww.

Jogort

Jonbwfc hah yeah sounds like a beat saber session…. Soggy

Brave

Jonbwfc it’s an issue but worth it tbh. Most people use headbands or the like and they genuinely are pretty effective. I’ve taken to using bandana style things and they do the job very well.

you get things called VR covers for pcvr headsets which I’ve heard great things about.

Jonbwfc

Some sort of wicking material balaclava seems to be in order.

Brave

I’ve just come across a potential contender for best oculus fitness game.

Les Mills Body Combat (edit: I should say I was initially put off by the whole Body Combat thing. Too many images in my head of instructors with mics whooping and hollering. But the reviews have rightly been positive and I can turn the whooping off I need to)

https://uploadvr.com/les-mills-bodycombat-is-an-effective-quest-workout-without-the-subscription/

I’ve had some trouble with fitness games over the pandemic as they, rather frustratingly, tend to be targeted at people who are already fit and just wanted to replace their gym.

Box VR was ok but suffered from this and then it changed its name and charged a subscription which seems to be the thing for fitness games right now.

This doesn’t charge a sub, has online features, which are quite fun and motivating and, praise the sun, caters for people who aren’t that fit anymore. You don’t lose your combo that easily and punching harder just improves the score of each punch, it still effectively counts as long as you hit the target. Which is the opposite of BoxVR, which could be demotivating in the extreme.

It has varying intensities of sessions at different lengths which means I can start at something more my speed and still feel like I’m doing ok. I certainly did ok in the little 8 person leaderboard that it showed me while I worked out. I suspect it wasn’t a live leaderboard, but it was still motivating.

It plays very like Box VR but feels much snappier. With some fun little extra moves in there. You can turn off the instructors and the online stuff if you find it annoying too. I’ve actually been impressed with the way the instructors are done. It definitely reacts to certain things that I did in my workouts but I’m not sure if certain bits were canned or programmed as well.

E.g. I was moving to the music as I waited for the first target to arrive and the instructor seemed to comment on that, which somewhat weirded me out and I’ll have to not dance next time to see if it was dynamic. 🙂 It definitely commented dynamically on how close I was to a perfect run though. It’s pretty well done.

I forgot to stop the workout and now it thinks I was working out for 90 minutes but you can see the elevated heart rate during the workout. It definitely did the job. I had to take a couple of five minute breaks in there to feel ready work out again. I’m pretty impressed.